Brexit Consequences

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bjn
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by bjn » Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:33 pm

Little waster wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:24 pm
plodder wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:24 am
Big changes in farming. The ban on Neonicotinoid pesticides will be lifted. I'm pretty uncomfortable about this one. Similarly GM, where I'm a bit more relaxed.
Ah yes, this must be those higher environmental protections Gove promised us once we were free of those dogmatically laissez-faire Eurocrats.

IIRC there was something about saving polar bears too.
It's an emergency measure that some EU countries are also engaging in. Though I'm not sure how neonic pesticides are meant to be used against "virus yellow disease".

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Jan 10, 2021 2:12 pm

plodder wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:24 am
Big changes in farming. The ban on Neonicotinoid pesticides will be lifted. I'm pretty uncomfortable about this one. Similarly GM, where I'm a bit more relaxed.
Looking medium-term, most farming isn't going to be sustainable without EU subsidies and cheap imported labour, and I don't see the Tories replacing either.

So we'll be seeing land abandonment on a massive scale. Obviously rural communities will need a huge amount of support, but in terms of land use it's a huge opportunity for catchment-scale river restoration, peatland restoration (something like 25x more effective as a carbon sink than forest), maybe even a couple of rewilded landscapes (perhaps a National Park or two could be appropriated for conservation/carbon purposes, for example). Plus all those extra trees we need will plant themselves given a few years without ploughing.

Creating cool, interesting bits of countryside with recreational jobs might be the best solution for farming communities anyway. Eagles are huge business in places like Mull - much more profitable than sheep, especially when you factor in that most upland farming is entirely dependent on public money.
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by plodder » Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:24 pm

part of the tourism value of eagles is their scarcity though?

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by shpalman » Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:27 pm

The meat is a bit tough and gamey though.
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by bmforre » Sun Jan 10, 2021 5:25 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:27 pm
(Eagle) meat is a bit tough and gamey though.
What proportion does it form of tiger nourishment?

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by shpalman » Sun Jan 10, 2021 5:59 pm

Apparently we need to eat more venison (not relevant to Brexit).

But if
most farming isn't going to be sustainable without EU subsidies and cheap imported labour
then the UK's food supply is even more screwed than it would otherwise be from the complications of importing from the EU.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:00 pm

plodder wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:24 pm
part of the tourism value of eagles is their scarcity though?
Yes, for sure. They'll never be enormously common, though, and could be reintroduced somewhere a bit more accessible than Mull if gamekeepers could be trusted not to shoot them all.

I'm thinking of places like the Knepp estate in Sussex which (as you're probably aware!) have adopted a wilding model based largely on heritage-breed livestock, and seem to be able to run a profitable tourism business from people keen to see free-ranging herds of horses and cows, along with the staggering quantities of rare birds and butterflies breeding there that piss all over conventional postage-stamp conservation's efforts over the last century.

If we look at how National Parks work in North America or north Europe they are wild areas that are popular for rural recreational activities, and derive their appeal from hosting relatively untamed nature. The UK's national parks, by contrast, are a f.cking joke, full of non-native forestry and overgrazed sheep pasture and canned bird shoots. More generally, the area of deer-shooting estates in Scotland alone is bigger than Yellowstone, so could easily host wolves and lynx and things alongside the deer and grouse toffs like to shoot - as national parks in Scandinavia currently do. I reckon the value of tourism would easily outstrip the few thousand jobs from the shooting industry plus the sheep-farming languishing on publicly-funded life support.
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:07 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 5:59 pm
Apparently we need to eat more venison (not relevant to Brexit).

But if
most farming isn't going to be sustainable without EU subsidies and cheap imported labour
then the UK's food supply is even more screwed than it would otherwise be from the complications of importing from the EU.
Yes, there's actually a lot of "red tape" surrounding certification of hunted deer meat that could probably be dispensed with safely (also not really Brexit-related, as IIRC plenty of countries on the continent have a better-functioning market for wild meat). There's maybe an opportunity to spin it as a (minor) Brexit dividend - tasty British venison sausages could probably be a big hit with the bLuE pAsSpOrT brigade.

But yeah, either the Conservatives need to decide that producing food domestically is a sufficiently important policy priority to fund it out of taxpayers' money - ranking it more important than things like social care, higher education and so on - or the price of food is going up. There's a chance they will decide that, as the NFU are big Tory donors and the main beneficiaries of EU subsidies currently are wealthy landowners rather than the rural working class, so it would be funnelling money to their friends rather than teh poors. But that would require them to understand and acknowledge the problem, so I'm not convinced it'll happen.

Environmental standards will be straight down the shitter for sure, though. They're already moving to relax water quality and planning regulations, so agriculture will be next.
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by shpalman » Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:15 pm

Any lowering of standards in the UK will make it much harder for agricultural products to then be sold in the EU - they won't meet EU standards and won't be on a level playing field as compared to EU agriculture.

If the French can't buy the veal calves (also because the UK has banned live animal exports, and at least this is a good thing) then the dairy industry gets more complicated, for example, or something (because it's not a meat which the British are that bothered about).
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Jan 10, 2021 7:03 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:15 pm
Any lowering of standards in the UK will make it much harder for agricultural products to then be sold in the EU - they won't meet EU standards and won't be on a level playing field as compared to EU agriculture.

If the French can't buy the veal calves (also because the UK has banned live animal exports, and at least this is a good thing) then the dairy industry gets more complicated, for example, or something (because it's not a meat which the British are that bothered about).
Oh, I'm well aware - as are the EU, which is why they stuck so firmly to their red line about adjudication and consequences for deregulation. But given that the noises are already being made by the relevant politicians in government and there are four more years of unopposed Conservative rule in the UK, I'd be surprised if common sense suddenly starts prevailing around Brexit.

I'd love to be wrong, of course, but that seems to me the direction of travel and I can't see what's going to stop it. At least for the next 12 months most people will have far bigger priorities what with the virus and the recession and stuff, which will make it easier to (a) sneak things through and/or (b) justify them as giving the economy a shot in the arm.
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by bjn » Sun Jan 10, 2021 7:13 pm

I know a few folks involved in music, and now they can't work visa-free in the EU. Apparently the EU was happy enough for visa-free touring but the UK government refused as it would have to be reciprocal. For smaller artists, the costs of getting a visa make it financially unviable to tour Europe.

The government, being lying cowards without convictions, originally blamed it all on the EU instead.

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by jimbob » Sun Jan 10, 2021 7:45 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:00 pm
plodder wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:24 pm
part of the tourism value of eagles is their scarcity though?
Yes, for sure. They'll never be enormously common, though, and could be reintroduced somewhere a bit more accessible than Mull if gamekeepers could be trusted not to shoot them all.

I'm thinking of places like the Knepp estate in Sussex which (as you're probably aware!) have adopted a wilding model based largely on heritage-breed livestock, and seem to be able to run a profitable tourism business from people keen to see free-ranging herds of horses and cows, along with the staggering quantities of rare birds and butterflies breeding there that piss all over conventional postage-stamp conservation's efforts over the last century.

If we look at how National Parks work in North America or north Europe they are wild areas that are popular for rural recreational activities, and derive their appeal from hosting relatively untamed nature. The UK's national parks, by contrast, are a f.cking joke, full of non-native forestry and overgrazed sheep pasture and canned bird shoots. More generally, the area of deer-shooting estates in Scotland alone is bigger than Yellowstone, so could easily host wolves and lynx and things alongside the deer and grouse toffs like to shoot - as national parks in Scandinavia currently do. I reckon the value of tourism would easily outstrip the few thousand jobs from the shooting industry plus the sheep-farming languishing on publicly-funded life support.

Hollow laugh

I live about ten miles from the Moscar Estate - About 20 years of repeated convictions for wildlife crime (and more that weren't pursued) since I moved to Derbyshire in 2000.

I don't think that it's *just* a problem with the gamekeepers in that estate.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by jimbob » Sun Jan 10, 2021 7:45 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 2:12 pm
plodder wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:24 am
Big changes in farming. The ban on Neonicotinoid pesticides will be lifted. I'm pretty uncomfortable about this one. Similarly GM, where I'm a bit more relaxed.
Looking medium-term, most farming isn't going to be sustainable without EU subsidies and cheap imported labour, and I don't see the Tories replacing either.

So we'll be seeing land abandonment on a massive scale. Obviously rural communities will need a huge amount of support, but in terms of land use it's a huge opportunity for catchment-scale river restoration, peatland restoration (something like 25x more effective as a carbon sink than forest), maybe even a couple of rewilded landscapes (perhaps a National Park or two could be appropriated for conservation/carbon purposes, for example). Plus all those extra trees we need will plant themselves given a few years without ploughing.

Creating cool, interesting bits of countryside with recreational jobs might be the best solution for farming communities anyway. Eagles are huge business in places like Mull - much more profitable than sheep, especially when you factor in that most upland farming is entirely dependent on public money.
As an aside my daughter (geography degree) and my brother (ecologist) have been talking about the Knepp Estate rewilding on WhatsApp, along with some of Dad's former colleagues.

My brother's view is that it would have been better to try to emulate a 17th Century farming regime rather than rewilding as a lot of farms will end up being uneconomic, and recreate lots of the habitats that it's creating anyway, whilst the 17th Century farming regime would create habitats that are now more rare. He says that the ecological impact reports also suggest this.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by veravista » Mon Jan 11, 2021 4:40 pm

This really made me laugh. Guaranteed to get the Gammons going (see what I did there?)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... sh-drivers

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Allo V Psycho » Mon Jan 11, 2021 5:57 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:07 pm
- tasty British venison sausages could probably be a big hit .


tasty venison sausages for the masses? wouldn't they be too dear?

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Gfamily » Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:11 pm

Allo V Psycho wrote:
Mon Jan 11, 2021 5:57 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:07 pm
- tasty British venison sausages could probably be a big hit .


tasty venison sausages for the masses? wouldn't they be too dear?
Needn't be more than a buck or two.
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by shpalman » Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:19 pm

veravista wrote:
Mon Jan 11, 2021 4:40 pm
This really made me laugh. Guaranteed to get the Gammons going (see what I did there?)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... sh-drivers
It's another one of those things which we knew would happen and then oh look it happened.
shpalman wrote:
Fri Dec 18, 2020 6:53 pm
Good job there's no cheese because you won't be able to take a sandwich with you to eat on the trip.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Trinucleus » Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:25 pm

Gfamily wrote:
Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:11 pm
Allo V Psycho wrote:
Mon Jan 11, 2021 5:57 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:07 pm
- tasty British venison sausages could probably be a big hit .


tasty venison sausages for the masses? wouldn't they be too dear?
Needn't be more than a buck or two.
That's a lot of doe

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by shpalman » Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:28 pm

having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by shpalman » Mon Jan 11, 2021 10:25 pm

From a committed Brexit Party supporter
"What annoys me is that while we are having to put up with food shortages and disruptions at our ports the EU is not having any problems, how is that fair?"
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by bmforre » Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:29 am

shpalman wrote:
Mon Jan 11, 2021 10:25 pm
From a committed Brexit Party supporter
"What annoys me is that while we are having to put up with food shortages and disruptions at our ports the EU is not having any problems, how is that fair?"
Remember that THEY need the UK more than the UK needs them.
I have that from authoritative sources.

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by cvb » Tue Jan 12, 2021 3:47 pm

Yes that is true. The closest Tesco to me in Belfast has run out of some foodstuffs, like orange juice, and there is not a great deal of fresh stuff on the shelves.

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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Cardinal Fang » Thu Jan 14, 2021 11:21 am

bjn wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:33 pm
Little waster wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:24 pm
plodder wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:24 am
Big changes in farming. The ban on Neonicotinoid pesticides will be lifted. I'm pretty uncomfortable about this one. Similarly GM, where I'm a bit more relaxed.
Ah yes, this must be those higher environmental protections Gove promised us once we were free of those dogmatically laissez-faire Eurocrats.

IIRC there was something about saving polar bears too.
It's an emergency measure that some EU countries are also engaging in. Though I'm not sure how neonic pesticides are meant to be used against "virus yellow disease".
Virus is spread by aphids that munch on baby plants. I'm assuming that by treating the seeds (which is the only use they're allowed to do), herbicide ends up on the baby plant and takes out the aphids as they attack the plant.

CF
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Jan 14, 2021 12:45 pm

Cardinal Fang wrote:
Thu Jan 14, 2021 11:21 am
bjn wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:33 pm
Little waster wrote:
Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:24 pm


Ah yes, this must be those higher environmental protections Gove promised us once we were free of those dogmatically laissez-faire Eurocrats.

IIRC there was something about saving polar bears too.
It's an emergency measure that some EU countries are also engaging in. Though I'm not sure how neonic pesticides are meant to be used against "virus yellow disease".
Virus is spread by aphids that munch on baby plants. I'm assuming that by treating the seeds (which is the only use they're allowed to do), herbicide ends up on the baby plant and takes out the aphids as they attack the plant.

CF
Yes. Apparently the aphids in question are already resistant to pyrethroids (well done farmers), so options are limited. https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/crop-manag ... l-in-roots

Bayer (who manufacture an alternative non-neonic product) say that insecticide seed treatment gives 8-10 weeks of protection, but don't explain the mechanism.
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Re: Brexit Consequences

Post by malbui » Thu Jan 14, 2021 1:04 pm

I've seen on various platforms today images of a Mail article about trade with Switzerland which is so mind-blowingly dishonest even by the Mail's standards that I needed to sit down. I mean, it's just... where do you start?
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