Who would have thought that only a month ago we were desperate for the rain to stop? Today farmers and gardeners and praying for it to start again! The ground is as hard as concrete, the grass is barely growing, the crops planted recently have hardly budged, and crops sown last autumn are crying out for moisture.
Mankind is truly being punished: there have been fires, floods and droughts, earth quakes, locusts and now this global pestilence sweeping through communities. Wiping out hundreds of thousands and leaving millions depleted in resources and health.
Worldwide we face precarious economies which will make picking up the pieces when this eventually subsides, a real struggle. Certainly life will not be the same for most of us as we face a fragile future.
One could become philosophical by asking the reason why. However, I am certain philosophy will not help now. I believe we should take the lead from Her Majesty the Queen, and embrace the situation intelligently, with good humour, common sense and fortitude. Fortes Fortuna Adjuvat.
We should also let the Prime Minister take advice from true experts: too many arm chair ‘muppets’ appear to know better than scientists and medics who are working at the coal face. It is time for amateurs, including current and former MPs, to pipe down and keep their ill-informed views to themselves.
The Prime Minister and the Government are doing well despite three oppositions: the Labour party under their new leader, who regardless of his hollow words that he would support the Government constructively, is already trying to score points with his unhelpful and currently unanswerable questions.
The BBC lines up troupes of misinformed pseudo intellectuals whose critical opinions the interviewers hang onto adoringly. As soon as a learned expert ventures the opinion that the PM, Government and their key advisers are doing the right things, they are hastily dismissed as irrelevant.
We then have the London elite still miffed and hoping by default to keep the UK in the European Union. Clearly blind to the ‘car crash’ happening in Brussels.
It was a wise man who said, “There is a distinction between industry and agriculture: and it is a fundamental one. Farming is not an industry at all, but both a way of life and a way to life”.
Economists regard agriculture as they regard an industry no longer able to earn dividends. But for the circumstances that they bear in mind the hard fact that they consume our products, they would, perhaps, if they had their way, wind us up.
I have been reminded that Rome started to decline when excessive taxation drove small-holders from the land, and farms disappeared and gave place to waste-lands yielding no food and supporting no busy human beings.
Farmers are not and never will be perfect, but we do a good job managing the countryside, improving the soil, being very protective of and valuing both our livestock and those who help us run our farms.
We also value and safeguard the flora and fauna. Left to our own devices and using our common sense, plus generations of experience, we can ensure a good healthy balance between wild life and food production.
I believe the enthusiasm of some for re-wilding, following the current crises, will die a natural death. The importance of food production will once again be valued. Why it takes world wars and pestilence to bring people to their senses is quite beyond me. I wonder if Dominic Cummings’s friend Dr Tim Leunig, and George Monbiot are still the flavour of the month in No 10 and at DEFRA.
As I sit and compose this before the Easter weekend, our thoughts and prayers are with the Prime Minister, and all those suffering and affected by this deadly virus.
Mankind is truly being punished: there have been fires, floods and droughts, earth quakes, locusts and now this global pestilence sweeping through communities. Wiping out hundreds of thousands and leaving millions depleted in resources and health.
Worldwide we face precarious economies which will make picking up the pieces when this eventually subsides, a real struggle. Certainly life will not be the same for most of us as we face a fragile future.
One could become philosophical by asking the reason why. However, I am certain philosophy will not help now. I believe we should take the lead from Her Majesty the Queen, and embrace the situation intelligently, with good humour, common sense and fortitude. Fortes Fortuna Adjuvat.
We should also let the Prime Minister take advice from true experts: too many arm chair ‘muppets’ appear to know better than scientists and medics who are working at the coal face. It is time for amateurs, including current and former MPs, to pipe down and keep their ill-informed views to themselves.
The Prime Minister and the Government are doing well despite three oppositions: the Labour party under their new leader, who regardless of his hollow words that he would support the Government constructively, is already trying to score points with his unhelpful and currently unanswerable questions.
The BBC lines up troupes of misinformed pseudo intellectuals whose critical opinions the interviewers hang onto adoringly. As soon as a learned expert ventures the opinion that the PM, Government and their key advisers are doing the right things, they are hastily dismissed as irrelevant.
We then have the London elite still miffed and hoping by default to keep the UK in the European Union. Clearly blind to the ‘car crash’ happening in Brussels.
It was a wise man who said, “There is a distinction between industry and agriculture: and it is a fundamental one. Farming is not an industry at all, but both a way of life and a way to life”.
Economists regard agriculture as they regard an industry no longer able to earn dividends. But for the circumstances that they bear in mind the hard fact that they consume our products, they would, perhaps, if they had their way, wind us up.
I have been reminded that Rome started to decline when excessive taxation drove small-holders from the land, and farms disappeared and gave place to waste-lands yielding no food and supporting no busy human beings.
Farmers are not and never will be perfect, but we do a good job managing the countryside, improving the soil, being very protective of and valuing both our livestock and those who help us run our farms.
We also value and safeguard the flora and fauna. Left to our own devices and using our common sense, plus generations of experience, we can ensure a good healthy balance between wild life and food production.
I believe the enthusiasm of some for re-wilding, following the current crises, will die a natural death. The importance of food production will once again be valued. Why it takes world wars and pestilence to bring people to their senses is quite beyond me. I wonder if Dominic Cummings’s friend Dr Tim Leunig, and George Monbiot are still the flavour of the month in No 10 and at DEFRA.
As I sit and compose this before the Easter weekend, our thoughts and prayers are with the Prime Minister, and all those suffering and affected by this deadly virus.
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