The Lie of the Land

Ian:
Farmers don't realise that the land has been nationalised over the past couple of years. I think this last Government payment scheme was very nasty. It's more about the environment than about agriculture. All they want to do is import the food. And I think that is the way that it is heading, really. They want the land as a playground for the people in the towns. It isn't as if we are self-sufficient in food. Since we are importing the food, it's a bit annoying, really.

[talking about perfectly healthy but unwanted calves that have just been shot]

Molly Dineen - Interviewer:
[voiceover] These calves might once have become bully-beef, but we don't eat that any more. Or they might have become veal, but we found that cruel so it's largely raised overseas. And they'd never produce a decent steak. So they go.

Paul:
[bitterly] Morally, as a country person, we weren't brought up to do this. We were not... We all like animals... And you were not brought up to shoot healthy animals. It's pure economics that's driven them to this now. And you get a pang of your conscience. It isn't what you *should* be doing. But that's how the system has dictated it. It's supposed to be "progress", isn't it?

Tony:
What really gets me is... You look at it from a farming point of view... They say "You can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do the other." Fair enough. What are you going to do when you've driven all the farmers off the land? Oh well we'll import our food then. Well the welfare standards of the imported food is a damn sight worse than the welfare standards that we have here. So all you're doing is you're exporting your problems, putting them where they can't be seen under the carpet and ignoring it. That's what cheap food policy does.

Molly Dineen - Interviewer:
Then what happens to the countryside?

Tony:
The countryside is only like it is because it's farmed. And if it isn't farmed, we'll end up with a very different-looking countryside.

Paul:
[bitterly] There are a lot of very unhappy people living in the countryside at the moment. It's becoming a very dictatorial country. See what they've done to the farmers of England. If they really stop and look. Nearly every day there's a new law or something that they can't do on their own land. And this is supposed to be England. You won't be allowed to drive a tractor - you've got to cut your hedges at this time of year. It just goes on and on. Why the people of England are putting up with it, I just don't know. They've not awakened to what's happening.

[Glyn is one of the many farmers who breeds pheasants to be shot for sport]

Glyn:
All these farms going hell for leather producing pheasants for shooting. And yet if it was considered we were doing anything to encourage the fox population for the sake of sport, it's all against us. So what's the difference?

Molly Dineen - Interviewer:
It's funny: everyone's so focussed on sports, because we can see it, but no-one's that bothered about where we get our food.

Glyn:
In the poultry industry, where they specialise in chicks for laying, the male birds, apart from a very very few, are not needed. So they just go into what is basically a mincing machine - that is how they are killed - it's like a liquidiser.

Molly Dineen - Interviewer:
Are they dead or alive as they go in?

Glyn:
Well, they're alive, aren't they, as they're fed into it - it's the mincer that kills them. Now why is that acceptible, Molly? Why the devil is that acceptible to the public and these other sorts of things aren't?

Molly Dineen - Interviewer:
I think we don't know about it - that's why.

Glyn:
[vehemently] Well you *should* know about it! It might make all of this relative - it might put it in context.

[talking about DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is responsible for paying farmers]

Molly Dineen - Interviewer:
[voiceover] The "Single Farm Payment Scheme" rewrites the rule-book for farmers. Payments now have nothing to do with producing food.

Glyn:
DEFRA couldn't give a toss what happens in the countryside, but they like other people to think that they do.

Steve:
They have said that food security they don't consider is an issue, haven't they. In other words, they don't seem to care whether food is produced in this country or not. Which seems to be very stupid, short-sighted, doesn't it?

Molly Dineen - Interviewer:
Do they want us to stop farming animals?

Steve:
They haven't thought that one through.