Beyond Foot and MAFF Disease

[The Land Is Ours]

"Beyond Foot and MAFF Disease",
by Simon Fairlie of The Land Is Ours

As the foot and mouth saga has progressed the public have gradually become 
aware that it is not FMD which is fatal to livestock but the Ministry of 
Agriculture. MAFF is annihilating healthy British animals because they are 
in danger of contracting a non-fatal disease which causes nasty gumboils 
and footsores, which is successfully treated with salt and Stockholm tar, 
and which many sensible societies have learnt to accept and accommodate (at 
the expense of their export trade to the "clean" countries). Culling every 
animal within sight of the disease is the best way not to build up natural 
resistance in the national herd. The epidemic is not simply "a disaster 
waiting to happen"; it is a disaster elicited by MAFF's arrogant disregard 
for the way diseases, immune systems and the whole of Nature works.

What does this bureaucratically engineered apocalypse mean in terms of 
future land ownership patterns? One thing is certain: MAFF has so disgraced 
itself that the calls to have it abolished, which were loud enough last 
year, will be repeated with greater and probably overwhelming force after 
the election.

What will replace MAFF? Probably a rural ministry headed by a diligent, 
well-meaning but not very far-sighted minister like Michael Meacher, 
possibly backed up by Eliot Morley who sits somewhat uncomfortably in MAFF. 
The brief of this ministry will be to manage England's rural land for the 
benefit of the environment and the rural economy, rather than just farmers.

And what will this ministry decide? It will be subject to all the usual 
influence from pressure groups. Which pressure groups in particular? The 
ones that own the countryside, namely the Country Land and Business 
Association (until recently the Country Landowners Association), the 
National Farmers Union, the horse lobby, the National Trust, the Council 
for the Protection of Rural England etc.

And what will these pressure groups be saying? That agriculture is up the 
creek; that we have to import most of our food, fibre and timber because 
the World Trade Organization says it is uneconomic to do otherwise; and 
that for "agriculture" to survive it has to diversify. Into what? Well, 
anything that makes money, which at this point in time means tourism, 
conference centres, telecottages and industrial use of farm buildings.

A vision of this future was provided by the recent amendment to Planning 
Policy Guidance 7 on the Countryside, which deleted specifications tying 
farm diversification to land-based use, and which now allows farms to move 
into any industrial activity they like, as long as it is "consistent in 
scale with a rural location" ? on the scale of a 500 sow pig unit for example?

This means that people looking to buy land and buildings for a box scheme, 
or an organic holding, or a free range egg unit will to have to compete 
with IT firms or industrialists looking for a nice leafy site for expansion.

When we asked the DETR how this amendment was introduced so suddenly, they 
said that it was the outcome of a seminar held on 26 May attended by the 
CLA, the NFU, the British Horse Industry Confederation, the Thoroughbred 
Breeders Association, the National Trust, the CPRE and the Royal Institute 
of Chartered Surveyors. The Land is Ours weren't consulted, nor were the 
Soil Association, the Small and Family Farms Alliance, the Womens 
Institute, RSPB or Friends of the Earth.

This we suspect is likely to be the dominant pattern of land allocation 
over the next few years. Agriculture is buggered, so let landowners 
diversify into whatever frivolity is profitable; meanwhile we'll buy all 
our food,
clothing and timber from the international market, where we don't have to 
think about the environmental consequences.

The Land Is Ours, in common with a number of other organizations, supports 
something different. Access to land for people who want to produce food and 
clothing sustainably; and who, when their animals get some poxy disease,
nurse them through it, and build up resistance, regardless of the economic 
consequences, like they would their own children.

(The author of the above keeps cows and pigs.)


Ref:  http://www.oneworld.org/tlio





The Land Is Ours
... A Landrights Movement for All

The Land Is Ours campaigns peacefully for access to the land, its resources 
and the decision making processes affecting them, for everyone - 
irrespecitive of race, age, or gender.

Postal address :
16B Cherwell St, OXFORD, OX4 1BG, England.
or contact us at:  office at tlio.demon.co.uk
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website :  http://www.oneworld.org/tlio/

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