British Crop Protection Conference Weeds 1985/1-3. [antikvár]

11FARMING FOR THE PUBLIC, NOT FOR OURSELVES LORD MELCHETTCourtyard Farm, Hunstanton, NorfolkIntroduction agricultural policy all at seaA year ago, in an article in the 'Countryman' magazine, I drew an analogy between current British agricultural policy and a supertanker trying to change course. I have been interested to see in the last year that a number of other commentators, including William Waldegrave, now Minister of State at the Department of Environment responsible for conservation, and two well-known farmers, Hew Watt and David Richardson, have also compared current British agricultural policy with some sort of ship. These three, in turn, suggested that agricultural policy is like a supertanker, taking some time to turn around, or that it is a rudderless ship, or finally that it is like a ship wallowing in an ocean full of icebergs with a captain who declines to steer. I have a rather more detailed image in my mind of this ship, and I would like to start by describing it.I think of British agricultural policy as a supertanker. It is getting on in years - formally launched in 1947, it had actually been at sea for a few years before that. In the early years of its life, this was a fine ship, and little went wrong with it, but in recent years things have changed. At first the plates simply began to bulge and crack, and the cargo started seeping out almost unnoticed. Recently the ship has started to strike a number of objects, and it has been holed in numerous places. The cargo, which is increasingly in excess of any possible customer's requirements, has, as I have said, been seeping out of the ship for many years. Like an oil slick in the ocean, it has had devastating consequences on the landscapes and wildlife habitats through which this ship sails, and apart from destroying those on an increasing scale, it has also destroyed jobs and caused ever increasing suffering for farm animals.One of the most recently retired captains of the ship, Peter Walker, insisted only a few years ago that absolutely nothing was wrong, and even urged his crew to produce more for the ship to carry. It was obvious to many observers even then that the ship was sinking under the weight of its unwanted cargo, and that is certainly the general view today.It is true, as William Waldegrave suggests, that the ship is now trying to change course. Unfortunately, there is no clear view on the bridge as to which way the ship is actually turning. Indeed some people still insist that either it is not changing course, or that if it is, it does not need to. As David Richardson has said, the captain declines to steer, which does not make changing course any easier. In any event, as the captain said himself, even if he was prepared to steer he would not know which way to go. To quote Michael Jopling "It is not how to say what we want that is the difficulty, but what to say".Three things are clear. First, whether the supertanker is changing course or simply veering wildly around the ocean, it still continues to do terrible damage to the countryside it passes through. Second, very few