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NFU needs a new approach to conservation issues

I'm sure the NFU vice-president Paul Temple would hate to have his negotiating style compared to the BBC management led by Mark Thompson. Thompson and his cohorts were universally criticised as being slow to admit there was a problem and grudging in dealing with it. Indeed, the Brand-Ross fiasco was an exercise in how not to handle events, and has valuable lessons for many organisations, particularly those which benefit considerably from the public purse.

So how does Paul Temple compare? Well, the bird brigade has come up with a report, a 'study', that shows farmland birds are in decline. There are cases of extinction. Wildlife Minister Huw Irranca-Davies says 'popular farmland birds' such as the turtle dove, grey partridge and linnet have declined to their lowest level on record. All this at a time when farmers are being paid large sums to introduce wilflife-friendly practices.

Paul Temple's response was to pick holes in the report - of which there seemed to be many. Not far distant from the initial BBC reaction of saying "what's the problem? It's an edgy programme. Only kids are listening."

Just as the BBC's response didn't actually go down so well, it strikes me that Paul's stance on behalf of farmers might have the same effect among the tax-paying public. They were as concerned with the wider picture and said "the issue is standards", "it's our licence fee money that is paying for this", "we're not getting value from the £18m paid to Ross." Is there not a danger of a similar response by the tax-paying public to the NFU's response of "prove it"?

~The Single Payment Scheme fund for 2007, paid by the Rural Payments Agency for England, is £1.45bn - only half the BBC's licence fee income of £3.2 billion but that's still big enough to cause an outcry. By the time you've added in payments to Wales, Scotland and N Ireland, and then added those payments which come through other sources, means the grand total for UK farming is far greater. Farmers might see their SFS as sacrosanct - just as BBC views the licence fee - but of course it's not. Get a snowball of criticism going, especially in these difficult economic times, and farming will be in the same position as the BBC, reversing away from it's tough stand into nowhere.

Paul Temple's stance may have considerable appeal to red-neck NFU members, but they'll find it less clever if it raises issues over the effectiveness of the current payment system and how better the money might be spent. The SFP is of major significance to farm income, but as our leaders have stressed for years, it's paid for environmental purposes, not as a support for farming.

So if I had been in Paul Temple's shoes, I would have expressed real concern over the situation over bird populations, would have suggested an increased partnership between farmers and conservationists to make a real effort to get farmers to make changes, would want to draw up plans to 'roll out' a programme, enhanced bird monitoring.... a non-confrontational policy of appeasement!

©Mike Donovan 2008