Forestry Commission members: get involved call

From the current edition of Landworker magazine of Unite. 

This year will be key in the fight to preserve the Forestry Commission (FC) and the great work it carries out. The retirement of a number of key activists means there is an urgent need for more local union representatives – including safety and union learning reps - within the organisation.

Union density also needs increasing right across the FC in both England and Scotland, within Forest Research and in Silvan House. Forms are available to help recruit anyone who is not yet a union member.

FC Trade Unions (FCTU) have waged a well-organised campaign to maintain an integrated and sustainably resourced Forestry Commission for the Future. A nationwide series of members’ meetings last year attracted over 500, many of whom vented their frustration about how high level decisions have been taken without considering the effects they have on individuals.

The FCTU subsequently raised, in a series of meetings with management, members’ concerns. These include fears about the government plans for the Public Forest Estate (PFE) to be replaced by a PFE management organisation (PFEMO); a statutorily based public corporation operating at arm’s length but managed by their appointees; FC staff transferred to a new body will lose their civil service status; terms and conditions; rates of pay and other benefits.

Defra lawyers are currently putting together a requirements document which is the first stage in drafting new legislation. On 29 January, the FC announced that it had reviewed the principles, which would underpin the new organisation.

They include a number of concessions, including a Charter that would be renewed every 10 years specifying the public benefit and statutory duties of the organisation. The previously proposed limiting of the functions of the forest services directorate has been abandoned after the FCTU expressed concerns that only a tiny organisation would remain and be vulnerable to a takeover or a future government bonfire.

There is currently no formal Parliamentary timetable as to when legislation relating to the PFEMO will be in the Queen’s Speech and the decision to go ahead will rest with the cabinet.

 All of which means the fight to retain the FC as a non-ministerial government department is far from over, making it vital that people come forward as elected union representatives. “I’d appeal to Unite members to consider being elected as workplace representatives,” says Julia Long, Unite’s rural national officer.

“Also, anyone who is not currently a union member should join as soon as possible, and I’d also urge union members to persuade colleagues of theirs to sign up as members. Meantime we must keep up the struggle to preserve the FC in its current form.”

Worries for rural services voiced

 The Rural Services Network (RSN), in its fourth annual State of Rural Public Services report, has highlighted the uncertainty facing public transport, post offices and health services in rural England.

Over 200 organisations are members of the RSN, including local authorities, public bodies, charities and voluntary groups, and it provides support to the all-party Parliamentary Group on rural services.

The group’s latest report drew on a range of research and statistics, an online survey with councils, interviews with specific sub-groups and a major conference. With ‘rural’ defined ‘as any settlement of less than 10,000 people’ then 18 per cent of the population in England live in a rural setting.

The RSN backed the government’s new guidelines requiring all public sector departments to consider the rural impact of their policies. Using a formula based on per head of population it advocates for a ‘bigger, fairer share’ of government funding.

Rural communities certainly could do with additional support, and the rural communities debate in Parliament on 9 January 2014 heard many MPs express concerns that cost of living increases are seriously hurting their constituents.

The RSN examination of public transport in rural areas makes for grim reading. The department for transport stated in 2012 a desire to attract more people onto buses, and there have been some noted improvements in connecting buses with rail transport. Community transport schemes in which volunteers play a prominent role have also increased.

Car sharing schemes have multiplied. But the combined impact of all the above has been massively underscored by huge public sector cuts, including a 20% cut to the bus service operator grant. Consequently, the proportion of rural households with an accessible regular bus service has fallen dramatically as demonstrated on the Campaign for Better Transport’s interactive website map.

Unlike public transport, the decline in Post Office numbers has been slowed in recent years. Under Labour much of the network was closed with 840 closures alone between 2008 and 2009. The RSN is largely supportive of plans to create 2,000 Post Office Locals, where the post office service is integrated into another nearby retail outlet. The organisation is though concerned that these changes may lead to longer waits and less privacy.

Health issues are another worry. In an urban environment, 100 per cent of residents live within 4kms of a GP surgery. But, in a rural area, the figure drops to 65 per cent. Anyone without a car faces difficulties in accessing a GP or hospital, especially when public transport is being cut.

Rural locations receive significantly less per head of population towards health care. The RSN believe the imbalance should be reduced, especially as rural areas have more elderly people, a trend set to increase. The RSN is also concerned that the phasing out by 2021 of the minimum practice income guarantee, under which small GP surgeries are subsidised, will hit rural practices hard.

You can view the report at:- 

http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/services/report-lifts-lid-on-state-of-rural-services

Old pub to new co-op: Fox and Goose, Hebden Bridge

From the current edition of the Landworker magazine of Unite. 

The Fox and Goose in Hebden Bridge has become West Yorkshire’s first co-operative pub. The historic pub, where ale has been sold, originally illegally, for over 700 years, was threatened with closure until pub regulars raised over £130,000 to keep it safe.

Co-operative ownership is becoming an increasingly recognised solution to UK pub closures, currently running at the rate of 18 per week. Although many rural pubs are at the centre of the local social network, and contribute to people’s quality of life, they are being hard hit in the current economic climate.

Hebden Bridge is a Calderdale market town of 4,500 inhabitants.  It lies on the Rochdale canal, and is a popular location for outside pursuits such as walking, cycling and climbing. Situated in a steep valley it frequently gets flooded and, as a result, a number of businesses have closed. The Fox and Goose was set to join them when the deteriorating health of the landlady threatened ‘last orders.’

Some 250 pub supporters quickly rallied to the pumps and, in the summer of last year, they raised the funds to buy the traditional real ale pub and to cover essential refurbishments. 

Supporters were able to buy shares from a value of £100 up to £20,000.  Co-operative pubs operate on a ‘one member one vote’ democratic basis to ensure each investor has an equal say in the running of them.

Drew Magiera, who has worked part-time at the pub for almost three decades, was delighted to become the first shareholder as he was born in Rochdale, which was the birthplace of the modern co-operative back in 1844.  There are now an estimated one billion co-operators as members of 1.4 million co-operative societies worldwide. There are specialist support programmes that can help communities to establish co-operative pubs and help them thrive.

Drew is ‘very confident’ the Fox and Goose can enjoy a long future “as the efforts made to save the pub shows its importance to the community.

“We will improve the pub facilities and décor but we will retain the character. The open log fire is the first thing people see when they open the door and we have no piped music or TV. An increasing range of microbreweries supplies our real ale. Everyone who comes through the door is assured of a friendly welcome.”

The new owners of the pub have guaranteed each employee – currently three but due to rise to five – the Living Wage of £7.65 an hour and it has been agreed that the much-loved former landlady can continue living there by renting the flat upstairs.

Julia Long, Unite’s rural national officer, has said she is “pleased to see so many communities rallying to save their local pubs. Good luck to all of them.”

Will there be a free vote to repeal the Hunting Act?

Sadly, lack of space meant this article failed to appear in the current edition of the Landworker magazine. 

Opinion polls show the public is firmly opposed to any change.  So will the coalition government keep to the agreement they made when they took office to give MPs a free vote on repealing the 2004 Hunting Act? 

It took more than 700 hours of parliamentary debate to outlaw hunting wild animals for sport. Labour was forced to use the Parliament Act after Tory peers in the Lords repeatedly rejected the legislation.

The Countryside Alliance (CA) claimed the Act, which bans the hunting with dogs of all wild animals, and all hare coursing, would be unworkable and would lead to massive rural job losses. Yet with only one hunt subsequently forced to close the employment impact has been negligible. The number of successful prosecutions under the Hunting Act has in the meantime risen steadily each year and is approaching 300 in total.

It’s perhaps, therefore, not too surprising that the public overwhelmingly believe that fox and deer hunting belong firmly to the past. In December 2013 a poll by IPSOS Mori showed that over 80% of people – with no divide between rural and urban inhabitants – want these barbaric practices to remain outlawed.

Research by the League against Cruel Sports has also revealed that only a minority of MPs would like to repeal the law. There is even a Conservatives against Fox Hunting organisation with a number of MPs as members.

With the next election certain to be a tight run affair would it therefore be wise for any party to be seen to support hunting and the redcoats who engage in it? Votes in marginal constituencies could be lost to Labour, whose MPs overwhelmingly support the Hunting Act.

All of which, however, presents some problems to the coalition as when they combined in 2010 - to begin forcing through their austerity package - also promised, during their term in office, MPs a free vote on repealing the law. Two years later, David Cameron, re-affirmed his personal opposition to the Hunting Act and confirmed there would be a vote before the general election in 2015.

If the Conservatives fail to keep these promises they risk losing the votes of CA members, 90% of who voted for the party in 2010 and are now considering switching to UKIP.  Nigel Farage, the leader of the foreigner bashing party, which has nothing to say on saving the NHS and won’t even back calls to curb bankers’ bonuses, is pro fox-hunting.

On Boxing Day, Farage was photographed shaking hands with Mark Bycroft from the Old Surrey Burstow and West Kent Hunt. A fortnight earlier the huntsman had launched a pre-meditated attack on Martin Randle, 24, from Brighton during an anti-hunt protest.

Bycroft was cautioned for common assault. As he has a number of previous convictions for assault then Bycroft appears to have been dealt with very leniently by the police. None of which concerned a smiling Farage in his battle with leading Tories to turn the clocks back to a period when the countryside was viewed by the wealthy as their playground. 

Flood flight

Taken from the Landworker magazine, the voice of the rural worker

With vast swathes of our rural farmland and countryside, especially in the south west, currently lying abandoned underwater, with no end to the seemingly constant deluge in sight, there are many questions the government and environment agency need to answer.

Recent years have shown flooding is a real and frequent risk – and those in power must take responsibility and appropriate action. In West Yorkshire, local people have published a report showing how changes to the landscape could reduce the severity.

Understanding the Hebden Water Catchment is the result of a campaign – Ban the Burn – in which people living in Hebden Bridge expressed concerns that the destruction of blanket bog on a local upland moorland estate was helping cause flooding in the town. In recent years, Hebden Bridge has regularly flooded, resulting in some businesses permanently closing.

In 2012, Ban the Burn joined the RSPB in complaining to the European Commission (EC) at the decision of Natural England (NE) to drop plans to prosecute the Walshaw Moor Estate (WME) on 43 grounds of uncontested environmental damage, including converting a stream to a track.

Local businessman Richard Bannister owns WME. Under his 12-year stewardship the increased facilitation of grouse shooting has resulted in a significant removal of blanket peat bog. This forms over thousands of years and can, according to NE, ‘help reduce flood risk through slowing hydrological pathways.’

With the EC decision not expected till later this year, campaigners began mapping the 59 sq km circling Hebden Bridge. A number of local reservoirs are often close to capacity and therefore are of little benefit in preventing flooding.

Many field drains were found to be unmapped or in poor condition. In some cases, new housing had been built over old drainage routes. Establishing ponds could have wildlife benefits and also help cut run-off. Regularly moving cattle from one location to another can reduce the impact of erosion and increase the depth of soils.

Pathways and tracks are great at encouraging walkers but can become water channels in floods and the report suggests adapting them to guide floodwater away from properties. 1950s manmade drainage channels called grips also need monitoring, and in some cases removed, to reduce water flow.

The Forestry Commission ‘Woodlands for Water’ project is aiming to identify areas where creating new woodlands can mitigate flooding. Only five per cent of the Hebden Bridge water catchment is wooded and its residents have now drawn up a map showing potential areas for tree planting, which, if successful, would quadruple the figure to 20%.

The burning of peat bog to create a habitat for grouse breeding, feeding and raising chicks for the shooting season is not only a flooding concern. Burning releases carbon into the atmosphere and affects water quality, with the increased costs for treatment being added to water bills.

The report also offers some simple suggestions including ensuring drains are kept unblocked, flood wardens are recruited and old river structures are repaired

Understanding the Hebden Water Catchment is well worth reading and can be accessed online at http://www.treesponsibility.com/

Dangerous dip to be finally phased out?

A sheep farmer whose health was affected by organophophate poisoning has welcomed the decision by the British Wool Marketing Board to end sheep dipping courses.

Without a recognised certificate new entrants to the industry will be forced to adopt different methods of tackling sheep scab, such as the use of injections and pour-on treatments.

Although the government’s chief scientist warned as long ago as 1951 that organophosphate pesticides (OPs) were dangerous and could be absorbed through the skin or by inhalation, their use in sheep dip became compulsory in the late 1970s.

Farmers’ suicides

Farmers were given instructions on using protective clothing. Those that became unwell – symptoms included feeling acutely tired, weak and nauseous, memory loss and blurred speech and vision– initially found it almost impossible to be diagnosed by their doctors.

One of the victims, Brenda Sutcliffe, a Littleborough sheep farmer, faced a wall of silence when she began researching the hazards of sheep dip. She eventually used the US Freedom of Information Act to uncover evidence that some products caused impaired memory and concentration, nightmares and confusion.

She claimed there was a link between OPs and a large number of suicides among sheep farmers. She calculated that in ten years from 1995 more than 1,000 shepherds ended their own lives.

Health warnings

Sutcliffe and other campaigners forced the Health and Safety Executive to issue health warnings and instructions on the use of OPs and bring to an end the compulsory order on sheep dipping.

In 1993 farmers could only continue using OP dips if they gained a training certificate in their use.

But the products remained on the market. Critics noted that the body that continued to approve them contained 11 members – from 17 – with financial or other links to companies that manufactured them. Farmers were not told OPs were a health risk.

Government officials have continued to insist that there is no “definitive” link between OP use and ill health. But OPs have been blamed for Gulf War syndrome among soldiers,

and some former airline crew members believe their ill health is the result of OPs within toxins released into aircraft during flight.

Some passengers have also expressed concern. The Big Issue in the North last year reported on the case of Karen Isherwood from Warrington who became unwell after travelling by plane to Tenerife.

Isherwood’s MP, the shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, is organising a parliamentary meeting and has invited Sutcliffe and another constituent, Margaret Percival.

Percival has been a farmer for over 50 years but temporarily quit in 1989 when she became “too exhausted to work”, after having dipped sheep for many years. She was diagnosed with OP poisoning.

Percival said she was “delighted” that the British Wool Marketing Board would no longer be offering sheep dipping courses, which could hasten the end of the use of OPs in farming.

Chemical companies

Colin MacGregor, British Wool Marketing Board training manager, said: “We will no longer be offering sheep dipping courses. This is due to two reasons. There is a low level of interest. Secondly, there is the controversy that the products concerned are causing, and our increasing knowledge of the health concerns that are coupled with the products involved.”

Percival said: “We are still seeking justice for those like myself whose health has been affected by OPs. We have proved these are dangerous products and the very fact that the chemical companies have never sued us – even though we have damaged their sales – proves that to be the case.

“There has been a mishandling of this affair with the government, public health bodies, chemical companies and even solicitors who were supposed to be helping us involved. I’d really like to see some people prosecuted for their roles.”

Edible? It's incredible!

A slightly revised version of this piece appears in the current edition of the Landworker magazine of the trade union Unite. 

Having started in Todmorden, the Incredible Edible network - which is alll about growing healthy, local food - has topped 200 groups worldwide in just six years. Community growing plots, linking up with schools and children, and backing local suppliers, form the background of the movement.  

Planting by volunteers of public spaces within the West Yorkshire market town began in 2008. With significant rainfall throughout the year, Todmorden is not ideal for growing food. Yet these urban ‘propaganda gardens’ soon had edible things germinating right across the town. It was a sure demonstration that food does not have to travel thousands of miles to land on our plates. 

Following these successes, two social enterprises were established in Todmorden, the Incredible Edible AquaGarden and the Incredible Edible Farm.

The latter occupies a one-acre site in a valley by the Rochdale canal. It is inhospitable territory …but today you can see salad being grown in the winter, fruit trees flourishing and hens and geese living off the land. 

“We started because people need to be able to feed themselves by growing decent food and raising poultry. This is the way forward if people want to eat healthily and cheaply,” says Nick Green, the farms’ chair of directors. 

“Landowners can see that under-utilised land can be cultivated. Products they grow can be sold to local shops and schools.”  

The AquaGarden involves three different growing methods, aquaponics, hydroponics and soil growing. With Aquaponics, the by-products from accumulated fish waste acts as nutrients for plant growing. Hydroponics is the growing of plants using mineral nutrients in water without soil.

Todmorden is leading experiments that could radically change food production techniques. 

Tomatoes, beans, salad crops and herbs will be grown on the AquaGarden building at Todmorden High School, where pupils are studying BTEC agriculture and horticulture studies at the AquaGarden. All eight Todmorden schools are linked in with the Incredible Edible projects and developing agricultural educational and career opportunities for young people is central to every other sister project globally. 

Keen to develop the local food growing skills base, the AquaGarden has employed two agricultural apprentices. These include 29-year old Danny Haymonds, who is “learning some new skills that I can use to obtain employment once I complete my 18 months training.” 

The official opening last year of the AquaGarden premises was undertaken by Myles Bremner, head of the School Food Plan, under which head teachers will be supported to improve food in schools. This initiative is being combined with £1 billion pounds to provide a free school lunch for all state infant school pupils starting in autumn for the next two years. 

Bremner has supported Incredible Edible initiatives from the start. Aine Douglas, development manager at the AquaGarden, believes he “will help link up all the local food growing and educational projects like ours with local schools. “

Charlie Clutterbuck, Unite  agricultural workers national committee and a board member at the Incredible Edible Farm, is delighted. “The progress being made across the Incredible Edible network is fantastic.”