This glorious weather has helped us all to forget how wet the land became during the winter.
Areas in fields which were more like small lakes than arable land have dried out and are now drilled with corn.
Neighbours are spraying the winter- sown crops to prevent the emergence of weeds which would compete with the crop and reduce yields.
Even on this comparatively small farm we spend what seems like a lot of money on sprays and chemical applications during the year. They all have to be paid for.
On top of the chemical costs there is the cost of actually applying the spray. Tractors have depreciation costs, diesel costs and a driver to pay. This is not a cheap operation.
A couple of years ago our ever-inventive Taxraiser General, otherwise known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had the bright idea of taxing pesticides.
He said this was a matter of environmental improvement. I think it was a way of raising money. The trick was that he did not have to campaign for the introduction of the tax, because the environmental pressure groups did it for him.
The proposal conveniently ignored that fact that the usage of crop protection products falls year by year in this country anyway. They are far too expensive to use without good cause.
As the years go by they get cleverer. We can now, for example, spray sugar beet so that the aphids we are trying to kill are targeted, and not the ladybirds who help us by eating the aphids. Much of the insect control in glasshouses is undertaken by having other, benign, insects to eat the harmful ones.
The industry is making progress. The last thing we want is yet another burden. That said, the industry does take the matter of agricultural chemicals extremely seriously.
Much of the approval and research work is undertaken in York. The last people to want unsafe products about are farmers, for the obvious reason that they are the closest to the product most often.
They do not want spray drift because they breath it most and they want the product in the crop. It is the crop that needs the spray.
There is a huge amount of mis-information flying about. Propaganda machines are cranked up. We are all deafened by the sound of axes being ground.
The BBC programme on Wednesday which chronicled one girl's views on the crop protection industry added more heat than light. Many of the tired old clichs were trotted out, and the general impression was given of the big bad farmer and the little innocent bystander who was being affected by his actions. There was also the underlying theme that conventional agriculture is somehow inferior to organic production.
Conventional production methods have nothing of which to be ashamed. They have kept the nation fed for many years. More to the point, they have kept it fed at a price it could afford.
I have remarked before that in the UK we spend more on pet food than we do on organics.
That is an indication of the place which organics hold. They are a part of the market, one of the famous niches. Let us not pretend that they are some sort of holy grail.
When organic farmers do use one of the chemicals they are allowed to use, such as sulphuric acid or copper sulphate, they do so on a pretty substantial scale, to the serious detriment of neighbouring wildlife.
The BBC had a reputation for balanced programmes. It should try living up to it.
Updated: 10:51 Tuesday, April 01, 2003
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