Dyson chops down food growing whilst hoovering up agricultural land

On the back of hoovering up thousands of acres of prime agricultural land has Sir James Dyson sliced food growing lessons out of the national curriculum? That’s the fear of Unite’s Charlie Clutterbuck and Garden Organic, the UK's leading organic growing charity. If the inventor is successful the fear is he could be stopping children develop the horticultural skills the country so desperately requires in the future.

Last year Garden Organic was one of 20 organisations that jointly published a report claiming there were health benefits for children who learned to grow their own fruit and vegetables. The report also claimed that food growing could help children develop employment skills.  Which might just be good news considering the Royal Agricultural Society estimates the UK will need 60,000 new farming recruits over the next ten years, whilst graduates from agricultural courses enjoy exceptionally high employment rates. 

Garden Organic’s views seemed to have the Department for Education’s (DfE) support when its draft design and technology curriculum said pupils should be taught skills to “cultivate plants for practical purposes”. The draft also advised that pupils should “understand food and nutrition.”

Community campaigners were convinced horticulture and cookery would be added to the national curriculum from 2014. But in April the influential inventor Sir James Dyson used the consultation period to criticise the proposals.

He said: “Design and technology should be the subject where mathematical brainboxes

and science whizzkids turn their bright ideas into useful products rather than bringing together cookery, construction and horticulture. This new curriculum will not inspire the invention and engineers Britain so desperately needs.”

The DfE has been unwilling to say if food growing has remained on the new curriculum that will be announced in August.

Myles Bremner, chief executive of Garden Organic, admitted: “I am concerned but I see this as a win-win in which growing food gives children the opportunities of finding out about design and technology.

“To feed a population with fruit and vegetables requires a range of innovative engineering designs to create, for example, efficient combine harvesters.

We also need soil scientists, and science and technology is going to play an important role in ensuring Britain can take mitigating action against climate change. Engineering, cooking and food growing are all inter-connected.”

Dyson is best known for his invention of the bagless vacuum cleaner but caused controversy in 2002 when he moved his manufacturing plant to Malaysia. He is estimated to be worth £1.5 billion, and earlier this year spent £150 million on 17,000 acres of agricultural farmland in Lincolnshire. According to local parish newspaper this is ‘a long term investment with future development likely to be limited to chicken sheds and polytunnels.” 

Dyson’s stance has drawn criticism from Unite’s agricultural science expert Charlie Clutterbuck. 

“Wealthy investors have been buying farmland because it doesn’t incur inheritance tax and English farmland has now reached a record high of £9,100 per acre,” he said. “Having made his name using design and technology skills on everyday household items then why doesn’t he turn those skills to food and farming?”

The National Union of Teachers supports food growing in schools. Deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney said: “Learning about food technology and nutrition would make for good, practical features of any curriculum.”

However, Courtney questioned the likely impact of inclusion since more than half of Britain’s secondary schools are now free to ignore the national curriculum due to their academy status.

Di Canio is a fascist and is therefore a racist

A number of Sunderland fans are claiming that Di Canio might be a fascist but he is not a racist. They are even putting it around that Mussolini wasn't a racist.

So was there no intrinsic racial policy to Italian fascism? 

What therefore are we to make of Mussolini’s statement in 1928 that he feared ‘the whole White race, the Western race can be submerged by other coloured races which are multiplying at a rate unknown to our race?” 

In 1938 he told a Rome audience after the invasion of Ethiopia: “This is why the racial laws of the empire will be rigorously observed and that all who sin against them will be expelled, punished, imprisoned. Because for the empire to be preserved the natives must be clearly and forcefully aware of our superiority.”

Well done Venezuela

Some 870 million people are hungry in the world today, whilst another two billion suffer from at least one deficiency in micronutrients such as zinc and essential fatty acids. A quarter of all children under five are stunted and 31 per cent suffer from Vitamin A deficiency. These are the conclusions of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its flagship annual publication The State of Food and Agriculture. 

Calling for resolute efforts to eradicate malnutrition and hunger, FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said: “we have a long way ahead” in which billions have a shortened, reduced quality of life. 

Improving supply chains, upping nutritional quality of foods, investing in labour-saving farming technologies and cutting food losses are regarded as essential and the FAO also want to see women given greater control over resources. The organisation highlighted successful vegetable and pulses projects in East Africa, the promotion of home gardens in West Africa and the encouragement of mixed vegetable and animal farming systems together with income-generating activities in some Asian countries. 

Also making progress has been Venezuela, which has received a certificate of recognition from the FAO for achieving part of the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating hunger by halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. This goal was established in 1996 to be achieved by 2015. 

FAO statistics say that 13.5% of Venezuelans suffered from hunger in 1990-92, compared to 5% in 2007-2012. The FAO representative in Venezuela Marcelo Resende said: “the government has been able to understand that food is everyone’s right and not just the privilege of the few, and it has based it works on that.” 

The record of the Venezuelan government in agriculture has been matched in health with child mortality rates down from 31.32 deaths per thousand in 1990 to 13.90 in 2012, whilst the death rate from tuberculosis has also fallen by over half in the same period. Despite these considerable achievements hostile elements in the US and the old Venezuelan elite are intent on preventing the Venezuelan people from determining their own future, with numerous attempts to overthrow the elected government.

Matt Willgress, Venezuela Solidarity Campaign coordinator said," Venezuelan achievements in tackling hunger and malnutrition join a long list - including in areas such as tackling poverty, eradicating illiteracy and improving public health - that have been internationally lauded for showing a better world is possible. By putting people first, and redistributing resources, Venezuela shows there is an alternative to the failed policies of neo liberalism.” 

Unite supports the progressive changes that have been made in Venezuela and are one of 18 national unions that are affiliated to the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. To find out more, including how to get your branch to affiliate, go to www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk 

How low can NFU get?

It appears the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) will attempt to justify almost anything these days that boost the profits of its members.  

Not willing to pay workers a decent wage that includes sick pay, guaranteed hours and holidays, the NFU has helped abolish the Agricultural Wages Board. The ‘union’ has also thrown its considerable weight behind plans to slash HSE inspections. That’s despite agriculture remaining easily the most dangerous occupation today, with a number of NFU member’s – and their children – included on the list of those slaughtered. 

Now the NFU president Peter Kendall has attacked the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) in a case which has led to many diary migrant workers now earning the legal minimum wage by having their wages raised by as much as £400 to £600 a month. 

Kendall was upset after a three-year GLA investigation into the use of Filipino herdsmen on farms ended with an absolute discharge and £300 costs for 15 prominent UK diary farmers, including Gwyn Jones, a former NFU president from West Sussex. All had admitted to being guilty of ‘using the services of an unlicensed gangmaster.’ 

Christopher Blakeney - and his company Marden Management - who was convicted of trading as an unlicensed gangmaster last November, had supplied labour to the farmers. He will be sentenced on August 9. 

Kendall attacked the GLA’s £100,000 legal costs saying: “considering the cost to the taxpayer it’s difficult to see how the public interest has been served.” 

That was not however how the views of Judge Cooper in the case who said he was satisfied the prosecutions had been “properly brought by the GLA”, and he told the farmers: “What you did by engaging these people enabled their exploitation by others.” Cooper said he was not fining the farmers because they had “had these matters hanging over you for a long period of time.” Some Landworker readers may think that’s a pretty lucky way to escape having to shell out for breaking the law.

GLA Chief Executive Paul Broadbent was perhaps understandably “disappointed” at this failure to punish the farmers. He said: “ The whole case was by far the most serious example we have tackled exclusively in terms of the intentional, well-organised and systematic exploitation of workers, but the punishment does not reflect that. 

I remain convinced they were part of an exploitative enterprise, benefiting from well-qualified labour provided at a price that was ‘too good to be true.’

Marden was not licensed and could only supply labour at such an attractively low rate because it was operating illegally. A two-minute call to the GLA, or check the public register on the website, would have answered any questions and prevented these people breaking the law.

Our actions mean many diary workers are now earning between £400 and £600 a month more.” That’s surely worth a celebratory pint!  

Help protect Columbian agricultural leader

International solidarity is urgently needed to help protect the life of Columbian agricultural leader Alfamir Castillo.

The president of the Women Sugar Cane Cutters Committee has fought tirelessly to bring to justice the military killers of her 23-year-old son Darvey and his friend Alex on 8 February 2008. Lured into a trap, they were shot dead from behind by killers who were motivated by cash bonus incentives and extra holidays. 3,000 citizens died in this way in Colombia between 2002 and 2008, when the scandal finally surfaced.

The pair’s killings only came to light because Darvey’s cousin happened to be in the army unit that committed the executions and as a result of Alfamir’s campaigning his evidence helped secure the convictions of seven soldiers last year. 

Alfamir’s success has though come at great personal cost as she has been subject to an attempted kidnap, constant surveillance of her home by unidentified men and numerous death threats. All of have intensified in recent months as the trial of two army generals, the highest-ranking officials to date, draws nearer. 

Concerned for her safety, 3,000 War on Want supporters wrote in April to the Colombian ambassador to press for precautionary measures to protect Alfamir after she and her family were forced to move home following the failure of the National Protection Unit to offer 24 hour protection. This is a familiar tale for trade unionists facing assassination threats in a country where over 2,500 have been murdered in the last 20 years.

Alfamir was one of the leader’s of a historic strike by sugar cane cutters’ unions in 2008 when 15,000 sugar cane cutters, the majority of which had ancestors who were taken to Colombia as slaves, defied the police, paramilitaries and the sugar cane companies to demand an end to working conditions little better than slavery. This self-organisation marked the start of the Women Sugar Cane Cutters Committee, which today has around 150 committed members in an ongoing struggle that is currently focused on protecting workers losing their jobs because of mechanisation.

War on Want would like union members to back their campaign to protect Alfamir Castillo by emailing the Colombian ambassador at www.waronwant.org/overseas-work/conflict-zones/17837

Union branches can also offer longer-term support for Colombian trade unionists by affiliating to Justice for Colombia at www.justiceforcolombia.org 

English workers set to lose out

Agricultural workers in England face being paid less than those in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales after a heartless government formally abolished the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) for England and Wales on June 25. The move leaves thousands of workers without union representation over wages and conditions and with no way of knowing when they might next receive a pay increase. 

Fellow workers in Scotland and Northern Ireland will certainly be getting paid more after October 1st after the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) proposed to increase by 13 pence per hour to £6.99 the pay of agricultural workers employed by the same employer for more than 26 weeks. Workers with less time will see their basic wage increase by 10p to £6.32.

Scotland has had its own AWB since 1949. Its parliament, like the Northern Ireland Assembly, has opted to retain the board. Wages under the AWB for Northern Ireland were increased on 6 April, and now start at £6.35 an hour and run up to £8.99 an hour for farm management. 

“It’s good news for Scots agricultural workers and those in Northern Ireland and the pay increase is one Unite wanted to see replicated in England and Wales but the board would not even discuss such an idea,” said Julia Long, Unite national officer for rural workers. The current agricultural wages order for England and Wales runs until 30 September.  

By which time emergency plans by the Welsh Assembly Government to retain the functions of the AWB in Wales will have been introduced. The Assembly ran a consultation from May 1 to June 26 on whether there should be a stand-alone body in Wales similar to those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Labour’s Alun Davies, the minister for natural resources and food, expressed concern that 13,000 low paid agricultural workers in Wales could be badly hit. 

Do nothing, legislate to maintain the functions of the AWB in Wales and create a non-statutory advisory board were the three options considered under the consultation, following which Mr Davies said: “After careful consideration I have decided to bring forward an Assembly Bill on July 8 to preserve the Agricultural Wages Order in Wales after October 2013.” (*) 

Davies accused the government of  “abolishing the AWB through the Enterprise and Regulatory Bill in order to deliberately circumvent Public Bodies Act provisions that act as the mechanism for dealing with the UK Government’s proposals to abolish public bodies for England and Wales. This is a tactic to avoid the requirement for Assembly consent for the proposed action.” 

The political sleight-of-hand by which the Welsh Assembly was excluded from the decision to abolish the AWB in England and Wales was just the latest in a sorry tale of coalition surrenders to the employers, supermarkets and the large horticultural companies of East Anglia. Abolition of the wages councils in the 1980s saw wages in those industries drop and there is little to suggest that won’t prove the case this time. 

Claims by Lib Dem farming minister David Heath MP that agricultural workers will be protected by national minimum wage (NMW) regulations also ring hollow. That’s because - unlike under the AWB – the NMW regulations don’t cover overtime rates, annual holiday entitlement, sick pay scheme and flexible worker grades – all of which are standard under the AWB and go some way towards attracting young people into an industry with an ageing workforce. 

The AWB was even abolished without a debate or a vote on April 16 and it wasn’t until Labour’s Mary Creagh used one of its opposition days – allocated in the Commons for the discussion of subjects chosen by the opposition – that there was anything approaching a proper Parliamentary debate in which 283 MPs voted to retain plans to abolish the AWB against 215 who wanted them scrapped.

Of course, with the Liberal Democrats almost certain to suffer heavily at the next election and the Tories in disarray over Europe, the hope is that Labour will win a majority in 2015. Unite is due to meet shortly with shadow ministers to see how farm workers can be protected under a future Labour government. 

In the interim Unite is continuing to take legal advice on whether a case can be made to the European Court of Human Rights because of the human rights issues at stake. A ‘wages watch’ unit to monitor attacks on wages and accommodation is being established to build the case for restoration of the AWB as soon as possible. 

“It is a very sad that the AWB in England and Wales has been scrapped. Hopefully it will remain in Wales and then we can concentrate on having it restored in England,” said Julia Long. 

* The Welsh Assembly agreed and legislation has now been passed in the Assembly. However the bill will not become law until the Queen has given Royal Assent. The Assembly must first wait to see if the UK government decides to take the case to the Supreme Court where if the legislation was seen as an agricultural measure then it would fall within the Assembly’s competence. If however it was viewed as employment legislation it could be struck down as being outside the Assembly’s powers. 

Back the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign

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Ricky Tomlinson spoke passionately at the Durham Miners' Gala on
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Thanks to Mark Harvey for allowing the use of this photograph.