Monday, 19
By invitation

Natural England has announced that in future, applications for entry to the Higher Level Scheme (HLS) will be by invitation only (no details yet as to what this means).

If this is about targeting Government funds to maximise environmental gain by restricting the HLS to certain sensitive areas (eg Exmoor) then it may well have merit. If however it is about preventing entry by farmers who are perhaps deemed “unsuitable”, then it’s starting to look pretty sinister.

We can only speculate as to the kind of criteria that might result in an invitation to apply. One possibility might be the completion of the all embracing and deeply intrusive “Whole Farm Approach”. Another might be an unblemished record of dealing with all the bureaucracy emanating from Defra; who knows? Whatever, “by invitation” will become just one more barrier to the success of the scheme and with a fair bit of optimism in the farming industry about future returns it may well be:

“HLS?” “No thanks”

Thursday, 8
Sustainable housing?

If like me, you think our current approach to house building is totally unsustainable, you might like to read about diffuse development, a novel concept to solving the problem. Please follow the link from the Bookmarks Section below.

Sunday, 4
Crops grown without chemicals part 1

Good news from Radio 4 where I recently discovered that organic crops are grown without chemicals. Clever stuff to avoid the need for atmospheric O2, CO2 and N. Better still to leave all that soil N P and K in the ground. No less remarkable to have avoided H2O, countless atmospheric pollutants and other gases, thousands of soil chemicals and all the chemical interaction with billions of microbes. Amazing too that even the plant’s own many biochemical pathways were not required.

Replies 19 Mar 2007

Tony Clay: Glad someone is taking media pseudo science to task.

Crops grown without chemicals part 2

What’s the big deal with artificial chemicals? We don’t expect to go into a shop and buy mouldy bread so why do we expect farmers to grow mouldy wheat?

Crops grown without chemicals part 3

Farmers who spray their crops are only able to use chemicals that are exhaustively tested. Chemicals have to be approved for use and are given a Hazard rating and classified under COSHH (control of substances hazardous to health). In their concentrated form they either don’t qualify (ie they are harmless), they are classified as irritants (the same as your dishwasher tablet) or they fall into the harmful classification (eg methylated spirits). Most of the chemicals that I use are either not classified or are classified as irritants (and remember that’s in the concentrated form).

Crops grown without chemicals part 4

Before spraying, the concentrated chemicals are diluted with water around 100 times (most of the spray from a sprayer is water). The diluted spray reaches the plant where it is broken down by UV light and the biochemical pathways of both the plant and fungi. Minimum time periods between spraying and harvest are required so that by the time of harvest, the crop has grown, the bit that was sprayed has disappeared and the amount of residue is minimal.

Crops grown without chemicals part 5

Of course with sophisticated analysis its possible to detect residues of the chemicals sprayed. These can be detected at fractions of a part per billion (less than 1 part in 1,000,000,000) so the nasty chemical that the farmer sprayed, which wasn’t very harmful in its concentrated form, which was heavily diluted, broken down by all sorts of chemical processes in the interim between spraying and harvest, truly was not a risk to human health. Which leads me on to:

Crops grown without chemicals part 6

Why is everyone so obsessed with man made chemicals? What of nature’s lot? Our daily diet consists of nearly 6000 different natural chemicals. Coffee alone consists of around 1000. We know almost nothing about these chemicals and it’s a fair guess that around half could cause cancer.

Crops grown without chemicals part 7

Could cause cancer - if they were consumed at an extremely high rate (approximately 50% of all chemicals so far tested on rats do this). But of course they are not. In real life they are consumed in very small quantities and just like the chemicals that the farmer uses which are consumed in incredibly small quantities, they are harmless.

Crops grown without chemicals part 8

And as Paracelsus observed some five hundred years ago, “the dose makes the poison”.

Crops grown without chemicals part 9

Thank goodness for chemicals!

Lunar Eclipse - who needs TV?

Last night's lunar eclipse certainly had me captivated.

A larger image is available at: http://www.ukagriculture.com/articles/lunar_eclipse.cfm