Reprieve for bendy cucumbers

Just in case you missed it last week the EU will be removing or toning down many of its regulations regarding the size and shape of the fruit and vegetables we purchase. This, it should be noted, doesn't apply to all our greengrocery (such as apples for instance) and will not come into effect until next summer. Better late than never I suppose.

I was reminded that I wanted to write this piece in the blog when I read the 'Western Morning News' this morning. A regular Monday columnist is Kate Ironside, someone who is unashamedly pro EU, but to her credit is prepared to flag up its more barmy decisions. Like me she is pleased enough about the scheme to restore some commonsense into the world of buying fruit and veg. However she states that the regulations only came into being because the different countries had their own rules and with a uniform standard UK cucumbers could be sold in France, or vice-versa "without fear of falling foul of different national standards". H'm, if you say so Kate.

One of my biggest hobby-horses is the question of food waste and I feel it borders on the immoral if fruit or vegetables aren't available to buy for purely cosmetic reasons. Surely the shopper can decide for his or herself whether they are happy or not to purchase a slightly bent cucumber without having to be told whether the curvature merits it being Class 1, Class 2 or even beyond the pale! Someone in Brussels had to frame the regulations, others in this country (trading standards presumably) would then be responsible for making sure standards were being adhered to. All this using our money of course! Absolute madness.

At least the EU have started to own up to the stupidity of it all.

Problems with fallen stock

Fallen stock are those farm animals that die for whatever reason on a farm. Former practice was to dig a pit on ones farm away from a watercourse and bury the beast there but the BSE crisis caused a change in policy regarding this procedure. Under EU rules that came into effect some 18 months ago carcasses have to be rendered or incinerated. With the almost total eradication of BSE it might be thought that we could revert to the old far cheaper method but no.

There is an anomaly here: should the animal concerned be a horse, dog or cat then the ruling doesn't apply. And it seems that if you had an odd field with your property and kept a pet cow then probably again you would be outside the scheme. So it's all a bit of bureaucratic nonsense really.

When the EU edict came in the government paid a subsidy of about a third of the cost of disposal. Not unexpectedly that level of subsidy was not going to be maintained and it has now significantly lower at 10%! Some EU states reputedly pay all the farmers costs in removing fallen stock. Yet again British farmers are disadvantaged when compared with some of our neighbours.

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.