Latest farming opinions OPINIONOpinion: Now is the time for farming's leaders to step upWho’d want to be a leader? It’s been a volatile start to the year, both internationally and locally, and leaders great and small are under scrutiny. On the world stage… OPINIONEditor's View: A week for big schemes at home and abroad“Walk softly and carry a big stick” was how former US president Theodore Roosevelt summarised his approach to foreign policy. “Shout loudly and flail wildly with a revolver and a… OPINIONOpinion: Squaring the circle not easy when it comes to land useI feel the saying “square peg, round hole” could apply to any number of areas in the agricultural sector at the moment, but for the purpose of this article, I… OPINIONOpinion: Focus on your business, not trying to change policyAre you familiar with the seven stages of grief – the phases that a human goes through when they are adjusting to a sudden loss or very bad news? The… OPINIONEditor's View: Now's the time for ceasefire with Red TractorAfter all the speculation that this was the week Rachel Reeves would come for red diesel, many of you will have sighed with relief after digesting the chancellor’s Spring Statement… OPINIONOpinion: Teaching will be good - for me and the studentsAfter eight years on the run, my past has finally caught up with me. OK, I was asking for it, renting a farm a scant mile from Devon’s last remaining… OPINIONOpinion: Government's SFI shift is a betrayal of farmers“Don’t piss in my pocket then tell me it’s raining” perhaps best encapsulates the response to Defra’s bombshell announcement on the evening of 11 March that it was suspending applications… OPINIONEditor's View: Time for young farmers to give it some wellySince Defra’s decision to pull up the drawbridge on the Sustainable Farming Incentive last week, thoughts among some of you have been turning to what this may mean for the… OPINIONOpinion: The beef industry is finally turning a corner“You know you’re not in high finance, when considering second-hand underpants.” Since becoming a beef farmer 21 years ago, I’m not sure I’ve found a quote more fitting to the… OPINIONOpinion: Farming's mistake has always been believing it is diffe...Philosopher George Santayana stated: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. With hindsight the farming industry should have been rattled when the attacks on the collieries… OPINIONEditor's View: Why we should have seen SFI collapse comingWell, Defra’s SFI closure bombshell this week means it turns out it was an unsustainable farming incentive after all. Like hapless Looney Tunes villain Wile E Coyote briefly sprinting in… OPINIONOpinion: Land use proposals are largely reasonableDefra recently released its land use consultation, a call for a “national conversation” about how we use our land that will feed into a land use framework later this year.… OPINIONOpinion: The shift towards net zero is a huge opportunityIt’s embarrassing to watch right-wing politicians have a paddy in an anti-net zero puddle. In their world, small-scale nuclear modular reactors are OK, but using land to harness the free… OPINIONEditor's View: Food security platitudes set for severe testYou know we are in a remarkable era when commentators keep reaching back as far back as the time of Napoleon for parallels. Economists say the UK is in the… OPINIONOpinion: Defra secretary 'lacks compassion' over family farm taxLast week’s NFU conference was never going to be a celebration, given the numerous issues overhanging the sector at the moment. The presence of Defra secretary Steve Reed wasn’t going… OPINIONOpinion: It's time to 'chew the fat' on our food systemsThe concept that “there is no love sincerer than the love of food” (George Bernard Shaw) is something pretty much all my friends and family wholeheartedly agree on. We are… OPINIONOpinion: Out-of-luck farmers wait for that elusive aceAs Kenny Rogers once said: “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” He could… OPINIONEditor's View: Ask not what Defra can do for youWhat should be the reasonable minimum expectation for the performance of a secretary of state when speaking at the NFU conference? Defra secretary Steve Reed won plaudits on Tuesday (25… OPINIONOpinion: A new day dawns for the much-maligned mouldboardThe clear-out of now-redundant machinery has gone very well over the past couple of years, with combines, sprayers and drills heading off down Hinton Hill on an assortment of lorries… More articles
