- ‘Benchmark, find your weaknesses, and go and find what GOOD looks like’ Alan Wilkinson, AHDB
- ‘We have a responsibility to share the countryside with 60 million UK citizens (plus tourism imports). It can be a burden or an opportunity, but we can’t ignore the duty.’ Geoff Sarsome, Natural England
- ‘Biodiversity is the buffer at the end of the tracks on climate change.’ Tim Nevart, Conservation Grade
- ‘The EU system is not about getting things right. It’s about getting agreement with other parties. The final outcome of CAP reform ’13 is very negative for biodiversity, and reform in 2020 is likely to fail again unless the process changes. CAP is needed, but a different one - should it be an Agricultural Policy to the benefit of Biodiversity, or a Biodiversity Policy to benefit farmers?’ ‘We need to create a Stewardship Ethic among farmers’. Trees Robijns, Birdlife International.
- Who has the responsibility of feeding the world? How can we risk biodiversity to the potential harm of the future of our children’s food in the long term, for a wish to feed someone else in the short term?’
- The battle for profit is won or lost by the collective effort of all the individual cows and ewes on our farm – not doing anything fancy, just getting the basics right:
- Fertility – keeping turning out product to sell
- Functionality – not causing extra inputs or hassle
- Robustness – simply still being there and reliably doing the job.
- Every minute, there are 158 more mouths to feed on the planet, 154 of them are in emerging and developing countries.
- ‘How do we direct a share of the value chain to the environment? Though Story-telling: Do what is right; then tell the story, the value will come. Value comes from passion, we need to create passion for food.’ Edwin van Raalte, Rabobank
- EU has a 35 million hectare negative balance in food – we are a net importer of food equivalent to the growing capacity of an area the size of Germany. Agriculture is the solution to food security, through efficient farmers and effective export channels.
- ‘We all know the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy, but we don’t know what the cost would be of NO policy.’ Didier Carraes.
- A Farmers job description:
- Do more
- …with less,
- Look after the environment.
- Pick up the responsibility for feeding the 9 billion people on the planet.
- Engage with the public (they’ve become a bit distant, and frankly, think you are rather strange).
- …and by the way, here’s a pile of paperwork that needs done tonight.
- Do more
- If your bottom line is RED, it’s very hard to think GREEN.
- The Climate Change problem is not about small changes in the AVERAGE, it is the ACCIDENTS – floods, droughts, late frosts. We need to work with plant genetics that are more robust in terms of accidents. Wheat today is like a Ferrari, fine when the going is smooth. We need something more like a Landrover.
- ‘The public are worried about the Amazon Rainforest, and the loss of biodiversity – but they are not doing anything in their own garden, where they do have an influence.’ Frederic Thomas.
- Our industry has the greatest story to tell – the story of LIFE.
- Plant life – clover, wild flowers, trees
- Animal life – butterflies, bees & lambs
- Family life – all celebrations centre on a meal.
- Plant life – clover, wild flowers, trees
- National environmental schemes are picked up randomly, but need scale to have an impact. Local schemes create scale where it matters.
- Find out what really needs done
- Learn how to do it
- Find who will pay
- Tell everyone.
- Find out what really needs done
- Fun is the cheapest motivator.
- ‘It is a good job that not everyone in the business is a clone of you’
- You can have all the policy makers, advisors, politicians and industry leaders you like – the people who can actually change the world are us – the farmers – the guys who turn the rams out, who work the seed-drill. We have the power to make things happen.
- Agriculture is a Human Adventure.
Neil's Nuffield Adventure | Better Breeding - Beef and sheep |