Industrial Farming

The problem with industrial farming, which uses pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, monocultures and huge fields. And farmers are getting government subsidy to do this.

Yes, we should do something about the farming methods being used, but a piecemeal approach won't do much: we need a complete rethink of farming. 

Despite the propaganda of the chemical companies, permaculture can be more profitable and far better for the environment, if only we can find a way to incentivise farmers to use it.

Clearly, only organic farmers should get public subsidy, but that would only be the first step in a long path.

 first hand the decimation of wildlife in our countryside.

 But so long as the supermarkets drive down the prices to producers, those same producers will rape the land for every last penny - and we cannot blame them.

Cheap food and a sustainable flora and fauna are, sadly, utterly incompatible.

however gardens have been developed to be a haven for wildlife, especially insects that will hopefully attract other wildlife. to really attract wildlife you want fruit trees & fruit bearing shrubs! native fruit bearing trees at that.

Hawthorn, viburnum, hazel, blackthorn (depending on your soil), thistles for the goldfinches. 

 a very popular weedkiller (found in your local garden centre) used both in gardens and farms is part of a lawsuit which has just paid out 300 million to a man who claims it caused his cancer.

If it can do this to a human what can it do to birds and insects?

 pulling up headrows, using what was marginal land that supported diverse wild plant species for planting crops has led to lose of both insect and bird life.

Pesticides kill off insects that deplete crops but also led to decline in insect food for birds species that fed off insect life. 

Instensive agriculture with the use of pesticides and soil conditioners that can use marginal land now for crops and rotate land all year around for crop use is driving away all other diversity on the farms, that used to exist on more traditional farms.

Switch from Spring to Autumn sowing - loss of winter stubble. Draining of wetter pasture.

These caused a decrease in corn buntings and other species, plus near extinction of breeding Lapwing outside nature reserves.

The amount of chemicals used on the land has also grown, spiking upward from the late 70s.

We are in trouble.

I hear silence right now, where once I heard the birds calling.

No insects now.

Just the sound of very loud engines from across the road, where there are a lot of cars in use. 

Now for the first time ever, there are no blackbirds.

I hear the Herring Gulls in the morning.

That is all there is left.

Close by are huge praire fields, with no brds.

There are no trees; the hedges were destroyed.

Yet when my parent were alive they had a big garden that was a naturalists delight.

So many insects, so many birds and wild animals came there.

It included snakes.

They made it a friendly place for wildlife, and they were successful.

Here the neighbour has a perfect garden, but there are no insects.

Just a perfect lawn and pretty flowers.

I have not seen any moths at night, no wasps, no beetles, no butterflies, no bees.

Even the spiders are gone.

It fills me with deep sadness.

I have watched this happening for many years.

There is nothing I can do. I

only hope that people who can do something,

wake up to the reality of this disappearing world.