Hinterland - rural intelligence from behind the headlines (w/e Mon 29 Oct 2010)

Weekly summary - 29 October 2010

I have gone for an environmental flavour this week. We feature food security, the selling off of forests and attacks on stags, greenbelt and even mushrooms. It seems nothing is sacred in rural England any more.

Ivan Annibal
ivan.annibal@roseregeneration.co.uk

Global food crisis forecast as
prices reach record highs

(Link: The Guardian, 25 October)
Never forget when people consider rural places parochial or off the beaten track that they are often much closer to the beating heart of the world economy than many think.
    This article makes the point very powerfully indicating how global food issues will set the context for agriculture and more importantly food security in the UK going forward.
    The article explains how "The governments of Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil and the Philippines have all warned of possible food shortages next year, citing floods and droughts in 2010, expected extreme weather next year, and speculation by traders who are buying up food stocks for release when prices rise."
    It goes on to indicate that some commentators anticipate a 5 year crisis in terms of food availability and prices. It is only about a100 years ago that even in industrialised Britain significant rural depopulation resulted from agricultural depression. I have recently been mapping time lines for Lincolnshire's rural population in three distinct and separate villages as part of a longitudinal consideration of sustainability.
    Amazingly all 3 registered a significant drop in population between 1881 and 1911 as a consequence of the great agricultural depression. We live in a different, post modern environment today, but we should in no way take our own food security in the longer term for granted.

Britain stares into the abyss again as household confidence plummets

(Link: Independent, 25 October)
According to this article: "Some economists believe that Britain could suffer the much-feared "double dip" next year and, even if the economy doesn't shrink again, any path back to economic normality seems certain to be protracted and painfully slow."
    It goes on to say: "Such stagnation or minimal recovery will not generate sufficient jobs to compensate for the nearly one million that will be lost as the cuts bite deeper. It also suggests that the Government's plans for deficit reduction may need to be revisited if the deficit grows wider as a result of the slowdown, with lower tax revenues and a higher bill for unemployment benefits bloating public borrowing."
    I have been predicting this and I believe as a consequence of the over dependence of parts of rural England on the public sector for employment pockets of rural England will fare worst of all. Lets hope it doesn't come to this and if it does as I have also shown in recent weeks, particularly in relation to my work on economically vulnerability, there are strong bonds of informal economic support and mutuality in rural England which might counter-balance some of its public sector dependency.
    If you want to hear more of my thoughts on all this please do get in touch.

Government plans huge
sell-off of Britain's forests

(Link: Independent, 25 October)

This article tells how: "The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs plans to dispose of about half the land looked after by the Forestry Commission, raising fears that the trees will disappear to be replaced by amusement parks and other ventures.

The Forestry Commission holds about 1.85 million acres of woodland, about a third of which may be sold off, in one the biggest land sales in British history." I really do think this might be short-sighted. I don't like the idea of Government cutting a swathe through the public sector but I am prepared to go some way in accepting that it is an inevitable issue we have to face.

In view of the relatively small contribution to a huge deficit this approach involves I feel at the best a little disquieted by the potential loss of our forests, through what seems to me an approach arising from a silo mentality towards cuts allocated on a department by department basis.

There is a danger this leaves no-one with the overview of what is important to preserve and what might best be cut overall in favour of a quota system. A quota system which leaves some relatively unimportant things untouched in some less affected areas of public provision and other extremely valuable assets lost or sold off to balance the books in those departments which have done less well in the spending cuts.