My 90 year old Mum sang her little heart out, on her doorstep in the middle of nowhere (with the bottle-fed lambs joining in!)
#SingForWales
@SingWales
#NHSThankYou
Listening to the Prime Minister and Steve Baker on
#wato
saying they *disagree* with 11 Justices of the Supreme Court is like listening to my kids telling me they disagree with going to bed at bedtime. Yeah whatevs...
Let's be completely clear. This is not a 'broken' food system. This is a system brilliantly designed to enable *some* businesses to 'financialise' food so that they make enormous profits from it. And society picks up the true costs.
A bit of a long thread here on the leaked food strategy.
So it reads like it shares many aspirations with its critics. More regenerative, carbon and nature positive farming, with support to farmers and food business to innovate to tackle big global issues;
🧵 I’m a miner’s daughter from the Rhondda. 40 years ago, I lived through the Miners Strike, collecting for food parcels at my university to take back to my community in the Valleys. Wales *cannot* afford - economically, socially or psychologically - another botched transition.
#EnglishPastoral
is Book of the Week on
@BBCRadio4
. Drop everything, grab a cuppa & listen to the most beautiful & compelling case for change in farming I've read for years - then dip into the technical & economic evidence in our latest reports
This is truly worrying. Widespread antimicrobial resistance is in the top three of global risks, just like a pandemic was. Common ailments/procedures will become life-threatening again. Yet another reason to phase out intensive livestock.
Asked by British Sugar, who has had 13 years notice to work with their farmers to plan for alternatives, who made £1.4billion profit this year, and who are currently in dispute with farmers over the beet contract price. This isn’t science, it’s greed.
For the 4th year in a row,
@DefraGovUK
has been asked to allow use of a banned pesticide.
1 tsp of this poison is enough to kill 1.25m bees. 🐝
Banned chemicals have no place in a
#WilderFuture
. ☠
Ask the Farming Minister to say
#NoToNeonics
👉
Much to discuss here but this binary thinking just polarises debate. A sensible land use plan supports farming in harmony with nature, wild spaces & habitat corridors; adapts to climate change; connects people & nature; backs a just rural transition.
There are two shocking aspects to this piece: 1. That this advice should be even contemplated in the middle of winter and a global pandemic and 2. The ultra processed food in that basket is exactly NOT what people need to keep healthy.
People say “the system is broken”. But they’re not looking hard enough for who’s benefiting right now - like the commodity traders, the fert and chem companies… As one farmer says “Just who IS being farmed here…?”👇🏼
Do not feed these industries. They are parasites slowly sucking the life out of and then killing our family farms, our soils, our environments and then keeping all the spoils for themselves.
#GoOrganic
let's start a shift and starve these parasites to death.
Happy to join colleagues in writing this letter to
@guardian
. We need more thoughtful, balanced discussion, taking a range of metrics and needs into account, for climate, nature, health & wellbeing, and thriving rural economies.
Hot off the press news from
@FFC_Commission
. We're delighted to have received a three-year core funding grant from
@EsmeeFairbairn
to continue our work. Huge thanks from all of us to this far-sighted, inspiring, and supportive funder. And there's more...
The greatest gains in public health come from tackling the social & commercial determinants of ill health - poverty, housing, clean air, safe communities, healthy food, decent work. a fair wage... That’s what *preventative* health care looks like.
#FutureofBritain
Our
@FFC_Commission
research tells us citizens want a fair food system. The only people banging on about ‘cheap food’ are economists/politicians/businesses who are curiously silent when asked about who pays the true cost of cheap food.
I’m used to being described in fairly colourful language - hyperbolic is new one! Along with Lawson, Hannan and Colville this is painful reading, out of touch with the modern world and still banging on about cheap. High time we started to talking about the true value of our food.
"If people replace fish, meat, eggs and cheese with plant-based ultra-processed foods, it might actually do us – and the planet – more harm than good."
As ever, Guy Singh-Watson cuts to the chase. If farmers can’t earn a fair living from producing good healthy food well, then we all need to worry
@Riverford
Food inflation ⬆️ 16% - Cargill profits ⬆️ 23%
Energy bills ⬆️ 54% - Shell profits double to £32bn
Water bills ⬆️ - water company profits ⬆️ £2.8bn
Diet related ill-health ⬆️
Fuel poverty ⬆️
On track for 2.5 degrees global warming from fossil fuels
River ecosystems dying
Delighted with this appointment. I know Sir Patrick is concerned about the ‘chemical cocktail’ in our environment. Look forward to exploring how sustainable farming practices can help reduce or eliminate synthetic chemicals in land, water, air and food.
Sir Patrick Vallance KCB has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Science) in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
@SciTechgovuk
.
A 🧵. There were many curious claims in the Prime Minister's speech – stopping taxes on flying and meat, ending compulsory car sharing & having to sort your rubbish into seven bins. Like taking credit for banning larks from takeaway menus, none of these things were happening.
HRH Prince of Wales making the clear connections between sustainable food and farming, our health & wellbeing, and the risks to diverse, rural economies, without urgent and thoughtful action to tackle the nature and climate crises
#r4today
“What you love the most is what you should do” says Robin Wall Kimmerer to
@herdyshepherd1
answering the question what can we do to help tackle the challenges in front of us. “Raise a garden, raise your children, raise a ruckus”
#HayFestival
It’s a sector worth £8trillion, globally. If too many people can’t afford to buy good, fresh, healthy food and farmer incomes are shrinking, where’s all the money…? 🤔
“The profiteering crisis isn’t just a few bad apples – it’s systemic across our broken economy. Entire industries are …taking advantage of a crisis, resulting in the spiralling prices of goods we all need.” And 47% of UK farmers earn less than £20k pa…
An unexpected bonus of our Ethical Shellfish Co fishy treats has been discovering
@PuffinPackaging
. Incredible sheep’s wool insulation that kept the shellfish perfectly cold. But it’s too good to compost! What else can we do with it?
🎉🥂 Twenty seven days late but at last she’s arrived! A filly, by Craikhow Hall Jensen out of ForgeWood Marigold.
@RBST
@SuffolkHorseS
@RareBreedChris
60 mins old…
The UN's rapporteur says that
#poverty
in the UK is “not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster.” Just let yourself take that in, and then ask yourself how we got to this shameful place.
Liz Truss is right. “Vested interests dressed up as think tanks” is a serious issue that undermines public discourse. I’m sure she’d agree, then, that the media should stop inviting or amplifying those who aren’t transparent about their funding sources. This might help.
The literal opposite of what we should be aiming for in future trade deals - supporting all trading partners esp developing countries to raise & strengthen standards for healthy, fair & sustainable food and farming systems
NEW REPORT reveals US pushing to weaken UK
#pesticide
standards. If UK Government gives way there will be larger amounts of more toxic chemicals in our food & environmentally-damaging pesticides could be reauthorised. Take action against
#toxictrade
at
Responsible food businesses and citizens want the same thing. For governments to use their powers to legislate and regulate sensibly, to limit harms and to level the playing field for fairer, healthier, more sustainable food and farming. Can our politicians catch up in time?
Apparently, because “the sector operates in a “complex, ever-evolving commercial and political landscape” it should be left to sort itself out. What an abdication of leadership by govt to help shape a vital sector.
@PenmanMirror
@docrussjackson
This week, I was offered Carmarthen (78 miles away) and colleagues were offered Aberdeen (from Sheffield) EbbwVale (from London) Cardiff (from Bournemouth). It’s utterly dysfunctional.
A thread 🧵 before I go away on hols. In a rather unwanted moment of deja vu, the last few weeks have reminded me of the early days of FFCC, when polarising, populist and simplistic narratives were everywhere.
Adam Smith knew: big corporations need strong boundaries to stop them externalising their true costs. If govt decides not to set boundaries, it ends up paying in other ways - for health care for diet related illness, cleaning up the environment, benefits for low paid workers...
I’m grumpy about a lot of things atm tbf. But right now, sitting out front in the sun, with a glass of gewurztraminer, with my dogs and duck, watching my Herefords amble round the paddock, playing with the pigs and goats… I’m counting my blessings.
The point is this: when under-regulated markets are allowed to provide foundational elements of our economy - food, housing, water, energy - we cannot trust them to prioritise social and ecological purposes over their own profits. To misquote Clinton: it’s the ideology, stupid.
There's lots to like in this story - but this “We’ve been driving around in Range Rovers and going on skiing holidays..." boils my fruit! Not round here we don't! Many uplands, small & medium farms are facing serious crises, not solved by plans like these
Global agriculture is extensively subsidized. Who are the real beneficiaries? Primary producers & growers? Processors? Retailers? Consumers? Investors? It is opaque, complex & damaging. It needs root & branch change, not simplistic ‘othering’.
Good luck today
@Riverford
. Your
#Getfairaboutfarming
simple ask - that supermarkets should honour their contracts with farmers - has cut through brilliantly to force a Commons debate. And
#TheFoodConversation
tells us that citizens support a fair deal for farmers to farm well.
A just transition for farmers could be funded by “a windfall tax on agri-food companies to support them”. Excellent idea from European Greens. The commodity traders continue to pull in eye watering profits while farmers live with all the risk. via
@ft
More evidence demonstrating that investing in diverse small and medium sized enterprises pays real dividends in a just transition to more sustainable farming
Could one answer possibly be that governments allow directors to externalise the actual costs of their businesses, so as to maximise returns to shareholders, instead of acting first and foremost in the public (and the planet's) interests?
'I just can't comprehend the fact that we are discharging raw sewage into our waterways'
Comedian and angler Paul Whitehouse spoke to
#BBCBreakfast
after investigating the state of our rivers and seas
‼️We’re hiring! Come join us at the Food Farming & Countryside Commission in our mission to turn radical ideas into practical actions for fairer more sustainable food and farming, & flourishing rural economies. There are two posts… 1/3
@herdyshepherd1
Our latest research on affordability, and the place of food in poorer communities (with
@LocalTrust
and
#BigLocal
) absolutely bears this out. They are outraged that they are used for what is essentially the justification and marketing of a cheap food business model.
Guy is right. “The answer to all this is to pay farmers fairly, and give them clarity and pride in the role they must play in a well-planned, well-regulated green transition.”
Guy's news: Trouble in the Shires
Farming isn’t paying. In many areas, it hasn’t paid for years. Farmers have tightened their belts, drained their savings, borrowed, and sent their partners off the farm to work.
➡️
Nailing it 👇🏼 “What we choose to eat isn’t just a personal choice. The things we pick from the shelves... (and how much we pay for them) add up to a world-shaping message that ...determines what farmers choose to grow and how they must do it”
James Rebanks
@herdyshepherd1
is an intelligent and passionate advocate for a more sustainable future for British farming and the working countryside. I’m honoured to have made a small contribution to his
@BBCr4today
guest edit.
I meet SO many brilliant women farmers or partners in their family farms: but great to see it acknowledged
#shewhodaresfarms
> ‘We’re stewards of our land’: the rise of female farmers
I 💚 Andy Cato “…we need to do everything we can to redesign our food system around diversity, nature’s foundational principle of health and resilience… We know everything we need to know”
Much chicken production is now concentrated in a small area, around the Wye Valley. Super efficient for the producers and, they argue, cheaper chicken for the customer. But it is awful for local communities, it's bad for animal welfare and it is destroying the environment.
It’s a great read, combining Henry & Jemima’s gift for storytelling with the thorough research that backed up his National Food Strategy. Now he’s out of Defra, gloves off, will this provoke governments to act on our unfair, unhealthy, unsustainable food system?
#Ravenous
If the government wants to help people to eat better, its main priority should be ending what is often called food poverty – more accurately described as poverty, full stop. | Julian Baggini
Important piece 👇🏼. Grateful to
@JoeWStanley
for speaking for us farmers who want a just transition to a more sustainable future for food and farming. My thoughts here
James Rebanks
@herdyshepherd1
draws much needed attention to the huge issues shaping the future of food, farming & countryside, post-Brexit, and also responding & adapting to the climate, nature & health crises. Governments must join the dots. This what they can do.
#r4today
👇🏼
"It's a once in a generation opportunity"
Our guest editor, the farmer and writer James Rebanks, says that post Brexit we need to make sure we get our food from "a robust, resilient, sustainable system that looks after our landscapes properly"
#R4Today
@JohnJCrace
It’s the Bullingdon defence, isn’t it? “I’ll pay up because I can, but I’m not responsible or accountable, nor will I change my behaviour.”
At
@CPRE
#Hedgerow
reception, hearing from
@SueHayman1
that boosting hedgerows by 40% would create 25000 new jobs over 30 years. That’s as well as sequestering carbon, restoring nature and biodiversity, providing shelter and much more…
#NationalNatureService
“We will always be guided by the science” says
@DefraGovUK
Sec Theresa Villiers on GM and pesticides. Yes. And let us not forget that science also gave us DDT, lead in petrol and thalidomide. We must also be guided by the precautionary principle.
#OFC20
#ORFC20
This is extremely disappointing. As a
@NFUCymru
member, I’ll make my views known. Are you really advising farmers to stay out of a national environment scheme, for Wales’s long term prosperity and resilience, and instead take your lead from extractive & volatile global markets?
Shocking report from
@Food_Foundation
. Food targeted at children is making them sick. When we show this to citizens in
#TheFoodConversation
they are astonished and angry. They want governments to protect children from businesses who make and market junk food for (huge) profit 1/3
📢 Our latest report highlights the disconcerting deterioration in children's health.
📏 Height of 5 year-olds falling since 2013
🩺 Obesity among 10-11 year-olds up 30%
💉 Type 2 diabetes among under 25s up 22%
Read more: ➡️
@jamieoliver
At
@theRSAorg
AGM last night, some asked, what DO
@XRFarmers
want? So we popped across to ask them. Turns out they want the same as us. 1 Take the climate and nature crisis seriously 2 Involve farmers AND citizens 3. Make a plan for a fair and fast transition
@FFC_Commission
1/2
This 👇🏼. Agroecology and regenerative farming integrate nature into the farmed landscape, restore biodiversity, reduce emissions and sequester carbon, reduce or eliminate synthetic chemicals and pollution, provide healthy, seasonal, whole foods AND viable farm livelihoods
Loads of farmers are ‘encouraging and supporting wildlife on-farm through replanting hedgerows as well as giving over unproductive land to nature’. None call it rewilding. It’s not rewilding. It’s part of farming
@NFFNUK
This this and thrice this 👉🏼 “[Defra has]…framed plastic waste as litter created by the public. The real problem is the production of plastic by an immensely powerful global petrochemical industry that produces the materials to make the world’s plastics.”
Helpful context. For example, I produce food off almost entirely ‘habitat’ land - organic, native breed beef and lamb which thrives on ‘unimproved’ species rich grassland.
🧵Farms aren't required to plant 10% of their land. Only to bring their existing tree & woodland cover up to 10%. On average, farms in Wales already have 6-7% tree cover.
Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS)🏴
Press Release
@CoedCadw
@WoodlandTrust
1/
“We need a huge dose of education, education, education to reverse years of brainwashing by big food” Tim Spector. Possibly this education also needs to be in power, politics and critical thinking...
First panel - this fabulous group asking “is it time to certify regenerative agriculture?” How would it work and - importantly - who would benefit?
#Groundswell23
Today, we publish the first of our extraordinary and inspiring insights from the start of our national
#foodconversation
with citizens, starting with Birmingham and Cambridgeshire.
I'm hearing increasing examples of farms destroying old permanent pasture to sow herbal leys to benefit from the money on offer from
@Ruralpay
under
#SFI
Which of the
@DefraGovUK
public goods does releasing that
#SoilCarbon
and killing that
#biodiversity
tick? 🫣
I still have six bags of organic wool in my barn, as it will cost me more to take them to the depot than I’ll get for them (not to mention the cost of shearing). High time we understood the real value of wool.
👇🏼And the worst declines are in crop land… Another reason why we need modern mixed farming - agroecology - to restore biodiversity across all the farmed landscape
And it's why we have to stop saying subsidy, and instead talk about *investing* in fair, sustainable food and farming - as we do in any other critical sector, like energy, housing, infrastructure, health, education, defence... The language we use matters
#FarmingSmarter
So this is what I think about the policy announcement
There is quite a lot of hope in it (and the people working on it behind the scenes are good) - but it is shrouded in vagueness
@nationaltrust
@Tim_C66
@spectator
We are currently on hols in Pembrokeshire - making great use of our membership here. Though the Bosherston lily ponds looked a bit woke to me and the Stackpole Gardens had an arguably unnecessary diversity of flowers on show.
On
#Radio4Today
,
@wesstreeting
is rightly angry at the state of children's dental, mental and physical health. How about tackling the root cause - the businesses that make, market and profit from sugary drinks, junk food, and vapes? It is what citizens want.
#TheFoodConversation
On
@r4Today
@HenryDimbleby
summing up key messages in
#NationalFoodStrategy
. To break the junk food cycle, and remove health inequalities govt needs to level the playing field so healthy food is easily available for everyone everywhere. 2022 must be the year when government acts
Thank you
@herdyshepherd1
for drawing attention to the slippery arguments being deployed to deflect discussions on the need for change, and how to change, in a fair and sustainable way. There is no food security without equal attention to environmental and economic resilience👇🏼
I care greatly about ‘food security’ but it’s being used in really crap and childish arguments that nothing can change on farms
With great design and imagination we can get much more from our landscapes - so simply don’t believe people that say any change is bad news
Good to hear
#r4today
from
@herdyshepherd1
in Cumbria this morning.
@EdenSwimmer
&
@LinesMartin
very clear that food & farmers in England needs a clearer more sustainable vision to plan for. But what’s the impact of
@LiamFox
vision of freer trade & cheaper food? Thread
@economeager
Good analogy. Of course you can represent landscapes in different ways and at different scales - the natural, the social, the political - all useful and important. But if a map veers far from material reality it’s pretty useless, even dangerous.
So,
@nadhimzahawi
tells us
@Shell
have to keep their excess profits to be able to invest in *checks hearing* increasing production of North Sea oil? I have a better idea. Tax windfall profits, reduce bills, direct funding to insulation & renewables.
#NetZero
#COP27
#r4today
I hope and expect there is a long queue of feminist academics limbering up to compare and contrast the different kinds of leadership we’re seeing around the world right now...
'We're just having a bit of an earthquake here.'
Watch the moment a magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit during a live interview with New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Read more here: