It is increasingly certain that the cost of food will rise considering production costs are soaring. Take fertilizer for example, back in the summer if you bought forward for next spring, the price was around £275/ton. Today according to the Farmer’s Guardian, the same product costs £650/ton.
 
Farmer’s face rising fuel, feed, insurance, labour and transport costs to produce the nation’s food, these need to be shared with consumers.
 
UK livestock farmers are being criticised for what are insignificant methane gas emissions. Despite what some learned professors tell the nation on Radio 4’s Farming Today programme, our cattle’s emissions compared to those in North and South America, are but a pin prick in an ocean.
 
The media, and apparently some popular soaps preach inaccurate information to their audiences. One East Enders character apparently recently ranted about how livestock farmers are ‘criminals’ as we pollute the atmosphere, cause deforestation, floods and droughts. No doubt viewers assumed this referred to British farmers.
 
Last week the South of England Agricultural Society held a conference titled, ‘The Role of Agriculture in Healing Society’. The excellent chairman was Anna Hill, presenter of BBC Radio 4 Farming Today.
 
The theme was to explore the future of farming and land management in today’s world, which since COVID has seen increasing numbers of the public wanting to experience firsthand the marvels and healing powers of the countryside.
 
Barbara Bray, Director of Alo Solutions which drives and delivers food safety in food supply chains and develops sustainable nutrition strategies for food businesses, concentrated on eating ‘healthy’ food’. She wisely confirmed that it is not the amount of food we eat that keeps us healthy and sustained, but its quality, including British grass-fed beef and dairy. As she quoted, “We are what we eat, eats”.
 
Sir Charles Burrell, owner of the Knepp Estate in West Sussex, has devoted the past 17 years to rewilding his 3,200-acres. His presentation highlighted what he considers are the benefits of allowing nature to re-claim the countryside, and his belief that the public should be welcomed into the countryside for their wellbeing and recovery from ‘mental health’ issues.
 
Dan Burdett, who manages two organic dairy farms, is passionate about improving the health and diversity of farms, and regenerative farming practices with a view to creating greater resilience in our food supply chain. We got the impression that although he recognises the advantages of encouraging public access onto farms, he is also wary of the consequences of too much unregulated access.
 
Lastly Robin Hobson, chairman of Laurence Gould Partnership, agricultural consultants, spoke about his work with young disadvantaged people who gain confidence, self-esteem and developed teamwork and independence skills while visiting and working on farms and the countryside. The amazing influence Jamie’s Farm has on young people who spend time on this charity’s farms, is also testimony to this.
 
It was clear to us all that the countryside is what it is because it has been managed by generations of experienced farmers with a mixture of livestock and arable production. Its beauty is because of livestock farming, not in spite of it.
 
Yes, the public should be able to enjoy these open spaces. We know the countryside does have healing, health, and wellbeing properties.
 
However, the big question left hanging in the air as Anna Hill tried to reach a consensus, was, “Should farmers be compensated for opening up their farms to the public”?
 
Some clearly felt they should, others felt that if this were to become the public’s right, no farm would remain safe from rampaging hikers, bikers, ravers, and the responsible rest, who may assume all farmland is public property. We should be wary this could become another form of ‘land nationalisation by the back door’. So, is education via the media the answer?

Have the ‘woke’ really won their war? Apparently in the USA they have. Let us hope not here, as I have faith in the common sense of the Great British public. However, we must not stand idly by and allow it to happen whilst we think someone else will sort out the problem.
 
It is up to all of us to stand up and be counted and voice our concerns when we feel the ‘establishment’ is getting it wrong. A good example is the attitude of the police last week who appeared to bend over backwards to reassure and condone the actions of the not so useful ‘idiots’ who were blocking the M25, causing accidents, delays including flights, to those going about their legitimate business.
 
Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged - the wind in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing.
 
The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the UK in recent weeks, whipped through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called to make up the shortfall from wind, and Russia has not helped by reducing supplies to Europe.
 
The heavy reliance on wind power, coupled with a shortage of natural gas, has led to a hike in energy prices across Europe, although the price shock is most acute in the UK which has leaned more heavily towards wind farms to eradicate net carbon emissions by 2050.
 
This episode highlights the precarious state the energy markets face as we head into the long winter. “It took a lot of people by surprise”, said Stefan Konstantinov, senior energy economist at data ICIS, of the leap in costs. “If this were to happen in winter when we’ve got significantly higher demand, then that presents a real issue for system stability.”
 
At their peak, UK electricity prices more than doubled at the start of September and were almost seven times as high as at the same point in 2020. Power markets also jumped in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
 
Next day prices rocketed to £285 a megawatt hour here, when wind speed dropped, according to ICIS. That is equivalent to £395 a megawatt hour and marked a record on figures going back to 1999!
 
Recently we were informed that there was a ‘bug’ crisis. People were reporting that their car windscreens and headlights were no longer covered with dead flies as they used to be. This apparently proved that we are heading towards bug Armageddon.
 
I would suggest that the pen pushers who went on to blame the farmers, spend a few nights out in the countryside where they will see a plague of bugs – all sorts. As we work into the increasingly dark evenings combining the beans and sowing next year’s crops, the air is thick with bugs including crane flies, moths, gnats, fireflies, and grasshoppers, many trying to enter tractor cabs, it has rarely been so intense.
 
During daylight hundreds of swallows circle overhead and swoop gorging themselves on this veritable feast of airborne tasty morsels.
 
Perhaps the bugs like us prefer the countryside, or maybe it is because motorway traffic runs at 50 MPH nowadays, giving the bugs time to avoid windscreens and headlights, unlike days gone by when we travelled at over and above 100 MPH!
 
As the debate about the shortage of HGV drivers continues, perhaps TV channels could air films which highlight the attractions of being a truck driver. In the past truckers were seen as heroes, highlighted by movies such as Smokey and the Bandit, Big Rig, Black Dog, Hell Driver and Convoy, and the TV series B.J and the Bear. Perhaps if they were treated with more respect, received better pay and facilities along their routes, there would not be a shortage. 

Every cloud has a silver lining, even if it’s one which is 10 degrees warmer than it should be. The current balmy weather is unseasonal and no doubt encouraging some to focus on the outcome of COP26. How things turn out long term, remains to be seen.
 
The few cold days we have had encouraged arable farmers to hope the aphids and other nasties would leave our tender emerging crops alone. Sadly, that was a short-lived hope as we now bask in this unnaturally mild weather.
 
The aphids are abundant, and the army of slugs grazing across our autumn sown crops, have brought John out with the sprayer, and Huw with his quad bike administering slug pellets, in the hope we can stop the hungry critters, ensuring we have crops to harvest next summer.
 
The upside is the cattle are still out as it remains dry underfoot, thus saving on straw and labour. Also, we are saving fuel as it’s been unnecessary to put the heating on.
 
Talking of houses, it has not taken too long for the ‘experts’ to catch onto the fact that homes, particularly those ‘environmentally’ hermetically sealed, to comply with ‘building regulations’, are potentially a health hazard.
 
So far, they identify the 7,000 plastic particles being inhaled each day. Hopefully, they will also take note of the chemicals making soft furnishings flameproof, and those substances wiping out germs around the house, as parents are encouraged to disinfect every surface so children never get an opportunity to build up natural anti-bodies to dirt and microorganisms.
 
Readers brave enough to regularly read this column, will know that I have raised this matter before due to my concern that this obsession with cleanliness, safety, environmentally hermetically sealed and zero carbon homes, and much else besides, will in due course cause monumental damage to public health, and consequently potentially bring the NHS to its knees.
 
We, and certainly our finely tuned bodies are not designed to be fueled by contaminated air. We take on average 7.5 million breaths a year and 600 million in our lifetime. What goes into our bodies each time oxygen is taken in and carbon dioxide expelled, is nothing short of a miracle. As the late Dr Jan de Winter would say, “Our bodies are like a finely tuned Rolls Royce engine, so put only premium fuel into its engine”. That also goes for the air we breathe.

“Our lungs are the lynchpin between our bodies and the outside world,” wrote pulmonologist Dr Michael Stephen. “And yet, we take our lungs for granted until we’re incapacitated and suddenly confronted with their vital importance”.

Dr Stephen explains in lay terms the links our lungs have with our immune system and with society at large. Despite great advances in science, our lungs are endlessly threatened. Asthma is more prevalent than ever, rising stress levels make our lungs vulnerable to disease, and COVID 19 has revealed that vulnerability in historic ways.

It is possible the damage this virus has inflicted upon western society in particular, will pale into insignificance when the damage inflicted through green environmental house building policies, and industrialised hygiene, is realised – too late.

We should be careful for what we wish. Those clamouring for MPs to be prevented from having second jobs would be a big mistake. The strength, experience and variety of the 650 men and women who fill the green benches in the House of Commons, is what makes Parliament unique, and ensures MPs represent their constituents intelligently.

Whether Sir Geoffrey Cox making millions as an eminent QC, or Maria Caulfield earning peanuts working some weekends and during recess as a specialist nurse, they bring valuable experience and knowledge to Parliament. It would be a poorer less effective place without them.

We cannot escape COP 26. It seems everyone has an opinion which is fair as we all want our lives, communities, and countries uninterrupted by the wrong weather at the wrong time, and too much of it.

The worry is that the hot air which will be emitted in Glasgow, the volumes of over speak across the media, and forests of trees needed to produce the printed versions, will in themselves add to the problem.

There is also a danger that the medicine will be worse than the disease. It certainly sounds as if the plan is to ban just about everything which makes our lives pleasant and practical.

Let’s hope common sense prevails and the ‘environmental movement’ does not completely ambush the world leaders into pledging trillions of pounds in the wrong direction.
Currently it is on the cards that they will.

I wonder if the Chancellor of Sussex University Sanjeev Bhaskar OBE, the British actor and comedian, and Vice Chancellor Adam Tickell are proud of the trans rights activist students who have hounded Kathleen Stock, the philosophy professor, out of her job’?

The toxic environment at Sussex University has made it impossible for the highly acclaimed professor, who was awarded an OBE in January, to remain in post. Shame on the university for neither protecting nor defending her.

We can only hope the students responsible for threatening the professor and treating her intelligent and considered views with such utter contempt, will be sent down at the very least, and have their grants withdrawn.

On joining the University as Vice Chancellor Adam Tickell pledged, “To build on the traditions of creativity, interdisciplinary, innovation and intellectual rigour in both education and research”. He planned to focus on redefining the distinctiveness of the University for the 21st century! Sadly, it is now among many which have decided to abolish free speech, and the students are clearly treating him with the same contempt to they targeted at Prof Stock.

I hope these two gentlemen are shamed by the behaviour of these undisciplined, aggressive, self-entitled bunch of ignorant thugs. Free speech is clearly endangered as those of us who speak the truth, and voice what others think but fear the consequences of saying, are attacked by the minority activists.

Poor Sussex, it hits the headlines for all the wrong reasons. We need some genuine heroes to outshine those who bring shame to our county.

Another formerly well-regarded national institute, the National Trust is also hitting the headlines, for the wrong reasons. It is quite rightly, some would say, being accused of “arrogant abuse” of its historic properties by prioritising “visitor experience” over heritage, and playing the PC card.

The current director-general Hilary MacGrady and her board, appear to be on a mission to exclude any input from regional advisory committees, which they abolished, and have undermined the curators by depriving them of any authority.

The families which entrusted their magnificent homes and properties to the NT, must be concerned by developments in recent years. Many members at the AGM on Saturday, voted to support a motion to prohibit trail hunting on trust land. This traditional sport involves people on foot or horseback following a scent along a pre-determined route with hounds or beagles without foxes or other wildlife being deliberately chased or killed.
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As members entered Harrogate Convention Centre in North Yorkshire, they were harangued by demonstrators from the so-called animal welfare charity, League Against Cruel Sports. I suspect, if they were up to their usual tricks, they will have told members as they entered the building, “we know where you live”. It will be interesting to see which way the board of trustees decide to go on this one. If I were a ‘betting man’, I know where I would put my money!