By unlocking the export potential China offers the pig industry, not to mention the red meat sector as a whole, we could gain entry into a marketplace which comprises a fifth of the world’s population.Agriculture in the national news - May 28
A DAILY look at how agriculture has caught the headlines across the country (Friday, May 28).
FSA accused of running PR exercise for GM industry
The Government’s watchdog on food safety has been accused of planning to waste £500,000 on a PR exercise that would only benefit the GM industry.
Director of campaign group Genewatch UK, Dr Helen Wallace, resigned last night from the Food Standards Agency’s steering group considering bids to run its public dialogue on GM crops and food, accusing the watchdog of allowing biotech lobby groups to exert too much influence over the process.
The Ecologisthttp://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/493786/fsa_accused_of_running_pr_exercise_for_gm_industry.html
Health and safety culture is keeping children from nature, says Sir David Attenborough
Britain’s health and safety culture is discouraging children from ‘roaming the countryside’, Sir David Attenborough said yesterday.
He said Britain risked losing the next generation of naturalists because of unfounded fears over safety.
Devon gundog back on farm two years after disappearing
A farm gundog has been reunited with his owners more than two and a half years after disappearing.
Sam, who is a “Sprocker” - a springer cross cocker - went missing from Ray and Christine Robinson’s farm at Bere Alston in November 2007.
BBC Online
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/10171927.stm
Variety holds key to sustaining hill farming
FACED with a decline in livestock numbers coming out from what have traditionally been the breeding grounds for Scottish cattle and sheep, NFU Scotland has suggested changes to the subsidy system in the hills and islands.
Its proposals for change in the Less Favoured Areas Support Scheme place more emphasis on “active farming”, with varying rates based on stocking densities.
Scotsman
http://business.scotsman.com/business/Variety-holds-key-to-sustaining.6326006.jp
Tractors ‘stolen for export’ in Cambridgeshire
Tractors worth up to 100,000 each are being stolen to export abroad, Cambridgeshire police have said.
Since the beginning of 2010 there have been at least nine thefts of tractors from farms across the county.
BBC Online
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/10171117.stm
Organic food has no extra health benefits, say researchers
Organic food has no health, taste or nutritional advantages over conventionally manufactured or harvested food.
That is the damning verdict of a study by Berlin based consumer watchdog group Stiftung Warentest.
No objections to 2,500-pig rearing farm project
AN APPLICATION to build a 30-acre industrial pig farm has received no objections from East Staffordshire Borough Council.
Plans by Midland Pig Producers (MPP) look set to go ahead despite fierce opposition from a protest group which believes the major development at land adjacent to Foston Prison will increase health and safety issues and traffic.
Burton Mail
http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/News/No-objections-to-2500-pig-rearing-farm-project.htm
Tributes paid to Archers veteran Norman Painting
Actors and broadcasters have gathered to pay tribute to the late Norman Painting, best known for playing Phil Archer in BBC Radio 4’s The Archers.
Painting, who died aged 85 last year, had played the Ambridge farmer since the show’s trial run in 1950.
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