Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
unit. Those behind the proposal knew that the opinions of the Environment Agency were
central, as they were unlikely to be overturned at appeal, whilst those of the district council
could be.
This application was about far more than the enterprise alone, as the statement withdrawing
the application made clear:
The challenge has been laid down to the farming industry to produce more with less. We need
leadership to help us do this and proactive advice from regulatory experts - only a practical, informed
and 'can-do' approach will move this whole agenda forward (Nocton Dairies 2011).
Their opponents were also clear that victory for Nocton would have been a 'tipping point'
and the end of “Our smaller-scale, predominantly pasture-based dairy farmers, under
whose stewardship Britain's dairy cows have grazed countryside pastures for generations”
(Morris 2011). Of equal significance was that the British public had rejected intensive animal
husbandry and “Britain is a world beacon for farm animal welfare”, so a failure would
encourage others to adopt intensive technologies.
The Soil Association and the WPSA published a report in April 2011 pointing out how
large-scale developments such as Nocton and similar pig unit at Foston in Derbyshire
would put many smaller farmers out of business. Foston, a proposal for a pig unit of
would breed around 25,000 young pigs a year and was the subject of the 'Not in my
Banger' campaign, a clone of the 'Not in my Cuppa' one targeting Nocton. The Soil
Association reported argued that as the domestic supply of milk was already fulfilled by,
Nocton would have to displace existing producers by undercutting them on price. Using
industry figures, they argued 60-100 average sized farm businesses would be displaced by
Nocton's entry into the milk industry. The Soil Association had been campaigning against
intensive animal production in the UK since the 1960s, but the arguments against Nocton,
and Foston, represent a new permutation in their discourse. Previous arguments have
been concerned with the technologies of confined production; the new permutation brings
into play the scale of this deployment. The Soil Association is beginning to defend
explicitly family farming:
These smaller dairies and pig producers will be ideally suited to serving local markets, and will often
represent a family's main or at least an important source of their income. The families running many
of these farms will have been producing milk and pork for generations (The Soil Association
2011:4).
7. Cloned
As the UK got used to the idea of a coalition government it was revealed in August 2010 that
a number of cloned cattle had entered the food chain. A cattle breeder in the Scottish
Highlands had privately imported cloned embryos to augment his herd's line and at least
one of these animals had found their way into the food chain. Given the UK's history of
cattle related food and health crises this was met with newspaper headlines and an
investigation by the Food Standards Agency (FSA). As a novel food product, the safety of
which had yet to be assessed it should not have entered the food chain, although the
consequences for non-compliance were opaque. Coincidentally the EU parliament had
voted in July for a moratorium on cloned animals or their progeny or products entering the
food chain, although the Commission did not share that position. The topic gained pace as
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