Extra funding for bee research at last

Some very good but long overdue news has been announced. DEFRA are to stump up another £4.3 million in funding to help protect our honey bees and conduct research into the threats they face. As if the past two wet summers hadn't been enough there is the varroa mite which has been devastating bee colonies and may well be a contributing factor to the so called "Colony Collapse Disorder" affecting bees in many countries.

We need more and more publicity about the plight of bees (and beekeepers). With people making decisions in the next few months about the flowers they want to grow more information about bee friendly plants should be a priority. The crashing of the bee population is a very worrying situation and any help they can be given would be extremely welcome.

Foot and Mouth reports put government in the dock

The end of last week saw the publication of two reports into the recent foot and mouth outbreak in Surrey. Now it has to be emphasised that they were unable to provide definitive proof as to the cause of this outbreak. However they were able to describe the likely source of the problem and sequence of events and once again HM Government is shown in an appallingly bad light with no sense of priorities.

In summary it appears that it was the condition of sewage pipes at the government funded Institute of Animal Health facility at Pirbright that led to the virus escaping. There was long-term damage due to displaced joints, cracks and tree roots. At a location such as this where bio-security is of paramount importance this is totally, utterly unacceptable. It seems that the summer flooding added to the problem with effluent leaking out of a manhole. So while Gordon Brown was being praised for the swift and effective action taken to quell the outbreak it was the government apparatus that lamentably failed to deal with these obvious defects in bio-security. Of course no blame will be applied to individuals, meanwhile farmers are again having to bear the cost of a DEFRA cock-up.

One day shows cancelled

In Devon and Cornwall, as indeed in other parts of rural England, the summer sees a plethora of agricultural shows. The two big ones of course are the multi day Devon County and Royal Cornwall Shows. They are done and dusted for this year and I remember that the Royal Cornwall at Wadebridge was warm and sunny for the three consecutive days on which it ran in June! In a bad summer such as this we tend to forget the few days of good weather.

Another successful show was the one day Stithians Show in West Cornwall; I could be wrong but I think it is the largest one day event of its kind in the two counties.

However there are a lot of shows in the Devon calendar that have had to be cancelled: these include the North Devon, Mid Devon, Okehampton and Woolsery Shows. Honiton is teetering on the brink but with a much better forecast in the offing for next week I think they will be all right. The well organised Yealmpton Show went ahead a couple of days ago but yesterday the organisers of the Totnes Show (always the day following Yealmpton) went ahead in the rain in the morning only to have to cancel lunchtime as the elements defeated them.

Car parking at shows is one of the big problems after excessive rains, even more so when the parking is on a slope. The question of whether to cancel or go ahead with a show is an unenviable decision that has to be made. This is particularly so when you decide to go early on the decision to give farmers and traders the maximum notice.

On a smaller scale in our neck of the woods tomorrow sees the Latchley, Chilsworthy and Cox Park Show taking place and the weather outlook is fair but I doubt that I shall have time to visit. Last year they suffered the most horrendous weather although of course that July was much better overall.

These country shows are a great shop window for the countryside and its ways - a good chance for townfolk to get some understanding of the rural economy. It should be compulsory for all DEFRA ministers to attend at least one during their tenure and the same applies to their senior civil servants.

DEFRA incompetence leads to massive fine

I suppose that the main political stories in our country last week were the question of what to do to tackle inner city gun crime and the announcement re bringing some of our troops back from Iraq. Of course other things happen and one of these was the announcement by written statement that we could be fined up to £305 million by the EU for the failure of the Rural Payments Agency (effectively part of DEFRA) to have paid out 96% of farm payments by June 2006. If you blinked at the wrong moment you could have missed this piece of news and I daresay that the national media paid scant attention to it.

To recap the EU decided to change the way farm subsidies were paid from one based on production to one related to environmental benefits. This massive change to the financial disbursements of the Common Agricultural Policy seems to have won majority approval from those affected but the problem was how to effect a transition between the two systems. Countries were given options on how to do this: Wales and Scotland opted for uncomplicated systems with the result that farmers didn't have to wait very long for their payments. However England decided to use a massively complicated hybrid system and also encouraged people with very small holdings who had never had production payments before to pitch in. Bear in mind our terrible record in introducing new IT systems and the result was the RPA was overwhelmed. And who was the incompetent who insisted on this way forward? Former DEFRA Secretary Margaret Beckett.

Margaret Beckett really is the most appalling person. She treated farmers and farming with absolute disdain; examples of this - she never liked to talk about farming in her speeches at Labour Party Conferences, she famously refused to be seen to be eating British beef when we were desperately trying to get back into world markets and then on another occasion when she visited Exeter (the Met Office I think) she allowed some of our farmers to stand up and make representations to her. My informant tells me that part way through someones speech she opened her handbag and started to file her nails! This is the sort of disrespect she shows. This awful awful woman has not only failed to say sorry for the RPA debacle but has been promoted to Foreign Secretary into the bargain!

Going back to the main story I do understand that the fine could reach £305 million, it could be less. Let's hope the latter. One of my biggest complaints about this government is the fact they are trying to change too much - they would have done better to have halved the number of things they have tried to alter and to have done these things really well instead of displaying the massive incompetency which has been their hallmark.