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July 5 2008 ~ "wildlife is a major source of new herd infection ....may be a more important source than cattle"

Hansard two days ago. Jonathan Shaw:
"....the situation is quite different in the high incidence areas of the country where 85-90 per cent. of all confirmed breakdowns occur. Some herds in these areas are also infected by purchased cattle, but wildlife is a major source of new herd infection and in many counties wildlife may be a more important source than cattle....."
This echoed a Parliamentary Answer on June 24, in which Mr Shaw clearly stated that badgers are the main wildlife reservoir for bovine TB. See below.

July 5 2008 ~ "We want to see healthy cattle alongside healthy badgers"

Jim Paice and others are quoted in fwi.co.uk in the wake of the news.
If Hilary Benn really does announce on Monday that the government prefers to sit on its hands it maym by some, be thought that they'd rather hand the poisoned chalice to the Tory hopefuls waiting in the wings - some of whom are actually aware of the grim reality of the situation for farmers. In last week's food security debate, Daniel Kawczynski the member for Shrewsbury and Atcham in Shropshire, who shares the affection many of us have for badgers, said:
"It does not have to be like this. France has eradicated bovine TB. ...France has tackled bovine TB through a huge investment in extra testing, vaccines and a limited cull of badgers. If the French can do it, why can the Government not do it? They will not do it because, in their growing unpopularity, they are desperately worried about those marginal seats ..... my priority has to be my Shropshire farmers.... I have seen all the evidence that there is a definite link between badgers and the spread of bovine TB."
Nobody wants a mass cull of healthy badgers - but a targeted cull of infected groups seems the best solution when so little has been done in Britain to produce a vaccine, suggest treatments to keep the badger population healthy or keep up a proper surveillance. There is a callous inhumanity in doing nothing, in ignoring the suffering caused by - as Bill Wiggin put it -
"leaving sick badgers to crawl around, excluded... then slowly dying, riddled with lesions that start in the bladder..... we should be acting responsibly towards our wild animals, but the taxpayers are footing a £100 million bill each year for culling infected cattle, and this bill looks set to rise inexorably higher. This situation cannot continue."
See also pdf of the ISID paper on the badger trial.

July 3 ~ Not if but when for African Horse Sickness...thoroughbred breeders will not lie down under a no-vaccination policy

The African Horse Sickness page has been updated with an account of the Tattersalls conference on AHS held on June 23 at Newmarket, for which warmwell is most grateful to Mrs Adrianne Smythe (whom many long term readers will remember, also with gratitude, from 2001) The account must be read in full but one extract will give deep cause for concern. After delegates had heard a "riveting exposition on the development of vaccines to combat AHS and WNV" from Merial, the DEFRA representative spoke and received a "somewhat mixed reception" when it became clear that DEFRA’s policy follows the EU directive forbidding a vaccination policy - such as has been so successful in the US
"....Dr Hartley explained that any representation from the UK directly to the EU to change this Directive would not be successful. ... any approach would need to be multi-national. A single national approach would fail...."
However, in what was a heartening summing up of the meeting, the Chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders Association asked for - and readily obtained - the delegates’ support for organising approaches to the EU, through the multi-national European Breeders Association, to get the outdated Directive 1992/35 changed. Please do read the account in full

Thursday 3 July 2008 ~ "a worsening global food and energy crisis pushing more of the world's people into poverty and destabilising economies..".

Reuters reports that the World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, in a letter copied to leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United Nations, has asked the Group of Eight industrial nations and major oil producers urgently to address a worsening global food and energy crisis, saying, "We are entering a danger zone..." Zoellick says the G8 and international community should consider a global reserve system for food emergencies similar to that of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which coordinates the release of emergency oil reserves by member countries.
Ahead of the G8 summit in Japan on July 7-9, Zoellick said 10 billion US dollars will be needed for emergency food aid and to help countries deal with the double impact of rising food and fuel prices. He says that urgent steps need to be taken to get seed and fertilisers to poor farmers, especially in Africa, in time for the next planting season. Read Reuters article.

Wednesday July 2 2008 ~ "... there's no relief in sight... no easy fixes"

Realisation that the end of cheap oil is indeed a grim reality could be seen in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
"..it's not speculators, and there's no relief in sight... no easy fixes. The ugly truth? Peak oil isn't fringe anymore-it's going mainstream..."
However, there still seem to be many who cannot grasp the likely consequences and for whom the "solution" for feeding the population is increased crop yield through genetic modification. While we have no wish to throw the entire biotechnology baby out with the bath water, concerns about the negative health and environmental effects of rDNA technology (e.g.Potential Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods by Stephen Lendman) need to be taken seriously. An increasingly disillusioned electorate may feel that it is mere lip service to democracy to say, as James Paice said on Tuesday, that on the GM foods question, "the ultimate decision must be taken by the consumer."

July 2 ~ Quick fixes come unstuck

Even though the Gallagher report may hedge its bets, Biofuel production has fallen under a cloud. Back in March, the new Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington was reported in the Times:
".... It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to happen as we alleviate poverty..."
While this has been repeated as a much-needed wake-up call about the use of non-food crops, Prof Beddington's view that it is self-evident that poverty can be alleviated seems very optimistic in the present situation. It is the expansion of the earth's population itself - presently on course to grow from 6.5 billion to 9 billion by 2050 - that demands humane and creative solutions.
Unfortunately, whereas social control and the removal of many hard-won civil liberties seems to be able to pass without much outrage, any serious mention of population control elicits the thunderous charge of illiberal thinking, right-wing eugenics - indeed what the New Scientist's Fred Pearce calls, "green fascism". No wonder not a single mention of it was made in Tuesday's debate. Yet, as the Optimum Population Trust said (June 30) in its submission to the Department for Communities and Local Government consultation on eco-towns:
"Without a population strategy, Government faces a long and hopeless rearguard action - reacting to the social and environmental problems resulting from uncontrolled population growth rather than managing for a sustainable future"

July 2 2008 ~ A sustainable food system must be low energy, water conscious and actively involve as many people as possible.

Dr Ian Gibson, in his persuasive arguments in favour of GM crops in Tuesday's debate, said: ".. high food prices will be with us for some time to come. The only response is to increase the food supply.. " He meant that genetic modification has the answer. However, on the notion that we can relax and simply now give full rein to GM crops, one warmwell emailer says today,
"....I am not at all convinced that in times of diminishing oil reserves we should seek to utilise methods so dependent on oil-based products (fertiliser, herbicide etc)"
He went on to say that in the production of herbicide-resistant varieties, if the seed production and the herbicide production lies in the same commercial organisation it is "a bit like having an election with only one candidate".
Since intensive farming equipment is so dependent on fossil fuel for its machinery, transport and non-organic fertilisers, let us instead learn to cultivate our gardens in the most biodiverse way we can, and encourage as fast and as widely spread as possible the human scale gardening and farming that isn't dependent on oil. The methods so happily embraced by UK smallholders, by the Transition movement and other far-sighted ones should now be a source of inspiration to all.

July 1 2008 ~ "...we have a Government who seem obsessed with regulation and centralisation, and who therefore hinder rather than help ...."

There have been on this website several urgent paragraphs in recent weeks about food security and the need for self-sufficiency in what could well be a far more than a temporary crisis. The Food Security debate in the House of Commons yesterday began with a tour de force from James Paice, who clearly understands the present dangers. He feels ,".... there is no reason why we cannot produce enough to meet the significant majority of our needs. We have some of the best land in the world and some of the most technically advanced farmers, but we also have a Government who seem obsessed with regulation and centralisation, and who therefore hinder rather than help those who want to get on with their business."
Read More

July 1 ~ "...... a practical and moral imperative that Great Britain retains the capacity to produce a significant proportion of its own food.."

James Paice's opening statement is worth quoting in full
"That this House notes with concern current food shortages which are believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide; recognises that rising food prices are putting household budgets under increasing strain; believes that with rising global demand and pressure on supply it is both a practical and moral imperative that Great Britain retains the capacity to produce a significant proportion of its own food; notes that UK self-sufficiency in food has declined considerably over the last decade; regrets the Government's failure to accept that domestic production is a necessary condition for food security; and urges the Government to relieve pressure on world markets and ensure the security of domestic food supply by enabling British farmers to optimise food production while preserving the natural environment. ." Read the debate

July 1 2008 ~ Mitchells of Cockermouth is suing Defra for more than £100,000 owed from 2001

Many will recall that one of the many miseries of 2001 was the refusal of DEFRA to settle bills from the contractors who had worked so hard for them during the crisis. Many of the smaller firms who could not meet the costs of taking legal action accepted ridiculously low payments or simply gave up. (relevant pages).
In 2004 JDM Accord was eventually paid the remaining £5m of the £7m cost of creating a burial pit at Ash Moor (it was never used and it cost taxpayers a further £3 million to fill it in again.) In its reluctance to make full payment to the many firms involved, DEFRA spoke of widespread "fraud" - although in the end, of 1,200 cases investigated, the National Audit Office found that only 18 involved allegations of fraud, and six of those had already been dismissed by 2004
Mitchells carried out livestock valuations in 2001. Ever since, they have been in dispute with DEFRA over the level of payment due for this work. Now, seven years later, they will finally take their case to Manchester High Court to try to resolve it. (More) UPDATE July 2 Cumberland News

June 30 2008 ~ Avian influenza protection zone lifted in Oxfordshire

Farming UK "Active surveillance in the area has shown no evidence of disease spread and infection appears to be confined to the one infected premises.
Restrictions associated with the Protection Zone have fallen, including the requirement to house birds, and Surveillance Zone controls have instead applied in the area. Restrictions on bird gatherings and movements of poultry and poultry products are still in place." See below

June 30 2008 ~ Continuing row over eco-towns

The Financial Times reports that its own recent analysis found
"... most of the sites would flout the government's own planning guidelines, drawn up in 2004. Planning officials in most of the locations said the eco-town proposed did not meet the criteria in their region's development strategy. Objections have focused on the greenfield nature of many sites, and the lack of transport links, as well as the difficulty of building homes at a price affordable to first-time buyers...."
The deadline for written responses to the government's initial consultation ends today. The second phase will involve presentations at the 15 sites and in July, the government will publish the draft planning policy statement. There will be a so-called "sustainability appraisal" next month and then the final shortlist of locations will be published in the autumn. Caroline Flint is claiming that the YouGov poll of 1,693 adults in England in which about 46 per cent said they supported eco-towns, with only 9 per cent opposing them, was an indication of "clear support in favour of eco-towns". (See also below)

June 30 2008 ~ " ....the herbicide has now entered the food chain."

It is ironic that gardeners who use manure in order to avoid pour-on chemicals have been so badly affected by herbicide residues. The hormone-based herbicide, aminopyralid, is the subject of yesterday's Observer article. Allotment owners who have used manure that contains traces of the herbicide are reporting distorted potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots and lettuce. There is no remedy.
".....the herbicide has now entered the food chain. .. It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago...probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months...." Observer article
An allotment owner: " .. there doesn't seem to be any protection for us or anything to stop it happening again...."
Dow AgroSciences, the manufacturer of aminopyralid for pastureland, has told allotment holders and gardeners via its website that it was 'safe' to consume vegetables that had come into contact with the manure but that those who have already used contaminated manure should not replant on the affected soil for at least a year. The Allotment.org.uk website editor writes, "....When time-tested safe herbicides like Amcide (ammonium sulphamate) are de-licensed it is galling that a product that can have such devastating long term persistence and transmission via the food chain is approved. ...."

June 28 2008 ~ BSE: the "nonsensical and costly" rules on sheep

That sheep pose no risk in the matter of BSE has been mentioned several times on this website. Ben Bradshaw reported in January 2007 (Hansard) that "....the prevalence of BSE in the UK sheep population is most likely zero, or very low if present at all..." Today, Nigel Miller is quoted in Scotland's Press and Journal saying that although:
"European Food Safety Authority opinions have given the sheep sector a clean bill of health.. we still have the nonsensical and costly requirement that the carcases of sheep over 12 months must be split and spinal cord removed...."
Huge amounts of money continue to fuel an apparently unstoppable juggernaut of senseless regulation. What is the function of both the European and the UK Food Standards Agency that this continues? (More on our scrapie page)

June 27 2008 ~"The issue of regionalisation...

"...whereby Scotland can be isolated from certain disease controls to protect vital export markets, is hugely important to us. ... "But credit to the Scottish Government, which did a lot to help our farmers through an extremely difficult time."...."
The Scotsman today on the subject of foot and mouth and "learning lessons". The article makes some interesting points, particularly about regionalisation - but, as usual, ignores the elephant in the room. See also the Herald

June 27 2008 ~ Oil: The final warning "...Expensive fuel at the pumps is just the start. ...."

Oil has reached 140 dollars a barrel. The article by Ian Sample, the science correspondent for The Guardian, in theNew Scientist this week takes a sober look at the future. The article reminds us how reliant the global oil market is on Saudi Arabia.. If Saudi Arabia cannot increase production - and it is reluctant and perhaps unable to do so - the price rockets. The article quotes Didier Houssin, director of oil markets and emergency preparedness at the IEA: "It's hardly conceivable that the world could function without oil," and Gideon Samid, head of the Innovation Appraisal Group (IAG) at Case Western: "Oil has shaped our civilisation. Without crude oil you'd have no cars, no shipping, no planes."
Extract:
" the oil market so fragile that a few well-placed explosives, an energy-sapping cold winter or an unusually intense hurricane season could send shock waves across the globe .....Last year, ....an explosion in Minnesota shut down part of the 5000-kilometre Enbridge pipeline.... single incident halted one-fifth of US oil imports for days. .."
Gordon Brown knows his own political survival relies on a determination to push through an energy "revolution". He even stated that "... It will require real leadership from government.... It will mean new kinds of consumer behaviour and lifestyles". Yet we see "business as usual" in the form of his blind faith in cheap imports via globalization and continuing growth. This is hardly leading the nation towards the mindshift into localisation and Transition.

June 26 ~"... the amount of power it contributes to our national grid will be so derisory as to scarcely register..."

Giant windfarms are not the same as the small scale harnessing of the wind - when it blows - as advocated by such as Rob Hopkins and the Transition initiatives. They are desperately inefficient and costly. In today's Mail we read:
".. ..Within seven years, due to the obsolescence of the existing nuclear plants (which still supply 20 per cent of our electricity) and the forced closure of nine more coal and oil-fired plants under new EU anti-pollution rules, we stand to lose well over a third of the capacity we need to meet peak demand. ..."
As Christopher Booker says, it's not just that our lights will go out in the energy crisis that is upon us - we could lose the use of the computers now essential for running our offices, supermarkets, hospitals and transport system. Yet, he adds in despair, although the Government still does not have any concrete plans in place to make up the shortfall, it is now "babbling about a massive drive for wind power which could only make this disaster infinitely worse..The only beneficiaries from this madness are the handful of companies now looking forward to a massive bonanza" Read in full on windfarm page

June 26 ~ Mycobacterium bovis transmission between cattle and humans

The diagram that appears on the Health Protection Agency website page) suggests that humans are rather more at risk from the escalating incidence of bovine TB than the information passed to Jonathan Shaw (see below) suggested.

"Cycle of Mycobacterium bovis transmission between cattle and humans. The thickness of the arrows suggests probability. Adapted from Collins and Grange (1987)"

This too is misleading, since cattle to cattle transmission is made to look very significant. In fact, as we see below, cattle-to-cattle transmission is thought to account for just 1-2% of herd breakdowns. The remaining 98-99% of bovine TB is brought in from "other sources" - and the DEFRA Minister himself showed on Tuesday that he knows what that major source is. Diseased badgers need to be euthanised for their own sake as much as for others - but a mass cull would not be necessary if - as the Warwick team suggested in 2006- humane and targeted culling followed the differentiation of clean from diseased setts, using, as they did, available technology. (More on the Btb page)

June 26 2008 ~ "Results from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial show that badgers are the main wildlife reservoir and contribute to bovine TB (bTB) in cattle." Jonathan Shaw

In a Parliamentary Answer on June 24, Mr Shaw clearly stated that badgers are the main wildlife reservoir However, he avoided going on to say badgers are the "main source" choosing instead the word "contribute" - a word that suggests a contribution of any size from miniscule to huge.
As for the risk to humans, his message was that since Government departments "work together to protect the public"... "..no wildlife-specific public health protection measures are necessary. However, advice is available on the HPA website and from local animal health offices if people have concerns.." "Advice" however, is not easy to find on the Health Protection Agency website which, like DEFRA's own, is somewhat labyrinthine. After searching for some time we did find a page specific to bovine TB and humans: Extract:
"....As with M. tuberculosis, transmission is most commonly by the aerosol route but also through the ingestion of milk and meat from infected animals..."
(See www.hpa.org.uk )

June 25 2008 ~ "striking lack of co-ordination" between those funding and those running high containment facilities

Several media today report on the findings of the all-party Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee (This used to be called simply the Science and Technology Committee a perhaps significant name change.) The report looked into biosecurity at government-run high containment laboratories. The Guardian reports: "a serious shortfall in funding for maintenance had to be rectified to prevent another Pirbright-style incident. The accidental release of the foot-and-mouth virus in Surrey led to the slaughter of livestock on surrounding farms and a freeze on the movement of animals, costing farmers millions in lost exports alone. "It is critical that such an incident does not happen again," the report said...."

June 25 2008 ~ The completed report says that the issues of adequate funding, coordination and security must be properly addressed.

An inter-agency body should be set up for
"the strategic planning and coordination of facilities dealing with the highest risk pathogens; long term funding to cover running costs; a single minister to take responsibility for co-ordinating biosecurity; and that all those working with the most deadly pathogens can be reliably security-vetted." (Telegraph)
It was pleasing to hear that the Chairman, Phil Willis, praised the personnel at Pirbright who, as he says, "do a fantastic job, working in the facilities they have got...." However - as we too have mentioned several times, it has been a dangerous false economy for the government to have been so tight-fisted with funding when animal and human welfare are at stake. Some may remember the Sun's somewhat premature headline "Defra not to blame for FMD" back in March when the committee was still in the early stage of asking questions. Phil Willis: "The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease at Pirbright highlights that in the long run, proper regulation, running and maintenance of high containment facilities is considerably cheaper than remedying a breach of bio-containment."

June 26 2008 ~" farming in the hills is rapidly becoming unviable."

Grim reading from Farmers Weekly " Hill farmers in the south-west of England face an uncertain future as Brussels prepares to make further cuts to their support payments as part of its CAP "health check". A new report by the University of Exeter, the Duchy College and Cumulus Consultants concludes that the viability of hill farming, already threatened by years of poor returns, may soon be made worse..."

June 25 2008 ~ "Defra must be stung into action over missing bees"

Telegraph letter today
Sir – Prompted by reports of problems facing bee-keepers, and the apparent indifference of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I conducted a bee survey in my well-stocked garden.
On a warm, sunny day, I found no honey bees at all in this corner of mid-Warwickshire. I have repeated the exercise three times, with the same result. With such a dearth of natural pollinators, what plant species will be under threat in years to come?
When will Defra be stung into action to provide the research that is patently required?
Robin Bussell, Stoneleigh, Warwickshire
More on the alarming decline in bees below

June 23 2008 ~ "ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets..."

An Associated Press article relates how a recent U.S. government exercise in FMD control, "Crimson Sky", ended with "fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets..."
Available portable diagnostic tests are now at such a pitch of rapid efficiency that "running out of bullets" is an obscene notion. Demonstrated to me in the lobby of the Hotel First Euroflat in Brussels last October was a toaster-sized machine using quality-controlled, internationally consistent, standardised reagents and protocols, able to identify FMD before clinical signs appear, giving results within an hour and using GPS and the internet to pinpoint disease for the control centre. After 5 minutes I was trained in its use myself. Such tests were available in 2001 and have been successfully in use for some time now in several former Soviet Bloc countries under the guidance of Dr Roger Breeze. In 2003 Dr Breeze wrote U.S. Agricultural and Food Security: Who Will Provide the Leadership? Who, indeed? Not Professor (Sir) Roy Anderson nor Professor (Sir) David King - still, it seems, trying to persuade anyone who will listen that the carnage and bloody chaos of 2001 was all for the best. (See also below)

June 23 2008 ~ "if foot-and-mouth does get out, what does that mean to these sites?"

In the US, there are still 5 potential locations for the new high-security $451 million laboratory that is to replace the world famous laboratory at Plum Island. If the lab is built in the middle of land where susceptible animals are grazing, what happens in the event of a leak such as happened at Pirbright in 2007? The sixth option would be, of course, to build the new research lab on Plum Island itself.
According to the Associated Press on the subject of the 1,005-page Homeland Security Department report, it is calculated that
".... economic losses in an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease could surpass $4 billion if the lab were built near livestock herds in Kansas or Texas... That would be nearly $1 billion higher than the government's estimate of losses blamed on a hypothetical outbreak from its existing laboratory on Plum Island, N.Y.....The threat from fire and explosion would be diminished for the government's isolated laboratory on Plum Island "due to the low likelihood of any disease getting off of the island...."
See also below

June 21 2008 ~ DEFRA won't help towards Surrey's £250,000 FMD bill.

The BBC reports that Surrey County Council said it was disappointed not to be reimbursed for the hard work put in to stop the spread of the disease. DEFRA retorted that local authorities already had funding for emergencies - forgetting perhaps that six months ago, government funding to local authorities for animal health and welfare was cut by about 12%. DEFRA:
"... Where local authorities act during an emergency, they do so on their own responsibility rather than on the instructions of Defra."
So there we are. It all comes down to responsibility. The leak from Pirbright was not the government's responsibility, urgent funding for Pirbright (see below) was not their responsibility and the huge bill caused by Pirbright's poor state was not the government's responsibility. But what was the government's responsibility was making all the decisions, refusing to vaccinate and turning its deaf ear to expert advice. For the government, "responsibility" means that the costs of their own policies and muddled responses are met by others. Despite the endless stream of regulations making farmers and managers ever more accountable, DEFRA and the government are not, it seems, ever to be held responsible themselves. (This paper shows what would be a saner approach to industry cost sharing and governmental responsibility.)

June 20 2008 ~ "genetically modified food lobby smiling all the way to the seed bank"

Unfortunately the oil and food crisis is giving quick fix solutions a false allure - encouraging what Geoffrey Lean in his article today calls "the increasingly noisy British GM lobby" to assert that GM can feed the world. His article is packed with enough facts and statistics showing that GM is not the answer to world hunger to make one's jaw drop. He writes,
" biotech companies ... have filed for no fewer than 532 patents around the world....these will enable them to monopolise the seeds..charge what they like and, by ensuring the seeds are 'infertile', make farmers buy new ones every year...
... Even some biotech chiefs seem to be admitting the truth. Hans Kast, managing director of the plant science branch of the chemical giant BASF, said: 'Genetically modified agriculture will not solve the world's hunger problem.' "
In spite of its fine words about caution and "upsetting the ecosystem balance" one's heart sinks to read in the FAO statement that "the responsibility for formulating policies towards these technologies rests with the Member Governments themselves...."
If the FAO is waiting for governments to demonstrate a responsible attitude in formulating GM policy one finds oneself muttering, along with Mr Lean, " If I were you, I wouldn't hold your breath." (See also below)

June 20 2008 ~ "Europe is heavily dependent on imports as it does not have enough land to both farm animals and grow the feed they need."

In an article revealing that the Environment minister has held private talks with the biotechnology industry about relaxing Britain's policy on the use of GM crops, Andrew Grice, the Independent's Political Editor in Brussels tells us
"... At a two-day summit in Brussels which began last night, EU leaders were urged to "bite the bullet" and embrace GM products as a solution to rocketing food prices. .... Europe is heavily dependent on imports as it does not have enough land to both farm animals and grow the feed they need. .."
At the end of the article Michael McCarthy's Q and A section we discover that it is only in the developing countries that governments and universities are now working on drought-resistant crop strains. The dominant aim of the big commercial companies is different. It is "is to maximise profits rather than to pull the world out of poverty and hunger". If widely grown in Britain, the present "broad-spectrum" weedkillers used with herbicide-tolerant crops "would have a devastating effect on farmland wildlife".

June 20 2008 ~ "... cattle-to-cattle transmission accounts for just 1-2% of herd breakdowns. The remaining 98-99% of bovine TB is brought in from other sources."

The Farmers Weekly talks of double standards and says, of the CD distributed to farmers "The content leaves no doubt that DEFRA knows how big a problem badger to cattle transmission is. And that has added to the anger and frustration of farmers." (See also bTB page)

June 19 2008 ~ " less central control, not more"...."Let's come back to the community of friendly, effectively cooperating states"

So much grass roots frustration with animal health policies stems from the UK's being forced to accept the "one-size fits all" regulations imposed from Brussels with no democratic mandate and allowing no room for local knowledge and common sense. The EU referendum blogspot today quotes the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, who - like many - appears to wonder which part of the Irish referendum's "No" is so incomprehensible that Gordon Brown insisted the ratification process should continue. As the Telegraph's Iain Martin says today,
"Protesters demanding a referendum were dragged from the gallery of the House of Lords.... Impotent rage is an understandable reaction."
Vaclav Klaus says, "Let's seek a different European model than a supranational state with its seat in Brussels. Let's come back to the community of friendly, effectively cooperating states...." and, showing that, like so many of us, he loves Europe but not the EU, thinks the rejected treaty should be replaced by "a document with a completely different character."

June 19 2008 ~ 30% fewer bees "varroa and foul brood akin to foot and mouth disease in bees..the Government must wake up...."

The average loss of bees this winter was 30 per cent. which is three times the expected level. Something is happening to honey bees across the world as well as the UK. There was an entire debate , on June 17 thanks both to Dr. Ian Gibson, MP for Norwich North, and the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA - see below).
"...The demise of the honey bee...there would be a major impact on the environment and wildlife, which depend on bees to pollinate fruits and seeds for their survival..."
Dr Gibson explained that Lord Rooker had met representatives of the BBKA last December but flatly turned down their request for vital funding. Britain's leading bee virus researcher was made redundant by Rothamsted Research due to lack of follow-on funding from DEFRA. The Department, said Dr Gibson, "has stonewalled the requests of the BBKA, which, as a result, has mounted a public campaign... One can hardly pick up a supplement these days without seeing bees sitting on plants and a discussion of the issues. The Government have to wake up to the green political capital that they could gain by finding the rather modest sums required to bring about a far-sighted programme. .." Read the debate

June 18 2008 ~ "... a strong domestic agricultural industry" and "we do need to respond to changing circumstances." Hilary Benn

How influential for far too long has been the idea that the world population can be sustained by globalisation, big business and cheap imports. The often heard contention that the UK does not really need farming has been deeply worrying. However, these answers to PQs on June 12 suggest that there is now a genuine awareness of the crisis we face. Is this allowing those in DEFRA with good sense to get their voices heard at last?
".....effective risk management and contingency planning, security of energy supplies, access to food from a variety of sources and a strong domestic agricultural industry and food chain and infrastructure." Read Mr Benn's parliamentary answers in full

June 18 ~ "The UK is more self-sufficient in food supply now than we were at the end of the Second World War...."

was the astonishing claim by Hilary Benn in his answers on 12 Jun 2008. He did at least add, "but we do need to respond to changing circumstances". The Lib Dem, Roger Williams, recently mentioned the Government report on food showing that in temperate or indigenous food products UK self-sufficiency has fallen by about 10 per cent over the past 10 years. Since our reduced agricultural output is "putting more strain on world markets and makes us compete with developing countries for that food" we look forward to Hilary Benn's paper later this month on "ensuring food security". Global food shortages have at long last focused attention on the UK's declining ability to feed itself. The Western Morning News recently reported that James Paice wants the Government to ditch its current policy which states that domestic production is "not a necessary condition for food security..."
An NFU spokesman too made a plea for
"a clear acknowledgment of the value of stepping up food production..."
and one hopes to see in Hilary Benn's paper a new commitment to some serious investment in research and development, accompanied by a genuine attack on red tape. The crisis is a real one. As Hamish McRae says in the Independent, "what I think everyone would be agreed on is that the age of easy oil is past". (see also oil page)

June 18 2008 ~ Betty Rowe awarded posthumous honour.

See updated Arapawa goat page. As we read this morning, "the Assisi Medal ....has been bestowed on Betty. She has done so much for her beloved Arapawa goats and it is good to see that she is being recognised for the enormous amount of work and good she has done in the past, and what she was trying to do for their future." The update also contains the warmwell review of Betty's book. Extract: "...in a world that can appal us with its mad cruelty.... After reading this book you may come to feel, as I do, that the goats symbolise something beyond themselves - something worth striving for against all odds."

June 18 2008 ~ " utterly barren conditions... the public would be shocked to see pigs reared in these conditions."

Conditions at pig farms, two of which are operated by "companies run by members of the industry's governing body the British Pig Executive (BPEX), while others were linked to other senior figures in the industry" raise serious concerns, says the front page of the Independent today, about the welfare of the majority of the country's 8 million pigs. This follows undercover investigations carried out by the charity Animal Aid at ten factory farms. Animal Aid has asked the Advertising Standards Authority to ban the advertising campaign run by BPEX and the National Pig Association last year since they believe such images erroneously reassure shoppers that factory farmed pigs are cared for humanely. Peter Stevenson, chief policy officer for Compassion in World Farming, is quoted in the Independent article.
"... it's absolutely classic factory-farming. Pigs are just as lively and curious as any other young animal... so to keep them in utterly barren conditions is immensely harmful to their welfare...."
Jeremy Paxman may have suggested on Newsnight yesterday that to put such a story on the front page was "eccentric" - but animal misery is not only a moral issue, it leads to disease in pigs - which can affect humans. Concern is being voiced in many quarters about MRSA in pigs - and this superbug is one of the most serious health problems for human health too.

June 16 2008 ~ High food prices are here to stay - "the gravest crisis since the oil shock in the 1970s"

Oil hit nearly 140 dollars today (FT) "..... Saudi Arabia may soon have the capacity to pump more oil. But how much the country will chose to bring to the market remains unclear..."
Bloomberg reports that finance ministers from the Group of Eight nations have said in a statement "..Elevated commodity prices, especially of oil and food, pose a serious challenge to stable growth worldwide ..'' - Meanwhile the International Herald Tribune today quotes South Korea's President, Lee Myung-bak, who told finance ministers from 43 Asian and European countries at their one-day meeting in Jeju, South Korea
"It's no overstatement to say that the world is faced with the gravest crisis since the oil shock in the 1970s, with oil, food and raw materials prices skyrocketing..."
One billion people in Asia spend at least 60 percent of their income on food and this poses a real danger of malnutrition. The Ministers at Jeju have agreed on the need to "coordinate policy responses, including increased investment in agriculture and energy and the necessity of maintaining open markets..." However, attempting both to combat inflation and stimulate growth does - as Finance Minister Christine Lagarde of France says - present "paradoxical challenges".

June 16 2008 ~ Paradoxical challenges or tackling the problems?

Few in power seem able to see beyond the present systems that have led to an increasingly grave situation. The oil-powered rush for economic growth brought about a parallel growth of the world's population ( 77 million more of us each year) and a dependency on fossil fuels. Controlling population, examining current mindsets about growth and globalisation - and promoting something approaching self sufficiency again might give us - even at this late stage - a chance to survive without resource wars and the starvation of the most vulnerable. The Transition initiative provides a grass roots starting point for the UK at least.

June 16 2008 ~ bTB "So what of this policy? Where did it have its roots and how was it trialled in the UK?"

This posting on the bovinetb.blogspot following Mr Justice Mitting's extraordinary ruling in April (disallowing the challenge to Defra's refuasal to allow re-tests on cattle) examines the provenance and "testing" of the gamma interferon (gIFN) bovine TB test
".... in the bizarre world inhabited by Defra, a postive result means the chop. .... Mr. Justice Mittings described Defra's decision to slaughter the animals as "not only lawful but mandatory". Mandatory under EU law, based on a small "pilot study" which excluded or ignored results which it did not expect? Rock solid science then...."
Farmers were reassured that the test would be subject to "flexible in interpretation", but one vet many of whose clients had been cajoled into using the gammaIFN test, says of it
"...while we leave a maintenance reservoir in badgers, there is no place for it, and when that has been cleared, there is no need for it..."
After its use, he says, all of the farms affected by the gamma test suffered continued breakdowns as the reservoir in wildlife was totally unaffected. None of the farmers would let it be used again.

June 16 2008 ~ Even a closed herd does not protect cows from DEFRA's rules

A closed herd is thought a good way to help protect cattle from infectious disease. No cattle enter the farm either by purchase or loan, and resident cattle do not make contact with any cattle from other farms - yet it was from a closed herd that the mother of the suckling heifer calf, shown on the WMN report today, came. Her test was positive. She was slaughtered. The photo showing the hand-reared calf illustrates what happens when suspect cows are slaughtered by DEFRA's rules. WMN says, "In the week that a long-awaited Defra announcement on badger culls is expected, the calves' owner, Jilly Greed, has joined desperate farmers in calling for "radical" action to control the spread of the disease and avoid more heartbreaking scenes like this."

June 16 2008 ~ Just 70 colony forming bTB bacteria are needed to infect a cow. A badger with kidney lesions can excrete up to 300,000 cfu of bacteria in just 1ml of urine

The mantra of gamma's 'early detection' was blown apart when Defra slaughtered Tony Yewdall's cows - only to find that of over 400 cattle piled up, just 6 had visible signs of disease after waiting in limbo for the best part of eight months. (See also bovinetb.blogspot.com/2008/05/early-detection-potential-of-gammaifn.html) and Jonathan Shaw's recent answer to Mr Clifton-Brown's Parliamentary Question is heartbreakingly misleading - as we point out below. One of the authors of the bovinetb blog writes, "The answer to the PQ is that 18.6% of cattle slaughtered as positive gammaIFN reactors are either found to have VL or be culture positive, or both whereas approx 50 per cent of skin test positive animals are found to have VLs or are culture positive.
As Colin Fink says, the location of any lesions (lymph glands or lungs for example) and their state of closed / walled up or open, will influence onwards transmission. Cattle and deer can have huge open lesions containing very few cf (colony forming) bacteria, whereas badgers are the opposite. Kidney lesions, sputum and bite wounds are absolutely loaded. Our PQs dragged out of Defra that a badger with kidney lesions can excrete up to 300,000 cfu of bacteria in just 1ml of urine. They void 30ml at a time, indiscriminately over grassland, and use the mechanism for scent marking and 'fright / flight' spraying. Just 70 cfu are needed to infect a cow. That's infect as opposed to provoke skin test reaction. Just 70. We were shocked and asked in a different way. Same answer. WMD?"

June 14 2008 ~ Vets "just walking away from large animal work..." Nick Blayney

We read in the Press and Journal (Scotland) that the President of the BVA points out the illogicality of a government which cuts the profession off from making money from vet medicines and yet expects it to give its services cheap for vital surveillance work of benefit to all.
"Some vets are making less than the minimum wage to undertake testing and this is not acceptable. If government determines that the profession should not subsidise services from the sale of drugs then it cannot expect vets to subsidise the routine testing of livestock for reasons of human health, or from other services within their practices."
Livestock farmers, having to contend with rocketing fuel prices, huge increases in feed costs and all the depressed profits caused by the UK policies on such animal illnesses as foot and mouth and bluetongue, are now thinking twice before calling out a vet. Disastrously little has been done since, back in 2003, the EFRA Select Committee called on the government to provide incentives for students to become large animal vets. Where vets are now not regularly going onto farms, the routine surveillance they used to do while there is simply not happening.

June 14 2008 ~ "Small abattoirs are a key part of the rural community.."

Without enough vets prepared to undertake tests on farms, surveillance for disease cannot take place. Where is the joined-up thinking on meat safety? Welsh Assembly rural affairs minister Elin Jones, has pledged to do whatever she can, in the face of FSA proposals on raising the costs of veterinary inspections of animals and carcasses, to keep the smaller local slaughter houses from having to close. As the Farmers Guardian reports, she will try to do so even if this means providing Wales-only support if the Westminster Government continues to seem unaware of the problems.
"... She was responding to fears expressed by Brian George, who runs a small slaughterhouse at the rear of his butcher's shop in Talgarth and whose current meat hygiene charges of around £5,000 a year could soar to as much as £25,000 if Food Standards Agency proposals get the go ahead later in the year..."
Another abattoir owner quoted recently estimates he has spent more than £50,000 upgrading his abattoir to conform with new regulations. Yet current inspection bills of £800-900-a-week could double if the new regime is implemented. A clear, unequivocal acknowledgement by the Westminster government of the value of local food production - including inducements for vets to take on farm work and on-site surveillance - would be enormously helpful in indicating that the current food, energy and environmental crises are at least partially understood by those who impose such charges and regulations.

June 13 2008 ~ Why is DEFRA not heeding expert advice on the desperately important subject of bovine TB but instead giving partial and muddled information to its Minister?

Mr. Clifton-Brown asked in a Parliamentary Question on Wednesday, " what percentage of cows receiving positive (a) gamma interferon blood tests and (b) skin tests for bovine tuberculosis were subsequently demonstrated to be clear of the disease at post mortem in each of the last five years. [Hansard PQ 208239]
Jonathan Shaw:
" It is a misconception that failure to find post-mortem evidence of bovine TB in animals that have previously had a positive reaction to a TB test means such animals are clear of the disease..."
Not quite such a misconception as Mr Shaw implies, actually. We are told by an expert microbiologist this morning, "In cattle many will have met the infection and will have a few organisms walled off somewhere. That does not make them infectious, nor does it make their milk or meat infectious. But they will have positive skin tests and possibly positive interferon tests. So as our testing system is so poor and does not properly discriminate between sero-converted (positive on skin test) and truly active infection, we are culling perfectly good animals."
Below is what the expert informed us in full....

June 13 2008 ~... "The great irony is that those with rampant infection (similarly in humans) do not produce any antibodies or white cell response and their skin tests will remain negative"

The microbiologist, Dr Colin Fink, writes,
"M.Bovis like M. Tubercle hide in host tissues and surrounds itself with a host tissue reaction which attempts to wall off the organism and keep it out of harm's way. You and I will have some in our lungs (Tubercle) which causes us no trouble, but could possibly re emerge if we were immunosuppressed.
We would have positive skin tests but that does not mean we have TB that is of any significance. We have met the infection.
In cattle many will have met the infection and will have a few organisms walled off somewhere. That does not make them infectious, nor does it make their milk or meat infectious. But they will have positive skin tests and possibly positive interferon tests. So as our testing system is so poor and does not properly discriminate between sero-converted (positive on skin test) and truly active infection, we are culling perfectly good animals. The great irony is that those with rampant infection (similarly in humans) do not produce any antibodies or white cell response and their skin tests will remain negative although on post mortem they may be filled with lesions and be generally highly infectious carriers."
He concludes that we need to come up with a better test or continue culling perfectly good animals - "which to my mind," he says,"is a sad waste and we could do better."

June 13 2008 ~ Bird Flu surveillance: DEFRA says "THROW THE SEVEN DEAD SWANS IN THE BIN"

One does rather wonder about the effectiveness of the avian flu surveillance programme. The carcasses of seven dead swans were found floating in the river in the region of Caernarfon castle on Wednesday. DEFRA's first advice to the Harbour Master, Richard Jones, who reported that he had bagged the bodies safely, was to throw them away in bins since the government would not test for bird flu in cases involving less than 10 dead wild birds. Seven dead swans in the water raised no alarm bells, it seems.
According to the Daily Post it was thought that foam in the river could possibly have caused the deaths. Mr Jones is quoted:
"I am obviously worried... I probably would be more alarmed but Defra and the Environment Agency are not taking it seriously....I reported it to the Environment Agency but I haven't heard anything since. You would have thought it would warrant further investigation."
Later yesterday, however, Mr Jones was telephoned by "Defra's chief veterinary officer", presumably Nigel Gibbens, asking for the swans to be taken out of the bins again. He was told that they would be collected today.
UPDATE from VLA via ProMed July 2 2008 "The carcases of 8 mute swans (_Cygnus olor_) from Caernarfon, North Wales, were examined at post mortem by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency Diseases of Wildlife Scheme (VLA DoWS). The swan carcases had signs of severe trauma, with skin, soft tissue and bony damage, and haemorrhage. Radiography failed to reveal any evidence of bullet fragments and the trauma was suspected to be due to predator attack."

June 12 ~ Forty-two cheers for the personal and principled stand of David Davis.

In resigning today, the shadow home secretary said the 42-day law was a "monstrosity" and part of the "government's slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms". Haltemprice and Howden, his East Yorkshire constituency, will now have a by-election. The Lib Dems will not be putting up a candidate to oppose him. This breaking news has nothing to do with food safety or animal health - but warmwell's regular readers are likely to share our delight and admiration. As Simon Jenkins wrote last week, "The bill installing 42-day detention without charge... with the full weight of government whipping behind it. ..is equalled in almost no other free country and backed by almost no one in Britain's judicial or security establishments."
Latest on Google News.
".... at least my electorate and the nation, as a whole, would have had the opportunity to debate and consider one of the most fundamental issues of our day," said Mr Davis. speech in full And the video made by Liberty, "Charge or Release" with Simon Callow can be seen online at MySpace. See also http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2008%20June.htm#Irish

June 12 ~ "as terrifying a problem as our politicians have ever faced"

Christopher Booker's article in yesterday's Mail warns of " the real energy crisis far worse than the widespread blackouts which recently - largely unreported - blacked out half-a-million UK homes". Britain is set to lose nearly half its electricity in six years"
"..We are no longer talking just about factories shutting down or lighting our homes with candles. Without computers, our entire economy would grind to a halt.."
While the Government now wants to build a new generation of nuclear power stations
"...with such a worldwide demand for new nuclear power, what chance is there that even EDF could provide enough reactors to meet our needs, when building each new one might take ten years or more? .... Incredibly, we are 'obliged' by the EU, within 12 years, to generate no less than 38 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources.... we have no hope of achieving even a fraction of that target ...."
As Mr Booker says, the need to avert the worst consequences of sudden power down must be put right at the top of our national political agenda - (and after our daily Cassandra-like outpourings, it is good to see the mainstream press beginning at last to voice the same urgent concerns.)

June 12 ~ "They can't quite say 'peak' in so many words. They don't want to rock the boat."

Most mainstream newspaper articles about the serious consequences of the end of cheap energy do, however, tend to leave the really bad news until far into the article. Today's Independent today on the subject of peak oil is hardly an exception. " it seems hard to believe that the world could really be running low on easy oil..." But as the article proceeds we see that geologists, market analysts and oil prospectors believe that the peak oil scenario is becoming reality. Colin Campbell and Matthew Simmons are no longer regarded as "wacky radicals" and Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review is quoted:
"You can just about struggle through to 2011, if everything goes to plan - which, of course, it won't - ..."
And here is Colin Campbell on the major oil companies: "They can't quite say 'peak' in so many words. They don't want to rock the boat."
The "most notable peak oil refusnik", says the article, is the International Energy Agency - but even the IEA (as we reported below on May 22) has decided to review how it sources its data on oil reserves.

June 12 2008 ~ "..an inconvenient way to end the world."

The Independent article ends with both optimism and pessimism. Matthew Simmons: "Local farms are now coming back," he says. "We have all the technology in place to do that." According to Colin Campbell, a wholesale change in the western lifestyle is going to be needed - and soon.
"Cities will face massive challenges," he says. "By the end of the century, when there really isn't very much oil left, the world will be a very different one - much more rural, probably with fewer people. It's a sort of doomsday message, but in some ways, it's just a change from the modern mindset. There are people in the world who live a simple life like that and are very happy."
But if our leaders continue to carry on as if there were no looming crisis "If we don't make changes, we're going to have a resource war and blow ourselves up," says Simmons. "I think that would be a really inconvenient way to end the world... At some point, some politician has got to come out and state clearly that the world is going to be different...."

June 12 2008 ~ "Though the rich world's governments won't hear it...there is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield."

The current Smallholders Online newsletter ( No. 251 which also contains a kind article about this website) links to the Guardian article by George Monbiot that shows how...
"a recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are 20 times as productive as farms of more than 10 hectares. Sen's observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere... it works even in countries such as Brazil, where the biggest farmers have grabbed the best land..." Read in full
Monbiot says that "..Big business is killing small farming. By extending intellectual property rights over every aspect of production, and by developing plants that either won't breed true or don't reproduce at all, big business ensures that only those with access to capital can cultivate."
The assumption that efficiency can happen only on a large scale is confounded by such articles. Leaving out the human equation - the feeling of ownership, pride in the land and responsibility for it - has led us into a situation where, for the past 30 or 40 years, we have dismantled localised food production. It is going to be a difficult but urgent task to try to reverse this.

June 11 2008 ~ Oil price rise - ominous warnings of things to come

The Independent today, "The chief executive of the world's largest energy company has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit $250 per barrel "in the foreseeable future....
...the regional government of Catalonia enacted an emergency action plan to bring in fresh food and fuel supplies after nearly half of its forecourts ran dry and supermarkets shelves were left bare. The situation was the result of the second day of an "indefinite" nationwide strike staged by lorry drivers in Spain seeking their government's help to contain the effects of expensive petrol. Scattered protests by drivers and fisherman in France and Portugal also continued yesterday." One result of all this is that Germany cannot vaccinate against bluetongue. See Bluetongue page.

June 10 2008 ~ the nation's best interest in terms of food security and agriculture...

In today's icwales.co.uk we see that Gareth Vaughan, president of the Farmers' Union of Wales, says that
• food security must be a top priority in the face of landslide changes in the global economy, and
• European and UK politicians should get rid of the outdated concepts that dominate the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organisation.
Mr Vaughan wondered how the Commission and members of the Council of Agriculture Ministers would react even if the recommendations were adopted by the European Parliament,.
"Unfortunately, the track record of our own Defra ministers on such issues is not good...."

June 10 2008 ~ Defra has just (June 9) launched a consultation on the EC proposals for the "Health Check" of the CAP - discussions began in Brussels nearly three weeks ago

This twelve-week consultation is due to close on 1 September 2008 - but, as Ruud Peyes points out,
" the discussion in Brussels started at the 20th of May.... the UK was not present at all at an important EU ministerial meeting where the first salvos about the Health Check were fired .."
Last week Jim Paice was indeed furious that no one from DEFRA "bothered to attend a meeting where the future of European agriculture was being determined." Quoted in the WMN he said, "The UK should be at the forefront of these talks on the CAP, food security, biofuels and environmental protection, not just to promote the interests of British farming, but to ensure that EU policy most effectively responds to the challenges of rising food prices and the increasing strain on our natural resources. ....." DEFRA seems to have been unmoved: "Ministers play a full and active role in CAP reform, regularly attending meetings where the issue is discussed," said the spokesman. One wonders how far such regular attendees are also pushing for the removal of "the outdated concepts that dominate the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organisation".

June 10 2008 ~ Energy. It is not just the scale of the increase, it is the speed with which it is happening.... "cheap and plentiful energy will never return"

In 2003, the UK was a net exporter of gas; now, almost 40 per cent of gas for the UK has to be imported through the pipelines from Belgium and the Netherlands, or from Norway. The price is largely determined by the price of oil, because, as the FT explains, most gas in Europe is sold on long-term contracts at prices linked to oil and oil products. Oil reached more than $139 a barrel for US crude on Monday. The FT article says.
"The rise in wholesale gas prices meant that it was now "inevitable" energy bills would be increased, "barring a massive plunge in oil prices", said one big energy supplier. "It is not just the scale of the increase, it is the speed with which it is happening. The whole industry is going to be impacted."
There is "little hope for relief", says the Independent today "...Energy industry executives have become increasingly vocal about the need for further price rises. They are trying to persuade users around the world to get used to the fact that cheap and plentiful energy will never return."

June 10 2008 ~ Cheap supermarket food was a gift from "cheap and plentiful energy" . What now?

Cassandra's unwelcome predictions are these: We shall soon - with something approaching disbelief at our complacency - be looking back to a time when shoppers took cars, fridges and freezers for granted, happy to pay more for convenience food and for the convenience of supermarket parking. The end of cheap energy means the end of much we assumed would last for ever. Soon everyone will want to be able to shop and work locally. We will want raw materials not products. Powercuts and high energy prices will mean an end to easy commuting, suburban living, gadgets and home appliances - and especially the cheap transport that has fed us and which looks increasingly set to disappear. For how long are the imports upon which the UK has come to depend going to be there? Can people cooperate in using whatever land remains to grow food? A return to the land en masse is going to be vital if we are to come close to feeding the population. But intensive farming has left so few of us with agricultural skills. As the Ecologist pointed out in 2005, it is somewhat harder to start farming organically than it is to follow the instructions on the back of a packet of Monsanto pesticide.

June 9 2008 ~ Newsnight interview with Caroline Flint "confirmed my worst fears" says warmwell reader

"eco-towns" must surely join - as one emailer says "- other oxymorons of New Labour: polyclinics, animal welfare, weapons of mass destruction ..." At least 2,000 protesters have marched three miles against one of the Government's proposed so-called eco-towns at Ford, near Arundel, in West Sussex. Ford is not a brownfield site. 87% of the land is greenfield farmland - i.e. land actively used for agriculture that can grow local food.
We have looked, with sinking heart, at the issue of eco-towns before. In April (Top-down does not work) we wrote how dispiriting it was to read :
"Ministers have drawn up plans to force through the development of 10 eco-towns despite widespread local opposition..." Telegraph
As Charles Clover , too, wrote in the Telegraph, "The fact remains that it would be more eco-friendly not to build these eco-towns at all."
Caroline Flint on Newsnight can be seen and heard on BBC iPlayer until Friday and one does not have to be a local resident to spend a moment registering protest at yet another undemocratic and unhelpful piece of greenwash. If you would care to sign the Downing St online petition go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/No-Ford-Eco-Town/ (new window)

June 9 2008 ~ "the era of cheap and plentiful food was effectively declared over.... ..."

"..the world seems to be entering a grim new age of scarcity. ." says Today's Times
". .. Last week, ministers and officials from around the world met in Rome to confront a looming world crisis after the era of cheap and plentiful food was effectively declared over.... Last week a panel of leading global experts convened by Goldman Sachs in London to confront the "Top Five Risks" to global prosperity sounded the alert that catastrophic water shortages could prove an even bigger danger to the human race than depletion of energy supply and deficient food supplies..."
The article makes it sound as though this is all new and a huge surprise. But now that someone of the status of Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), is arguing that new thinking is required, business journalists at least are beginning to sit up and take notice.
The article continues, "we are only now beginning to glimpse the trials that lie ahead, but as they become clearer, the premium on policymakers taking tough and wise decisions will rise as sharply as the prices of resources. We must hope that our leaders can grasp these challenges before we all run out of road." (see also warmwell's oil pages, updated since early in 2004)

Monday 8 June ~ "... if the lab comes to Kansas it will be surrounded by agricultural production.." says professor at Kansas State

Kansas State University (like Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas) is still very keen to have the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, the $451 million lab that is to replace Plum Island. According to www.kansas.com a decision on the site is expected later this year, and the new lab could be operating by 2013. The head of the university's Political Science Department, is quoted: "... There are a few people with qualms about it."
Before it happened in 2007, few had any qualms about a possible virus escape at Pirbright - but the GAO report seems ready to learn the lessons of that traumatic episode - as see below.
". ... there will always be some risk of a release from any biocontainment facility, most of the experts we spoke with told us that an island location can provide additional protection..."
It seems to many of us incredible, that the US, like the UK, seems unable to let go of the mindset of mass kill in the event of FMD. But a reluctance to use available technology to protect and prevent means that an escape from a mainland lab could, as at Pirbright, be disastrous for the animals and farmers in the vicinity and beyond. (More on FMD vaccination. More on rapid on-site diagnostic technology)

Monday 8 June ~ the crisis in food and fuel prices

The UN secretary-general's recent warnings that the crisis in food and fuel prices "could trigger a cascade of other multiple crises.." must surely encourage us to expect more government talk - not the daft sabre rattling towards oil rich countries or the whipping up of fear of terrorism at the expense of civil liberties - but of urgent population control, food localisation and self sufficiency. This includes the need to put effective disease control before short term profits. The government excuse for inaction seems to be that they do not want to start a panic - but local people's ingenuity and creativity planning creates responsibility not fear - and initiatives such as those encouraged by Stroud Council (see below), work from the grass roots up and are very, very cheering.
As Richard Heinberg so wisely says,
"Rebuilding our oil-dependent transport, agricultural and manufacturing infrastructure is going to be a big job, and it's going to take time. So the sooner we start, the better."
FT today: "The cost of renting ships that transport key raw materials.. have risen to all-time highs....oil at record levels, food prices at highs and warnings from central bankers... ..."
The sooner the better indeed.

June 9 2008 ~ Stroud District Council staff will join in five days of environmentally friendly travel activities as part of Green Transport Week (14th - 22nd June).

www.stroud.gov.uk"Its workforce, which is close to 600, will be encouraged to car-share, or ditch their cars and walk or cycle on their daily commute. The council hopes that other businesses will follow suit.
Some members of staff have already taken up the challenge and a number of people cycle to work come rain or shine. With an estimated four million people in the UK currently using their cars to drive less than three miles to work, travelling to work by bike is a realistic cheap and healthy alternative to using a car..
To support car sharing the council has created a car share database for employees... ." (More)

June 7 2008 ~ "a relocalisation of society around local, sustainable economies - or complete social disintegration "

Independent A letter today from Professor Chris Rhodes Extract
" Sir: It seems highly likely that the inexorable hike in oil-prices does indeed reflect proximity to the point, if not of "peak" production.... Now it is a geological, not a political problem, and cannot be solved simply by policy or economics.
....we are in for some very tough times now: trying to implement new, sustainable energy sources against the backdrop of conventional energies most likely being unable to hold fast against existing demand, let alone meet the flow of bringing new technologies on stream. .. .Transportation will be the first use of energy to go, with the happiest scenario being a relocalisation of society around local, sustainable economies; or complete social disintegration, at worst. I try to remain optimistic that the former outcome will prevail, but without clear government policy - from any government in the nations of the world - how can it?.."
Read in full - and see also warmwell's peak oil pages on this site since early 2004.

June 7 2008 ~ "The urgency of this blows away this sort of vague worry about global warming..."

As Matthew Simmons says, "...If energy weren't very important then it wouldn't matter that you have a need for 100 and a supply of 70. But since energy is the one thing that makes our entire global economy work ... when you start having that sort of mismatch, the bullies get to the front of the line and take it first. The urgency of this blows away this sort of vague worry about global warming: I don't know anybody who thinks that's an issue that will affect our lives in the next 15 or 20 years. If we don't solve this in 10 years, it's too late."
An article in the Spectator looks at a new book by Lawrence Soloman entitled The Deniers, "in which he shows that not only is the fabled climate change ‘consensus' itself a sham but the so-called MMGW ‘deniers' are by far the more accomplished and distinguished scientists than those pushing the theory as a settled and incontrovertible truth..."
One comment beneath it notes:
".... governments are about to spend hundreds of billions on the basis of this unproved hypothesis. Already vast carbon trading schemes are in operation,selling...nothing. We are about to have vastly expensive wind power farms planted all over the country......one hell of an unproved hypothesis ...."
Read Spectator article

June 6 2008 ~ H7N7 was the influenza serotype which caused an outbreak in the Netherlands in 2003 resulting in mass killing on 255 infected farms and 1094 surrounding premises

31 million birds were killed, including pets. In the Shenington farm (any idea that their 25,000 birds are free-range must surely be fanciful, see picture), sickness was first noted 2 weeks ago with mild clinical disease. Marked clinical disease in 2 sheds was then observed on 31 May 2008. No real-time PCR was carried out, it seems, until 5 June. ProMED-mail carries the OIE report and press coverage. And see below for the first report of the outbreak.
Debora MacKenzie, writing in the New Scientist says, "H7 is no H5N1, with its death rate of nearly two-thirds, even if it isn't as safe as Defra wants us to think. But what is creepy is that H7 is acquiring a liking for people..... It wouldn't be the first virus to discover an evolutionary advantage in harming human health. Some scientists I know are as worried about H7 as they are about H5."
It is surely short-sighted as well as unethical, to choose on economic grounds mass killing over vaccination for serious animal diseases when, as the NS article implies, viruses can so quickly mutate to find ready hosts among the ever-expanding human population.

June 6 2008 ~ "If you wanted to stick your head in the sand this week and believe that business as usual was an option..."

"....then you would have been delighted to see a number of reports heralding a new North Sea oil boom and also to hear of the huge Bakken reserves sitting under the US (see this week's Guest Commentary). The kind of desperation which restates known resources as a reason for optimism is perhaps understandable, but it doesn't alter the facts. The North Sea will remain in decline, and every day we consume more oil than we discover...." ODAC Newsletter - Published on 6 Jun 2008 by Oil Depletion Analysis Centre

June 6 2008 ~ Seize the day - not perpetuate the insanity of yesterday

WMN article on Wednesday:
"considerations about the environment, animal welfare and traceability may no longer take precedence, as consumers will shop with their wallets rather than following their emotions..."
Hardly "emotional", surely, to be concerned by emerging zoonoses and by the soil erosion caused by the stresses of agribusiness. That we have, like the Red Queen in Alice, been running insanely after more and more growth in order even to stand still, is threatening the planet with starvation.
" What are the alternatives to imports from environmentally damaging, industrialised farm systems? Are there possibilities for large-scale domestic food production?" asks the WMN article. Its answer, alas, mainly consists of this: "The biotech companies are using the same argument as the pro-nuclear lobby, that if we wish to continue our present lifestyle, there are no other alternatives, either for feeding ourselves or supplying energy."

June 6 2008 ~ Others see progress differently ...

Rob Hopkins is surely right when he says of the highly successful Transition movement, "...people are hungry for positive solutions which engage their creativity." And as Richard Heinberg says,
"crisis equals opportunity - for those who are prepared to seize the day. Unless sensible plans to manage disaster are formulated and put forward now, the opportunity afforded by crisis will be hijacked by a familiar cast of characters.."
It is a timely warning. (Is it only the Green Party who dare to talk about population control, the localisation of food and genuinely weaning ourselves off oil? Portugal's economics Minister (see Guardian) is adamant: "Energy and environment are the biggest challenge of our generation. ..The present situation is dangerous." )

June 5/6 2008 ~ "if creating energy security means taking land from poor farmers it just causes more problems"

The Independent today reports on the growing worry about biofuels at the Rome conference - even the "wonder plant" Jatropha. Defenders of biofuels made from non-edible crops have cited Jatropha as a way for poor farmers to produce fuel for themselves, and as a cash crop, by planting it on waste land. "But," says the article, "what's happening is quite different from that. A handful of big corporations are growing jatropha in huge plantations, in optimum soil conditions and using a lot of water, to maximise the yield. Poor farmers who grow it on impoverished soil find they can't get into the market."

June 5 2008 ~ Oxfordshire bird flu is H7N7

DEFRA's update today says that Protection (3km inner zone) and Surveillance Zones (10km outer zone) have replaced the Temporary Control Zone established on 3 June around the premises. The same restrictions that applied there remain in place including, in the Protection Zone, "the housing or otherwise isolation from contact with wild birds".
One comment from Alan Beat in the Smallholders online newsletter 250 (click here to receive copy) is:
".... as usual the outbreak is on a large intensive poultry unit, while the media are happy to print the usual suggestion that the infection is spread by wild birds! (question - I wonder how it managed to fly into a chicken shed in the centre of England without infecting anywhere else en-route ...?"
The high density poultry producers, whose way of producing cheap protein is considered unethical by a growing number of consumers, create conditions in which the virus can spread. In the Bernard Matthews Holton outbreak wild birds were blamed first, and then, when it became evident that even the flawed hygiene at Holton could hardly account for what had happened, Hungary's biosecurity became the scapegoat. Although close to being prosecuted for breaches in hygiene regulations, Bernard Matthews was at last awarded compensation to the tune of £600,000. Testing was not complete until 14 days after the Bernard Matthews plant was re-opened. (Chronological account)
UPDATE Roger from Wiltshire writes: " Alan Beat is correct of course. I saw the video on the BBC TV News. They said that the birds were free range. Yes, 25,000 of them. They take some catching. Can you imagine the chaos catching them to be " humanely" put down ? Also, they said that this strain of bird flu is similar to conjunctivitis - runny eyes. Don't think I've known of anything put down for this complaint before, man nor beast."

June 5 2008 ~ ".... I am sure that vaccine would break the transmission cycle - even in high density flocks."

The UK has sat on its hands on the issue of vaccination for bird flu - and even though Intervet has produced a licensed vaccine Nobilis® Influenza H7N1, producers in the UK who care about and want to protect their birds are prohibited from doing so. Indeed, DEFRA's Bird Flu information page makes no mention of vaccination at all. Back in February 2007, Dr Colin Fink of Micropathology wrote
".... I am sure that vaccine would break the transmission cycle even in high density flocks. Vaccine for all the smallholders' birds would be very effective in preserving them clinically well and in lower density flocks transfer of wild type virus would be minimal or none. It is theoretically possible to have a small replication of virus in any succesfully vaccinated individual after vaccination. But we do not look because the criterion for successful vaccination is maintenance of good health of the individual and also the failure of 'wildtype' to gain a foothold. What we are concerned about is whether any individual can then act as a vector for the disease. That is very unlikely in a vaccinated flock. Which is the 2nd reason for vaccination.." More
The short time birds spend alive in the highly lucrative bird flesh factories perpetuates the UK's resistance to vaccinate against bird flu. The bird flu virus - unlike the unfortunate poultry - is thus free to circulate.

June 3 2008 ~ H7 bird flu on a farm in Oxfordshire - all are being slaughtered

The BBC says
"Chickens on a farm in Oxfordshire have tested positive for bird flu, Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel Gibbens says. All birds on the premises, near Banbury, are being slaughtered. The birds have been confirmed with the H7 strain of the disease, rather than highly virulent H5N1 strain, regarded as a potential threat to human health."
Tests are being conducted to determine the virulence of the H7 strain and a temporary control zone ( 3km (1.8-mile) inner zone and a 10km (6.2-mile) outer zone) is being set up around the farm. Birds with the H7 avian influenza virus can infect humans, as was demonstrated in the Netherlands in 2003. That outbreak resulted in 30 million birds being culled. On 11 May 2007 Intervet received approval for its bird flu vaccine Nobilis® Influenza H7N1. Thus, Europe has had a licensed vaccine to protect birds against the H7 field strain for a over a year. Once again in the UK, however, we slaughter en masse and cause disruption and anxiety to free-range bird keepers rather than protect birds by the pre-emptive use of vaccines. If H7 vaccine for birds is never ordered then we can never use it. Comment gratefully received.

June 3 2008 ~ Why is it not possible to find 30 billion dollars a year to allow 862 million hungry people to feed themselves?

In an impassioned speech at the opening of the Rome world food crisis Summit, the FAO Director-General, Jacques Diouf , has appealed to world leaders. See UN's reliefweb website. Extract:
"... in 2006 the world spent US$1 200 billion on arms while food wasted in a single country could cost US$100 billion and excess consumption by the world's obese amounted to US$20 billion.
".. how can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find US$30 billion a year to enable 862 million hungry people.."
The crisis was, he said, a 'chronicle of disaster foretold'. He found it "incomprehensible" that subsidies worth 11-12 billion US dollars in 2006 were used to turn cereals from human consumption into biofuel. He also deplored that in these days of globalization there has been
"no significant investment in the prevention of a long list of major trans-boundary animal diseases, starting with Newcastle and foot-and-mouth diseases"
In 2006 alone in the OECD countries, 372 billion US dollars were used to support agriculture and thus distort world markets.
As this website has come to realise over the past seven years, greed for profits and protectionism blinds itself to all other considerations - even human hunger and animal welfare.

June 2 2008 ~ "...regular contact with stakeholders, and being as open as possible about current and future policy-making, has contributed to creating a climate of trust" CVO report 2007 (page 21)

The pdf file Animal Health 2007 The Report of the Chief Veterinary Officer has quietly arrived on the DEFRA website today. Topics covered in the 2007 report include bovine TB ("Defra aims to work in partnership with interested organisations to bring about a sustainable improvement in control of the disease by 2015...") the outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease ("A great deal has been done since 2001 on building relationships with a wide range of non-governmental organisations...".) Avian Flu ("Defra's contingency plan was implemented effectively to control the outbreak...") and Bluetongue ("..there is a real concern that the disease will become more widespread and enter Wales..") and progress on the UK's Responsibility and Cost Sharing Programme ("Significant progress has been made in 2007 to take the responsibility and cost sharing agenda forward...")
"a challenging year due to the combined impact of Avian Influenza, Bluetongue and Foot and Mouth Disease," says the Foreward, signed by Fred Landeg. In the sole reference to her in the report, he expresses gratitude to " in particular, our former Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Debby Reynolds." (Link to pdf report)

June 2 2008 ~ German dairy farmers using tractors in milk protest

- the German farmers of several states say the protests will continue until farmers have secured their goal of a farm-gate price of 43 euro cents a litre, compared with current prices between 27 and 35 cents. Other European countries - Austria, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands - have also begun to throw away their milk rather than let it reach processing plants. According to Monsters and Critics.com Germany's national farmers' union does not support the boycott, contending that the European Union should export more milk.

June 2 2008 ~ Meanwhile, Angela Merkel is going to encourage the G8 leaders to to adopt a common approach to combating the rise in global food prices

when it next meets in Hokkaido, Japan, on 7-9 July. Mr Fukuda, the Japanese PM said (see BBC) the food situation would top the summit's agenda. The BBC quotes him;
"Food-producing countries no longer have sufficient stocks and are therefore trying to export less. ...we have to sit down as the international community and come up with short-term relief measures."
But as long term measures he says he wants richer nations to help poorer counterparts, particularly in Africa. They should ".. export seed and know-how to those countries who need it." Both he and Angela Merkel agree that biofuels as an alternative energy source must not be allowed to affect food crop cultivation.
The UK government, hitherto so evidently and so blandly uninterested in the farming sector, and putting its faith on an everlasting ability to import cheap food from the very countries that are now feeling the pinch, must surely reconsider the meaning of food security and the urgent advisability of greater self sufficiency. See below

June 2 2008 ~ "Pollination, largely by honey bees, contributes £165 million a year to the agricultural economy." Last winter one in five colonies perished.. but there is no commitment to funding

An article in the Mail on Sunday by Vince Cable echoes a growing concern about the global decline of bees. " A mystery plague is threatening Britain's bees," he says, "and the result could be worse than foot and mouth." As we wrote below in May, one dangerous insecticide has been replaced by another. A Parliamentary Answer from Jonathan Shaw on May 21 said, "a contingency plan for exotic pests and diseases of honey bees has been developed with stakeholders" and, on the same day, the Countess of Mar received this answer in the House of Lords:
"A Bee Health Research Funders' Forum has been created to discuss priorities. Defra, the National Bee Unit and the British Beekeepers' Association participate along with other interested parties. Research priorities are also addressed in the draft bee health strategy, which is currently available for public consultation."
..which all sounds responsible and concerned - until one reads that in spite of the DefraSpeak wording - 'sharing, prioritising, working together, liaison' - there is no real money. The British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) response to the consultation document was gloomy;
" ...despite its advice to DEFRA there are substantial short comings and omissions in the strategy. .... the BBKA has no confidence in government's commitment to funding additional work and services needed to keep our honey bees healthy.."
BBKA wants £8 million to be spent over five years. When one remembers Albert Einstein's now much quoted remark that "if bees were to disappear, man would only have a few years to live" the price seems reasonable. See also Early Day Motion

June 1 2008 ~ Become a rabble

Monty Don, happily recovered from the stroke that led to his retiring from the BBC's Gardeners' World, is on "fighting form as his new role as president of the Soil Association" as Charlotte Higgins put it in the Guardian last week. He pulls no punches on the subject of food security, national self-sufficiency and sustainability. He is calling for those of us who are concerned "to become a rabble" who, faced with the uselessness of most politicians on these issues, are thus able to "scare them and pressure them, and subvert the system from the ground up."
He said the movement should mobilise Britain's 11 million gardeners, involving everyone from large-scale farmers to those growing a single basil plant on a windowsill. See also our page on transition initiatives. Patrick Holden and Monty Don - like Rob Hopkins - are advising that it is now time to turn private gardens, public parks and the landscaped open spaces surrounding offices over to vegetable growing. Refreshing good sense, particularly at a time when Richard Heinberg is saying cheerfully, " If the effort is framed properly, officials should view it as a gift - an aid in solving potential problems that may actually be looming much closer than many politicians and business leaders currently realize is the case."

June 1 2008 ~ "a phasing-out of confinement systems that restricts "natural movement and normal behaviour"

We were very pleased to be sent a link to yesterday's New York Times The editorial looks at two recent reports on intensive farming: the report funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts (as we reported in early May) and the report from the Union of Concerned Scientists CAFOs Uncovered The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations and we read the editorial comment:
"No matter what you call it, it adds up to the same thing. Millions of animals are crowded together in inhumane conditions, causing significant environmental threats and unacceptable health risks for workers, their neighbors and all the rest of us... animal husbandry has been turned into animal abuse. Manure - traditionally a source of fertilizer - has been turned into toxic waste that fouls the air and adjacent water bodies. Crowding creates health problems, resulting in the chronic overuse of antibiotics.
And, because the modest profits in confinement operations require the lowest possible labor costs, including automated feeding, watering and manure-handling systems, these operations have helped empty and impoverish rural America...."
If these reports result in a new awareness of the impoverishment of human life as a result of animal abuse, followed by a phasing out of these intensive systems, it will be cheering indeed. Read NYT article and the two reports in full. As we said on on May 2, some of the photographs show with grim clarity what is involved in intensive methods of food production.
"Confined Animal Feeding Operationsare not the inevitable result of market forces. Instead, these unhealthy operations are largely the result of misguided public policy that can and should be changed."
says the Union of Concerned Scientists. Read report

May 31 2008 ~ "Animal vaccinations are among the most effective, successful tools...."

Many of us are cheered today by the news that the US Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) is reinforcing the use of animal disease vaccines in its latest Issue Paper. Dr Mark Jackwood of the University of Georgia who chaired the task force that produced the paper, says
"Current public health threats posed by the potential spread of highly infectious disease agents between animals and humans, as well as the emergence of new diseases, impact animal agriculture significantly. Animal vaccinations are among the most effective, successful tools for dealing with these concerns."
The Paper, Vaccine Development Using Recombinant DNA Technology , is available on the CAST website at www.cast-science.org, along with other publications from the organization. As one eminent emailer writes, "I really feel that we are winning the vaccination 'battle' - the next round will involve changes at EU level to encourage a vaccination -based approach." More at www.animalpharmnews.com

May 30 2008 ~ "The optimists think it will all go away and food prices will come down...."

Professor Tim Lang on the current food and oil crisis: Guardian audio
"..The problem is more fundamental than that. There are fundamental problems about oil dependency, water shortages looming, growth of population, changes of diet..
....The CAP is entering a very interesting phase..it's stopped paying farmers to produce food instead of which it is now paying them to do agri-environment things, nice things for conservation...it's got to enter a new phase of making the Common Agricultural Policy into a Common Sustainable Food policy... but that is going to be difficult to achieve.." More
Professor Lang thinks that governments have underplayed their hand and could do far more to create a sustainable food system.

May 29 2008 ~"We changed the policy and brought foot and mouth under control and the Cabinet was somewhat grateful"

Any warmwell reader who heard Sir David King on Material World (BBC Listen Again) may have been rendered speechless this afternoon. It was a travesty of the truth about FMD 2001 - and an extraordinary demonstration of the arrogance of some scientists. There is much reference to the importance of "rigour, respect and responsibility", but in 2001 where was respect for the views of scientists, who had genuine understanding of foot and mouth, from the CSA? All that challenged mass slaughter and advocated a humane and veterinary solution was swept away by the refusal of the Science Group, who were swallowing, hook line and sinker, the flawed mathematical modelling, to consider the grim reality of the "policy".
One emailer, luckily still able to find words, writes, ""If foot and mouth disease was already established in various parts of the UK some time before it was officially recognised, the concept of exponential evolution would be incorrect and the mathematical models, that so impressed Professor King, similarly incorrect. As the previous Chief Scientific Adviser (David King) to Government believes in scientific challenge he might care to spend some of his free time considering this possibility by analysing the data." (See also a blog entry on this subject last year)

May 29 2008 ~ "a global problem of supply and demand - not just in the short term but the medium term and the long term": Gordon Brown

Peak Oil is the point where demand outstrips supply - and Mr Brown is acknowledging its arrival with his words yesterday when he added that "everyone must learn to live with high oil prices" despite hopes of more supplies from the North Sea and Saudi Arabia. A further 2p increase on fuel tax is to be shelved, it seems - but anger at the rising prices was put in perspective by Simon Jenkins in the Times last week:
"...The truth is that 99% of the population has no clue what these phenomena mean. It treats prices like earthquakes or tsunamis, nature acting beyond the power of mankind.... ignorance extends to the top....Ruth Kelly wants to continue the explosion in leisure travel by indulging it with new airports and untaxed fuel. She dare not admit that travel must one day revert to being a luxury. ..... We let ministers take economic decisions off the tops of their heads with no idea of consequence... the good ship Gaia, planet Earth, is traumatising its passengers into husbanding its scarce resources. Above all they must ration living space, for which the West has been appallingly greedy, and carbon fuel, of which the same is true..."
As Simon Jenkins also points out
"Need is not an economic concept, only demand..."
If our hunch for the past four years is right and we are looking at some drastic changes brought about by the end of cheap oil, our masters might start to educate us - and in the process, themselves - in telling the difference. Since intensive farming equipment is so dependent on fossil fuel for its machinery, transport and non-organic fertilisers, let us learn to cultivate our gardens, and encourage the human scale farming so happily embraced by smallholders, by the Transition movement and other far-sighted ones.

May 28 2008 ~ Surrey County Council will prosecute neither IAH Pirbright nor Merial over FMD leak last August

The Telegraph reported this afternoon that Surrey CC has "called for tougher measures which would ensure that where two laboratories shared facilities, one should have ultimate responsibility and accountability for the site....."
So once again, as in Albert and the Lion, "no one was really to blame..." Unless, of course, one remembers the pleas from Pirbright to DEFRA and to the Treasury that were ignored. They were alerted to the desperate lack of funding long before the virus leak - as the memorandum at the end of the Science and Technology Committee's 4th report volume 2) makes clear. Although the Department was able to find a total of £418 million to pay the EU fine for the RPA delays, in 2006 it could not find the resources to keep its own dangerous house in order when it mattered - and now washes its hands of the financial fallout from the leaked virus. Interestingly, the Welsh NFU president, Dai Davies, is quoted today (:www.dailypost.co.uk)
"The whole issue of responsibility and cost sharing must be viewed against the government's continued refusal to accept their responsibility for the release of the FMD virus from the Pirbright facility."
Country Land & Business Association deputy president William Worsley is quoted on farming uk: "This is extremely worrying .... will set a dangerous precedent for similar situations caused by the negligence of public bodies. It suggests public bodies are not subject to the same level of accountability as everyone else. This is despite a seemingly endless stream of regulations affecting rural businesses that makes managers ever more accountable for their actions."

May 28 2008 ~ The next wave of animal diseases - just waiting to happen

Paul van Aarle of Intervet is quoted in yesterday's Agarisch Dagblad as saying that after Bluetongue, Rift Valley Fever and West Nile-virus are likely to arrive in Europe before long. According to Dr van Aarle, both national and European money must be made available. The control of animal disease should be placed much higher on the economic agenda. Since the lack of funding for research means that 2 or 3 years elapse before vaccines can be developed, the delay in giving the vaccine companies a clear mandate meant that, in spite of the best efforts of the companies, vaccine against BTV-8 has only just begun arriving in European countries.
We see also from a recent ProMed posting that yet another emerging orbivirus disease, namely Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) is suspected of having advanced closer to south-eastern Europe: "As mentioned in our recent posting 20080522.1693... Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), which has the potential to affect cattle seriously...."
All this makes us, yet again, feel wonderment and frustration that the already existing and highly effective vaccines against FMD were not immediately used in 2001 and 2007. As Bernard Vallat, the Director General of the OIE, said in a recent Editorial , compared "to the social, economic and environmental cost of disasters resulting from epizootics.." the cost of preventing crises is insignificant.

May 28 2008 ~ OIE President Barry O'Brien's frustration that countries re-invent the wheel instead of cooperating on animal health

FWI quotes his speech in London last week. He said, "We have the tools to be able to address these risks. But it does frustrate me that countries spend so much time reinventing the wheel. There is also too much conflict and competition between agencies and authorities within each country, each defending their own patch, instead of all working together to address the issue." (More)

May 28 2008 ~ "The Trust's function is 'to provide a wildlife sanctuary in perpetuity' for the Arapawa goats, sheep and pigs..."

Those interested will already know of the death of Betty Rowe of Arapawa Island (See warmwell's page on the Arapawa goats). The animals are eagerly sought by so-called "trophy hunters", and the DoC, for so long in dispute with Betty, has now kindly volunteered to check out boats near the sanctuary to stop poaching.
The Trust's function is 'to provide a wildlife sanctuary in perpetuity' for the Arapawa goats, sheep and pigs and possibly other endangered species. The sanctuary is an educational resource for school visits and will continue to be so as well as remaining accessible to the public and available for any scientific studies. The Trust currently has a very limited pool of funds, some of which will need to be spent on the translocation of the 'home goats' / immediate costs through the kidding season / drenching etc. (Cheques in any currency can be sent to the Arapawa Wildlife Sanctuary. The permanent address for those wanting to donate will be: Arapawa Wildlife Trust C/- "Aotea" Private 414 East Bay Picton 7250 New Zealand and will be very much appreciated by the family determined to protect Betty's legacy of work and dedication to these rare goats.)

May 28 2008 ~ "yet another example of a huge corporation steamrolling and bulldozing over a community..."

Zac Goldsmith wants a boycott of Sainsburys. The Independent says, "...Local campaigners have opposed Sainsbury's plans to open a branch on White Hart Lane, opposite the home of the songwriter Sir Tim Rice, who is also against the development. They claim the supermarket chain is ignoring local opinion and will crush local small shops that are already struggling to survive."

May 27 2008 ~ US Government Accounting Office report warns about what happened at Pirbright

The GAO report "GAO-08-821T High-Containment Biosafety Laboratories", should be read in full ( warmwell's html version here in new window) Its conclusions are particularly relevant to the hazards demonstrated by the Pirbright leak.
"...A recent release from the Pirbright facility - located in a farming community on the mainland of the United Kingdom - highlights the risks of a release from a laboratory that is in close proximity to the susceptible animals....
• ....human error can never be completely eliminated and since a lack of commitment to the proper maintenance of biocontainment facilities and their associated technology - as the Pirbright facility showed - can cause releases...
• ...The investigations determined that there had been a failure to properly maintain the site's infrastructure. In all, eight separate outbreaks occurred over a 2-month period.
• ... ...accidents, while rare, still occur because of human or technical errors. Given the non-zero risk of a release from any biocontainment facility, most of the experts we spoke with told us that an island location can provide additional protection. ...."
The report reveals that the DHS had not conducted any studies to determine the wisdom of moving FMD activities away from Plum Island, using instead an existing study that does not clearly support such a move. The GAO concludes that an island location can help prevent what happened in Surrey: the spread of FMD virus along terrestrial routes (by vehicles splashed with contaminated mud, for example) and also perhaps airborne transmission. The report noted grimly how "recent outbreaks in the United Kingdom have demonstrated its economic consequences."

May 27 2008 ~ Instead of tilting at the Opec windmill, we should be weaning ourselves off fossil fuels

We are not alone in wincing at Gordon Brown's pugnacious language, attempting to make OPEC the scapegoat for the oil crisis. Indeed, if propaganda were needed to nudge the population towards warlike feelings, would it not sound exactly like this?
"It is, as people will recognise, a scandal that 40% of the oil is controlled by Opec, that their decisions can restrict the supply of oil to the rest of the world, and that at a time when oil is desperately needed, and supply needs to expand, that Opec can withhold supply from the market." (Gordon Brown May 19 2008)
As Alan Duncan says in the Telegraph today,
"Opec has been more of a club than a cartel......How, indeed, can they be overcharging when Mr Brown can add 75pc at the petrol pump?.... The cause of high prices is not just Opec. ..... The last decade has lulled us into a false sense of security. Instead of tilting at the Opec windmill, we should be weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, increasing efficiency, addressing fuel poverty and encouraging the science that will find an alternative to oil. Shouting at Opec to turn on the taps is an expensive diversion that will merely delay our recognition of reality."
Alan Duncan MP is a former oil trader, and shadow secretary for business.