Grant offer for farmers to protect the soil is a VERY rare instance of the Tories doing what’s right
Soil degradation: It’s a huge threat to UK farmers but they seem to need government incentives to fight it.
Mr and Mrs General Public sure seem stupid – from news stories over the last few days, it seems government policy really does need to lead them by the nose.
This Site has reported on the fact that members of the public would rather have a faster train journey than protect valuable natural habitats.
Now it seems farmers need to be incentivised into protecting the soil that they need, in order to keep their businesses viable (and us fed).
What is wrong with people?
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, if we continue to degrade the soil at the current rate, the world could run out of topsoil in about 60 years.
Without topsoil, the earth’s ability to filter water, absorb carbon, and feed people plunges and we all die.
But farmers still need a financial incentive to do the right thing.
It’s as This Writer has said for many years, though: government sets the conditions under which we all live.
People will do whatever they can to live as well as they can – in the short term, because they delude themselves that the long-term future is someone else’s problem.
That puts a lot of power and influence in the hands of our elected representatives.
So, before anybody starts praising the Tories for doing the right thing in this case, consider all the cases in which they are not.
A promise to do more to protect the soil will form part of a vision for the UK farm industry being unveiled by the government.
Ministers have accepted that farmers need incentives to farm in a way that leaves a healthy soil for future generations.
Soil protection has become a core issue of the Agriculture Bill that is returning to Parliament.
In post-Brexit Britain [farmers] will be rewarded for providing services for society like clean air, clean and plentiful water, flood protection and thriving wildlife.
The grant changes will be phased in over seven years.
Source: Agriculture Bill: Soil at heart of UK farm grant revolution – BBC News
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The Tories sometimes do the right thing when all other possibilities are exhausted.
Think about the ending of Empire. Though the Tories kept up the pretence of defending the Empire, they knew the game was up and , painfully slowly, they took the necessary steps.
The best example is the way that Magaret Thatcher realised that the former Rhodesia just could not stay as a White-supremacist colony much longer , given the scale of opposition amongst the local population as well as internationally. So, while the Tory Press were still telling us about how marvellous life was in the place, and how loyal the Black people were, and how the Rhodesian “security forces” were easily defeating the African Freedom Fighters, Thatcher worked to tell the regime in Rhodesia that they had to allow elections and hand over.
She did the same in Ireland. While telling the world that she would not negotiate, she came to a compromise with the hunger-strikers and continued talks behind the scenes with the Irish Republicans, leading to the Belfast Peace Agreement under her conservative followers, Major and Blair.
The tragedy is that millions of our voters still believe the guff about the success of the British Empire, or how the IRA were on the point of defeat etc because the Press just carried on with the cover story.
And now, when the Tories realise that they have to do something about climate change and habitat loss, their Press hacks are still telling tales about how its all a climate hoax and how “out of touch” the Green Movement is etc etc. So that, if Labour were to introduce the same policies , they would jump up and accuse the Labour Party of being “pie in the sky” while the Tories get on with it unopposed.