Opinion: Farmers, like net zero, could be consigned to history
© Adobe Stock I’m confused. I thought there was a climate and nature crisis and we desperately needed to get to net zero.
Various things I’ve seen recently have made me question the sanity and integrity of everyone involved in this whole debacle.
I won’t be surprised if the majority of readers haven’t studied the Climate and Nature Bill. I have, and I’ve also watched the debate in Parliament.
See also: Opinion – farmers are the climate change scapegoats
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You may wonder why I felt the need to spend two hours of my life watching MPs spout a never-ending word salad, but it was section 2 paragraph 5c which caught my attention.
It is small, seemingly insignificant wording like this that should make every farmer in this country recoil in horror:
“Include financial support and retraining for people whose livelihoods and jobs will be affected by the proposed measures – including those measures that require transitioning out of industries characterised by high emissions and high impacts on ecosystems.”
I hope everyone is ready for transitioning into tourism, gin-making and crisp production as alluded to by Steve Reed and his merry band of civil servants at Defra because it might happen sooner than you think.
Farming has already been identified in the high-emissions and high-impact sector.
All of us on milk contracts have seen the massive sway towards carbon footprinting over the past few years; measuring hedgerows and counting trees has almost become more important than animal welfare.
We have, rightly, championed ourselves as part of the solution to climate change, actively helping to increase biodiversity on our farms.
But nowhere in the Climate and Nature Bill does it mention the work or help of farmers to achieve the required outcomes.
Throughout the entire debate in Parliament, only three MPs mentioned farmers and their importance for delivery of nature restoration.
A few days after the debate on the Climate and Nature Bill, which told me that we were going to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 81% before 2035 (a figure which conveniently doesn’t include emissions from aviation or shipping), Rachel Reeves announced she was going to build another runway at Heathrow and begin “reducing the environmental requirements placed on developers” allowing them to “focus on getting things built and stop worrying about the bats and the newts”.
Developers will be able to pay into a nature restoration fund, which is basically a backhander so they can build what they want, where they want, and destroy any habitats unfortunate enough to be in their way.
To top it off, the £104bn restoration fund will be spent on building nine reservoirs and developing offshore wind. Not exactly what any of us would class as nature restoration.
Partner all this with the newly announced Land Use Framework, where government will decide the best use for our own land, and the bigger picture is dramatically unfolding.
Inheritance tax is causing a handy distraction – so while we are looking the other way, quickly and quietly they will unleash the more sinister stuff.
I thought we would have to be wary of a Labour government, but I didn’t realise we would have to fight for our existence.
Once we’ve been transitioned and retrained it will be too late. Generations of skills and knowledge will be lost and net-zero targets, like farmers, will be dead in the water.