The 'Stewards' and the Stupid ?

Stewards of the Countryside

Farmers and land managers are the main custodians of England’s environment. Over two decades, Agri-Environment Schemes (AES) have helped make their land not just a source of food, but a haven for the country’s wildlife. Farmers have joined with conservationists to maintain production while safeguarding the countryside, and the benefits it provides, for future generations. .... (Natural England)

How much of the nonsense people say do we believe and how much do we just ignore? To put it another way, just how stupid are we?

One of the problems with human beings is they get themselves into a position where they feel they have to say something and then come out with some meaningless guff. It wouldn’t be so bad but many of them then go on to believe what they’ve said and even devise a whole way of uncritical thinking around it. Worst of all are those on the outside who are mindless enough to nod and believe them. Whole sectors of society walk or drive around telling themselves they believe something that a bit of common sense would have convinced them is utter bilge.

An example of such bilge is the frequently parroted statement that farmers are 'Stewards of the Countryside'. I feel like saying when I hear this “What all of them? Even Farmer Giles who never inspects his rusty barbed wire and whose sheep are all over the main road? Even Farmer X whose gateways are knee deep in mud and cow effluent? Even Farmer Y whose oil seed rape infects what was once a great view?” and so on. You can bet they all receive stewardship grants from NE as well.

These statements are everywhere and totally without meaning but that doesn’t stop self-important people at the top end of organisations, spokespeople for this group or that, mouthing these empty platititudes. They come from farmers organisations, from Natural England, from National Parks boards, from CPRE. And the more they say it the less we should believe anything else they say.

Is it in a spirit of stewardship of the countryside to drive your tractor over squelchy ground in supposed beauty spot and SSSI, leaving deep, messy, water-filled ruts? Is it also to leave large plastic bags and tubs on grassland where your sheep have already destroyed any hope of seeing wild flowers? Livestock mineral licks are now routinely scattered around any place where sheep and cattle graze. Years ago there would have been hand-crafted wooden feeders that at least looked as if someone cared for them. 

 

Now the latest addition  our farm stewardship idea of beauty is mineral feed licks in  plastic bags left around on the grass. As the lick gets used up the bags blow away and are found clinging to the barbed wire fence. You and I pay for this stewardship.

 It’s not just the Single Farm Payment it’s also the Higher Level Stewardship that we hand over to this exemplary management. But should we be surprised? Only if we’ve covered our eyes and ears in recent times. Only if we’re utterly gullible or have some vested interest in the way this all works.

 

The land managers as mentioned by Natural England are complicit in this and contribute in their own ways. Can anyone point to anything that Sheffield Wildlife Trust has done on Blacka that has left it more beautiful than before they arrived? This is a serious question. There must somewhere be something surely to justify their ten years grant subsidised stewardship. Could it be the occasional detritus such as old laminated notices that you occasionally see slowly, too slowly, decaying on the ground?