A public "good" must be paid for from the public purse

[drinksloe]

Have many of u been to NZ or Argentina to see the standards the stock are raised in?

 

Generally its called ranching and many farms in this country are going more along those lines generally leaving stock to fend for itself.

Some of the larger farms/stations in NZ sheep will most likely only be seen 2 times a year, clipping and marking (or in OZ clipping and crutching) very few sheep will see a vet or get any medical attention, very much survival of fittest.

In UK stock has to be looked every 24hrs. So the man hours are always going to be far higher.

 

1 of the big benefits of NZ is the population does try to buy NZ products and it being isolated only helps that.

Thats 1 of problems UK has cheap imported food from all over, esp EU.

UK has nothing to fear about the standard of the animals/grain/milk it produces, most of the standards will be as high if not higher than most of Europe, half the problem is stuff coming in from elsewhere that ill be nowhere near the standard (hell some off it might not be off the animal stated, horse burgers anyone??)

 

As for upland flooding not quite that simple, trees can increase flooding all depends wot there replacing and wether commercail planting or not.

Often the best use of moors for flood prevention is grouse shooting as it needs good heather cover and peat retention wich can help slow water flow.

Simle fact is weather patterns are changing and we tend to get more extreme weather and we're building houses on flood plains, and then surprised when they flood???

 

Farming probably would be better off if it could survive without subsidies.

 

But the biggest problem is not the subsidies but modern culture of greed, the selling of SFP was quite a recent thing and only happened for the last 15 or so years since the SFP came in and replaced the last subsidy and it has now changed again so it can't be sold.

 

But wot about all these folk screwing the RHI subsidy system?? I know of 2 sheds recently leased who has installed 32 and 24 chimneys coming out of them all trying to screw the old commercail RHI tarriffs.

In forestry wot about all the sub's for boimass timber, pushing the price of chip/pulp higher than it should be.

 

How many big businesses get big government grants to resettle/move factories etc.

The simple fact is too many modern folk are only intrested in getting rich and will screw every system they can to get there, wether morally right or not

 

Most farm subsidies go out of the farmers hands as soon as they come in to pay bills (know some agri contractors only get paid once a year after sub's come in) so most will be passed on to many other trades/sectors

[CallumA]

We should be paying the cost of production at the minimum for all farm produced products, then we would all be complaining about the increased cost of the weekly shop.

How can dairy farmers make a living with the farm gate price lower than the cost of production. I totally agree that the current system has created "arm chair farmers" playing the system, but I also know a lot of Farmers that live on an overdraft all year until the subs hit the bank, and then the cycle starts again. In a perfect world we the consumer would pay a fair price for the produce farmed in a responsible manner. Then the subsidies could stop and our Farmers could make more or less depending on how efficient there farm was! The sheep farm in the highlands would struggle compared the a arable farm in the Howe of the Mearns (good fertile arable land) but the land price would reflect that! Stop the subs and make the good farmers better and the arm chair farmers go out of business. Its a complicated issue and impossible to please all, and if they stop there would be a few tough years and there would be lots of Farms going to the wall but a lot would survive and thrive!

[daltontrees]

I often wondered why any expense of looking after TPOed trees isn't paid out of the public purse. Perhaps they could then go futher and start insisting anyone with space has to plant trees.

 

This thread has descended rapidly into a series of gentle rants about the CAP, farming, Brexity etc. which is a shame because the question originally asked is an interesting one.

 

And the answer I think is that the expense of looking after TPO'd trees shouldn't be borne by the public purse. The only difference between an ordinary tree and a TPO'd tree is that the latter's owner needs to ask first before working on it. The cost of asking is nil, although it may take up time. The answer is not always 'no'. Most owners of most TPo'd trees would want to keep them anyway and would have therefore to pay for teh maintenance anyway. Why should the public pay for that?

 

So there are relatively few cases where a tree is TPO'd AND the owner wants to do work to it AND that work is only allowed under conditions that make the work more expensive to do than if there was no TPO. That's the only situation where there is any argument that the public should pay that extra cost.

 

TPOs don't oblige an owner to maintain a tree. As such, there's no ongoing cost except if keeping a tree at a sensible scale is the only alternative to removing the tree, an act that it not allowed under TPO law. And that, I reckon, is the situation that gave rise to TPO law in the first place.

 

The real cost to an owner of a TPO'd tree is it may prevent him maximising use and value and enjoyment of his property. But that's a different compensation debate...

[matelot]

As for upland flooding not quite that simple, trees can increase flooding all depends wot there replacing and wether commercail planting or not.

 

I agree that some tree planting could increase flooding. However I'd argue that in 90% of cases tree planting will reduce flooding.

[matelot]

The sheep farm in the highlands would struggle compared the a arable farm in the Howe of the Mearns (good fertile arable land) but the land price would reflect that!

 

I think one of the problems farming has is that lots of rich people buy farmland to reduce Inheritance Tax.... stop that loophole and watch land values half.

[HtheForester]

 

As for upland flooding not quite that simple, trees can increase flooding all depends wot there replacing and wether commercail planting or not.

Often the best use of moors for flood prevention is grouse shooting as it needs good heather cover and peat retention wich can help slow water flow.

Simle fact is weather patterns are changing and we tend to get more extreme weather and we're building houses on flood plains, and then surprised when they flood???

 

You can't plant on deep peat in the UK anymore, that precludes the majority of grouse moors anyway. Most new planting in UK uplands replaces sheep farming where you have a compacted top layer causing fast runoff/little infiltration, even ploughing (not often used anymore because of runoff fears) can increase infiltration rates and a net positive effect. Whether it's commercial planting or not doesn't make a huge amount of difference, there is a small increase runoff speed in the first 1/2 years then a significant reduction from then on. All you need to do is spread the time between peak rainfall and it reaching a watercourse and you can reduce peak river flow effectively.

 

However, I completely agree that we are seeing more extreme weather and building houses on floodplains is just stupid

[timberbear]

I'm fortunate to own a 70ac farm in the Galloway hills. It has been taken out of it's previous intensive agricultural use. We now graze it with only 30 ewes and two cattle. It will never make a sustainable income as half the land is bog and rush. We currently receive £3600 in basic farm payments just for having the land. We allow the land to be grazed by a local lad on a prescriptive plan. The land is managed for wildlife, mainly wild flower and wading birds, it's frequented by shank, snip and curlew and is used by hen harrier and barn owl and the common red kit. We have otter using our burn and a 12ac meadow which is a carpet if wild flower. This year alone we have blocked ditches, flooded fields, planted 600 trees, fenced off the burns and dug 6 wader scrapes. We applied for a number of grants in total 26k over 4 years for the remaining grant period. I was amazed to have received a letter recently telling us we would not be receiving and funding. It made my blood boil when I know the land owner up the road has leased all his land out for a wind farm but still receives his payments, the very land where Hen Harrier were nesting. I read about grouse moors receiving state subsidies whilst making large profits but still getting away with the mass murder if birds of prey. I think it's important that wildlife is helped and that perhaps the only way is to fund certain farms in targeted areas to turn away from agriculture and instead manage the land for wildlife perhaps even giving farmers a small salary after all if they didn't farm then the tax payer still picks up the bill once their on benefits. Wildlife holds no boundaries and we need to what ever we can to preserve it. I know of folk who live in the country side and have never seen a linnet or yellowhammer, agriculture needs to make amends and we all need to play our part. My view anyway.

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Arbtalk mobile app

[drinksloe]

Fair play to u timberbear:bowdown: for doing somethin like that.

I bet many on here including myself would love to do something like that.

 

Grouse moors will only recieve the same subsidy that u get per acre and thats only if the moor is ran by the landowner and there is no tennant farmer.

 

Also very few grouse moors in scotland make any money and most lose substantial ammounts most years (prob ur nearest 1 has employed 4/5 FT keepers as long as i can remember but only shot grouse a few days in the last 10 years)

The english moors are slightly different but in scotland a profitable grouse moor is almost non existant, yet they still invest massive ammounts of cash in wages, machinery and labour (if enough grouse to shoot) mainly on conservation and predator control.

And don't believe everything u read about grouse moors shooting BoP's most of it is propaganda by the likes of packham with very little if any facts behind it.

Its all more fooling the townies to part with there money to fight the evil murdering landowners

 

Most grouse moors will have 95% of the same objectives as urself breaking up blanket single age heather (except ur doing it with rashes) but u will fnd ur biggest problem will be predation which will severely limit ur wild bird breeding success to next to nil (proven by a few studies by GWCT namely Otterburn (paticularly relevant to urself/habitat) and Sailsbury plain) as well as at some rspb reserves where breeding succes of various waders increased by 300% due to fencing and/or predator control

I know of plenty of grouse moors putting in horizontal drains across hills to catch and hold water as well as blocking drains and puting wader scrapes in to increase water and insect numbers.

Pretty sure grouse moors/GWCT ill have developed the concept originally

[pycoed]

Fair play to u timberbear:bowdown: for doing somethin like that.

I bet many on here including myself would love to do something like that.

 

Grouse moors will only recieve the same subsidy that u get per acre and thats only if the moor is ran by the landowner and there is no tennant farmer.

 

Also very few grouse moors in scotland make any money and most lose substantial ammounts most years (prob ur nearest 1 has employed 4/5 FT keepers as long as i can remember but only shot grouse a few days in the last 10 years)

The english moors are slightly different but in scotland a profitable grouse moor is almost non existant, yet they still invest massive ammounts of cash in wages, machinery and labour (if enough grouse to shoot) mainly on conservation and predator control.

And don't believe everything u read about grouse moors shooting BoP's most of it is propaganda by the likes of packham with very little if any facts behind it.

Its all more fooling the townies to part with there money to fight the evil murdering landowners

 

Most grouse moors will have 95% of the same objectives as urself breaking up blanket single age heather (except ur doing it with rashes) but u will fnd ur biggest problem will be predation which will severely limit ur wild bird breeding success to next to nil (proven by a few studies by GWCT namely Otterburn (paticularly relevant to urself/habitat) and Sailsbury plain) as well as at some rspb reserves where breeding succes of various waders increased by 300% due to fencing and/or predator control

I know of plenty of grouse moors putting in horizontal drains across hills to catch and hold water as well as blocking drains and puting wader scrapes in to increase water and insect numbers.

Pretty sure grouse moors/GWCT ill have developed the concept originally

 

 

A lot of truth in this report, grouse shooting is being cynically targeted because only the rich can afford it so it is an easy target. But it's not the rich that doo all the work (& it is a MASSIVE amount of work) in maintaining the moors. Without that there's not a lot else to employ the locals.

All those naively buying the Packham propaganda about marsh harriers may pause to wonder why the best place to find them is on a grouse moor! Because of habitat management & predator control grouse moors support many more "collateral" birds than non managed moors. You only have to compare the dearth of birds on the RSPB "managed" moors in Wales with the e.g. the Durham estates to see that.

 

A few other points:

Not many dairy farmers round here receive subsidies - many none! Ryegrass, silage & slurry spreading are don't qualify for SFP "points".

The SFP in Wales is almost completely an environmental scheme dreamed up by civil servants to provide as many desk jobs as possible, add to that the monitors & auditors & you have something Sir Humphrey would be proud of.

The SFP requires a vast amount of paperwork to demonstrate compliance, any failure of which can result in penalty percentage losses. For the smallholder (me with my 30 acres of marsh) it;s just not worth the hassle of people telling you to farm by dates, irrespective of the weather or land conditions, consequently I (along with many others) declined the kind offer to join.

Finally - a lot of the upland sheep producing areas won't grow trees without serious drainage work so the simple trees=flood prevention just aint going to happen.

[agg221]

And the answer I think is that the expense of looking after TPO'd trees shouldn't be borne by the public purse. The only difference between an ordinary tree and a TPO'd tree is that the latter's owner needs to ask first before working on it. The cost of asking is nil, although it may take up time. The answer is not always 'no'. Most owners of most TPo'd trees would want to keep them anyway and would have therefore to pay for teh maintenance anyway. Why should the public pay for that?

 

So there are relatively few cases where a tree is TPO'd AND the owner wants to do work to it AND that work is only allowed under conditions that make the work more expensive to do than if there was no TPO. That's the only situation where there is any argument that the public should pay that extra cost.

 

TPOs don't oblige an owner to maintain a tree. As such, there's no ongoing cost except if keeping a tree at a sensible scale is the only alternative to removing the tree, an act that it not allowed under TPO law. And that, I reckon, is the situation that gave rise to TPO law in the first place.

 

I largely agree with you but, leaving aside the economic considerations which mean this will never happen, I think there are two circumstances where involvement of the public purse could be justified.

 

The first would be if it was desirable that works were undertaken. Whilst there is no obligation to maintain a tree, there can be work which is desirable to extend its life or enable its retention, for example reduction to prevent an unstable tree from being blown over or major branches being snapped out after substantial heartwood decay, or haloing of adjacent trees. It would not seem unreasonable to have a system which surveyed TPO'd trees since they represent high amenity value, recommended such works (perhaps still on a voluntary basis), and if taken forward contributed to the costs. I wonder what such a scheme might cost, relative to the calculated amenity value of preservation of TPO'd trees.

 

The second would be if a TPO is placed on a tree. As mentioned, this could represent a reduction in enjoyment of the land, which could be compensated for. The next purchaser would be aware of it and hence not entitled having freely entered into the purchase. That said, this would be an equivalent situation to having your property listed, for which there is no compensation, so I doubt it would happen. It might make councils think carefully about whether to impose a TPO though.

 

Alec