F&M - UPDATE 20

Dr. Richard North PhD. [UKIP]
Research Director EDD [European Parliament]
2001 July 29

Livestock depopulation

There have been many rumours, not least following a recent report in Farmers Guardian, of the existence of an EU livestock depopulation fund, that there is a sinister EU plot to wipe out the UK livestock industry. While it is easy to believe that any manner of evils emanate from the European Union, it has to be said that there is no evidence of such a fund existing.  Should there have been, there would have had to have been Council approval, promulgated by way of a Decision.  No such Decision has been published and it is unlikely that it could have been made. 

This type of 'support' to member states is highly contentious - both the Netherlands and France have applied to the EU for similar funds and have been refused. Had the UK been granted additional funding, I am sure that both these countries would have kicked up an enormous stink, which could hardly have passed unnoticed. 

Furthermore, it should be remembered that, at the last but one Agriculture Council meeting, measures were put in place to reduce the beef surplus, not least of which was decreasing the permissible stocking rate for the beef extensification premium.  However, the Council exempted the UK from the provisions, because of its FMD crisis. 

What makes the rumour that much more implausible, however, is that there is no need for the EU to promote a reduction in UK livestock when Her Majesty's Government seems to be quite keen on doing the job without any external funding. 

In this context, it should be remembered that, just over two years ago, a mass cull of sheep was on the cards because of the collapse in ewe prices.   In September 1999, the Meat and Livestock Commission presented MAFF with a £6 million ewe slaughter plan which the then minister, Nick Brown, considered had 'some merit'.  Private storage aid was also being proposed. 

As it was, the slaughter plan did not go ahead because permission was not given by the EU.  But the problem did not go away and the UK was left with a structural sheep surplus and no means of remedying the situation.  Thus, foot-and-mouth disease actually presented HMG with an opportunity of reducing the sheep population, paying compensation to slaughter animals which in more normal times would have been declared illegal by the EU.  One wonders whether this is one more reason why the government was so reluctant to vaccinate. 

Furthermore, one can also see in this a reason why the NFU should also have been against vaccination, and so very much in favour of slaughter.  As late as 11 February 2000, Bell Gill - alongside economist Sean Rickard - in a presentation on financial support for farmers (published on the FWI website) - argued that 'Ultimately, supply must be reduced which means less farmers, and the sooner the necessary adjustment is made the more security there will be for those better managed, lower cost enterprises'.   Clearly, Gill would be quite happy to see a number of small farmers driven out of business, to leave the pickings to his 'low cost' - i.e., bigger - enterprises.  FMD has provided the opportunity. 

But there is quite possibly another, as yet undeclared agenda.  Although many people have remarked on the uneasy fit between agriculture and environment, with their shotgun marriage in DEFRA, a certain commonality of purpose emerged earlier this month. 

On the 22 July, Mrs Margaret Beckett, the nearest thing we have to an agriculture minister, was in Bonn.  But she was not on agricultural business.  Instead, she had been at the all-night climate change talks where, amongst other things, amendments to the Kyoto protocol were agreed, not least of which were the use of 'carbon-sinks' as a means of offsetting carbon dioxide emissions in order to reduce 'global warming'.  One mechanism for providing carbon sinks is, of course, massive forestation.   

It would thus suit Mrs Beckett fine if the hills were stripped of livestock and trees were planted in their stead, helping the government to meet its Kyoto obligations.  This would explain DEFRA's enthusiasm for slaughtering the hefted sheep on the Brecons and the mass slaughter of Cumbrian and Scottish sheep.  It also augers ill for the flocks on the North Yorks Moors. 

Another 'straw in the wind' is the recent Royal Society for the Protection of Birds report entitled Futurescapes: Large Scale Habitat Restoration for Wildlife and People - featured in the current edition of the Observer.  This calls for 400,000 acres of farmland to be 'returned to nature', and the creation of 250,000 acres of new woodland.  Interestingly, nothing of this was mentioned earlier this month at the RSPB conference on agriculture and it seems just too much of a coincidence that the report should appear so soon after the climate-change summit. 

How convenient it is that the RSPB should ague that, 'rather than paying farmers to restock uplands, such as the Lake District, with sheep that nobody wants to buy, large parts of it should be returned to its natural habitat of woodland, heather and gorse for tourists and visitors to enjoy'. 

One wonders if public opinion is being softened up.  With the right 'spin' from NuLab about reducing global warming and saving the environment, and the overt support of key conservation groups - plus the drip of anti-farmer propaganda, such as the current publicity on farmers spreading FMD- and there is a distinct possibility that the elimination of hill farming could become acceptable to the general public.  Instead of farmers being linked with the 'environment' they would be linked with global warming and habitat destruction and their elimination would be seen as a 'good thing'.   

Perversely, this would explain the sudden rush of interest in vaccination to create a firebreak around Thirsk, thus protecting the pigs of Humberside and Lincolnshire - these areas would not be on the list for forestation. 

Putting two and two together - and possibly making five - there begins to emerge an interesting - if not sinister - possibility that foot-and-mouth disease is being used as a cover to depopulate the hills.  But this is not an EU conspiracy - albeit that the Community would be happy to see it happen.   

The plot - if it exists - is entirely home-grown. 

ends.

COMMENT:

It is unusual for us to comment on Dr. Richard North’s ‘Updates’, however we feel it would be wrong not to do so in this instance.

We DO NOT agree with his, what we consider to be over simplistic ‘Update’, in this instance.

We are of the opinion that if something quacks like a duck, can fly or swim on water and lays eggs it is more likely to be a duck than a giraffe!

The destruction of the British Livestock Industry fits too neatly into the EU’s expansionist desire to enslave the Independent Nations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary & Rumania as a cover for its total failure as an organization, to be overlooked.

The FACT that the present British Government is so strenuously working to surrender Britain to the evils of EUropean Union, with endless propaganda and the constant undermining of Britain and values held to be important by the majority of the British peoples must also be considered.

When the actuality of a situation fits perfectly to that which was earlier predicted and has NO grounding in science, economics, precedent, experience or common sense in the control of F&M, then it is entirely reasonable to measure it against the perceived desire to destroy the industry – which it is so clearly achieving.

We must therefore deduce this is a duck NOT a giraffe.

Greg Lance - Watkins

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