Monbiot on N.F.U.

[james armstrong]

In to-days Guardian,




>From Guardian ,13  March 2012,

         George
Monbiot

 

Soon after this Government took office it set up a Farming
Regulation Task Force. It was chaired by the ex- Director General of the
National Farmers Union.   His deputy was
an NFU official. Other members consisted of two farmers, three corporate
executives , a county council official and 
someone from the Game and Wildlife 
Conservation Trust, which claims to defend wildlife but  gives advice on setting traps.  There was no-one from groups protecting the
environment , landscape or animal welfare. 

Its report was entitled with crashing irony, “Striking a
Balance” It insisted that  “government
must trust industry”

Among its recommendation were that the government should
relax rules about stocking density of chickens reared for meat, that new
pesticides should be approved more quickly ,

that farmers should be given 24 year water abstraction
licences and that “industry representatives” should have special confidential
access to draft legislation.   The body
the government set up to implement the proposals  will be chaired  by the same man. 

This is just a snapshoot of the committee-nobbling  in which successive governments have
engaged.”

 

BACKGROUND
TO NFU ,  BY James Armstrong

NFU
and their annual £1 billion taxpayers’ sweetener

 

NFU have 50,000 members 

 

In U.K.
some  175,000 CAP cheques are sent out by
Defra each year

 

to the  value of
£3,400,000,000   (£3.4billion)

 

the NFU members’ share would be pro rata  £970,000,000 
(say £1bn)

 

that is if NFU members represent the biggest landowners
(they do) 

who get the biggest share of CAP cheques. They probably do. 

 

When £1billion is at stake each year you would expect some
shenanigans –

 

Perhaps the cosa nostra are involved?    Consider …. 

 

If NFU office bearers were chosen by grading their CAP
cheques, Peter Kendall    receiving
£450,000 CAP over 08,09,10 for his farm, would be chosen president. He is NFU
President.  

 Peter Kendall appears
regularly on BBC’s Radio 4 ‘Farming Today’.

 

NFU  ex-president  Henry Plumb metamorphosed into the President
of the

uropean Parliament in the early days when CAP policy was
decided.

(then later Lord Plumb)

Today NFU constantly lobby at Westminster.  NFU constantly  lobby at Brussels
from their office there.   Why do NFU
need  an office in Brussels?


 

A  woman spellcaster
to HM,  ministers to  Defra (who distribute CAP payments) 

This woman spell caster was previously an independent
agricultural consultant in Europe
 to sugar  barons. The largest 09 UK CAP cheque, £81 million,
went to British Sugar plc.  Czarnikow
(sugar brokers) received the second largest UK
cheque- £19million.

 Europe-wide  , all years 99 to 09,  Tate and Lyle Europe drew euros 828  million

 (the record CAP  payout in Europe)-where
Czarnikow received euros129 million 

 

British Sugar and 
Tate and Lyle are officially crooks who avoided jail because they are
privileged corporate crooks ( Because sugar and 
porridge don’t mix?)  

 

In 2010 the two were fined £30million and £5million by OFT
for price fixing. 

  When people hear of
these secret payments they tell us they are outraged.

 

 There is no HMG move
to save £bn’s  by cuts to CAP                          

The way to  end  this scandal is to tell everyone.

 In  retrospect the £1bn CAPgoing to NFU members each year ,  may be nearer £2bn ,(out of ther £3.4bn ) since NFU pricipally represents the BIG Farmers .



Its quite clear we need a Peoples'(taxpayers')  representative on all these committees  
-a funded parliamentary lobbyist of the lobbyists. 
 James 



 		 	   		  
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