Red Tractor farms are 10 times less likely to cause pollution

Our Farm Assurance Red Tractor Scheme came under attack last week from River Watch, an NGO who had issues a Freedom of Information request from the Environment Agency. Having obtained the information that Red Tractor had made an earned recognition application to the EA and the data held by the agency, they misinterpreted that data and The Times newspaper led on it.

Charles Watson of the River Watch group came on to Farming Today on Radio 4 and made the case which was that Red Tractor farms were more polluting than farms which were not Red Tractor assured.

He said that Red Tractor farms were 62 per cent more polluting than other farms not part of the Assurance Scheme, going on to say that 50 per cent of Red Tractor dairy farms had inadequate slurry storage and that Red Tractor was a British food industry organisation backed by British food industry; marking its own homework.

Farming Today had invited Jim Moseley CEO of Red Tractor onto the programme who set about dismantling Charles Watson’s case in a comprehensive manner.

The headline in The Times was not true and the reverse is true.

According to the EA figures properly interpreted eight per cent of Red Tractor farms had a pollution incidence, whilst 77 per cent of non Red Tractor farms had pollution incidence; Red Tractor therefore being 10 times better.

Furthermore, whilst the EA inspects 0.5 per cent of farms, Red Tractor inspects every one of its 46,000 farms which skew the results.

Jim said that of course more must be done and that there are dairy farms with lack of slurry storage, that in itself does not mean that they pollute, but the risk of doing so is of course higher.

To his credit Jim Moseley did not mention the vast pollution caused by water and sewage companies, he appealed to River Watch and others to work with Red Tractor in order to improve things.

We all know that some farms have problems due to an accident, or heavy rain following slurry spreading; unknown old Napoleonic deep drains on land running to water courses and so on.

Change in weather patterns has made things more tricky and indeed the government’s own regulation on when you can spread as seasons change.

Pig farms and dairy farms are the biggest risk due to the slurry produced and virtually all of them are Red Tractor assured, inspected regularly and therefore the fact that Red Tractor farms are 10 times less likely to pollute than non-assured farms is something to be proud of.

I read somewhere that as a nation we are depressed; in fact more depressed than ever before.

Why is that? Given the blitz and two World Wars in rapid succession, why would life in 2023 be any worse than that?

People talk of the blitz spirit to this day and we see something very similar in the Ukraine where life is extremely hard for most; impossible for some.

Yet here we are in the UK with an economy that is sluggish, an inflation spike which is on the way down, but life and outlook for many has changed profoundly in the last two years.

The pandemic locked us in our homes and a healthy debate is still on-going as to whether that was the right decision and if it was, did the government prolong things, tanking our economy and affecting young people in particular by doing so.

Farmers and country folk were not nearly as badly affected as those in towns and cities.

We have our problems in the countryside just the same as town dwellers, but we do look at life differently and our surroundings, whatever the pressures are of course very different.

I am not going to try and guess or explore why this nation feels so depressed following the pandemic and life in the twenty first century, there are plenty of others who do that, but I would like to pick up on one major issue which is affecting many and most importantly our young people; the climate.

I do feel that the climate issue has become allconsuming for many and whilst of course important, out of all proportion and in some cases ridiculous.

This is usually due to commentators; celebrities (worshipped by many), politicians (of all parties and international), pressure groups (often with agendas), protesters and activists who make such ridiculous statements and claims that if you believed a fraction of what they say, you too might become very depressed.

They bear no responsibility whatsoever and do little other than make a great deal of noise, but it is effective, as facts and reality have little chance of being heard amongst the awful din!

The young are terrorised by this rhetoric and it will be to our detriment as a country if we carry on like this where some young women are too frightened to bring children into this apocalyptic world!

They are the victims in all this and according to a poll of 16-24 year olds in 2021, 56 per cent of them think that humanity is doomed due to climate change.

They are constantly and deliberately fed snippets such as ‘the climate clock is ticking’, ‘humanity is on thin ice and that thin ice is melting fast’, and this is from scientists, politicians who are always quick to pick up on populism and ‘right on’ comments; people who should know better.

Whilst most people recognise that as human beings we have had quite an effect on the planet by being here (eight billion of us and growing), that does not mean that the end is nigh!

The climate is changing, but much of weather events are just that, but everything is linked to climate change these days which is simply not accurate.

Whilst the incidence of hurricanes and tornados have not increased according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the devastation caused by them has and that is due to many more human beings living in ever more developed coastlines.

There are very serious and difficult questions which are often avoided when it comes to how fast we move nationally; how much are we willing to see our lives changed?

How many restrictions will we accept on our daily life? How much are we willing to pay?

Globally, what about the poorest countries who have contributed the least to climate change?

Do we deny them an easier life; a life which is more akin to ours? That seems unfair to me.

Why not look on the brighter side? Temperature related deaths are falling globally as most are due to cold weather and there is slightly less of that.

Why not have more faith in technology, science and engineering solutions?

With all we have achieved in the last 500 years (which admittedly has contributed to the problem) and the great strides in so many areas of late, are we not capable of tackling this issue?

Frightening people does not help and whether it’s Greenpeace or politicians; we need responsible comment and some potential solutions.

There are some areas of the world in more danger than others, but overall the threat will be managed by changing the way we live at a pace that does not destroy economies and with human ingenuity.