Musings from the Merse
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
This Little Pig Didn't
A bloggee has drawn this splendid letter to Huttonian's attention. Although it has been the rounds for a few months it is worth another airing especially to a rural audience
Rt Hon David Miliband MP Secretary of State,
Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House
17 Smith Square,
London
SW1P 3JR
16 May 2007
Dear Secretary of State,
My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to join the "not rearing pigs" business.
In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.
I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?
As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven't reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?
My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is - until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.
If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100?
I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year.
As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?
Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops.
Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don't rear?
I am also considering the "not milking cows" business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?
In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits.
I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.
Yours faithfully,
(Name withheld to avoid lionisation)
If only local landowners could take a leaf out of this book and perhaps the Laird could make another fortune from not building on Knowes Close.
That would be worth him not getting his Peerage.
(The image is of a pig which presumably escaped the non-rearing subsidy)
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Labels: Laird, landowners, Pigs
Friday, October 26, 2007
Crooked or stoopid
From the latest Berwickshire News comes this offering from a resident of Reston who,exceptionally, makes no reference to the proposed station.
SIR, - I can only suppose that the planning committee of the Scottish Borders Council is either deeply corrupt or else incapable of distinguishing its nether orifice from the joint between its upper and fore arm.
Why else are its members so keen to cover good farmland with gimcrack but expensive housing estates?
The hideously rapid suburbanisation of the eastern Borders is not providing rentable or affordable housing for young families in villages with access to a local shop, post office and school.
Since employment in the region is noticeable by its absence, the mushroom growth of tacky dwellings must be predicated on the owners commuting to Edinburgh to work - by car - while the household’s second car drives the school run, and the weekly trip to newly established supermarkets (where parking is easier) rather than patronise local shops which, however excellent, will in due course be forced to close.
So who benefits from this? One can only assume that some of the planning committee are discretely bribed by the big property companies to facilitate large-scale developments (which carry the bonus that Scottish Borders Council doesn’t have to fund the installation of the roads and services), while their more clueless fellows are persuaded as there is a shortage of housing these greedy schemes will bring universal prosperity.
Now I thought we urgently need to reduce carbon emissions by sourcing food locally and cutting back on car use - the latter not easy in these parts where scattered small settlements make public transport unprofitable.
People forget that though agriculture collapsed in the 1930s, when war came and importation of food stopped, we were adequately fed because the land could be brought back into use.
Once it has been built over that option vanishes.
Meanwhile increasing demand will cause problems with the water supply, and increased run-off (as there is less ground to absorb surface water) will place an even greater burden on the drainage and sewerage systems - Eyemouth’s woes spring to mind. It is small comfort that no doubt many of the new houses will remain empty, being over-priced, so that the property developers won’t make their expected killing.
But then what? Squatters move in? (Signed sealed and delivered)
Huttonian is not going to accuse our hard pressed planning staff of corruption. Incompetence? Known it happen. My target remains (a few) greedy land owners more interested in concrete than cereals and their willing accomplices the developers. Without the former you would get less of the latter. But if you are asking is there is an element of something approaching corruption within the ranks of our locally elected tribunes of the people, aka SB Councillors and, one means those with less than tenous links to the farming community?
Well, that's another question
A bloggee has asked for an image of a typical prime site for development in the Borders? We modestly offer the above: it has everything going for it; good road links, excellent drainage, easy reach of bustling Hutton and booming Paxton; commutable to Embra and Geordieland. And above all it is very very good agrcultural land. But surely the Building in the Countryside Legislation?......?
Yeah, right.
Labels: farmers, landowners, Merse, Planning
