4 minute read
Nick Joy
What a terrible waste it is!
BY NICK JOY
WHEN I heard that the SNP and Greens had joined hands to merrily dance down the road together, initially I felt hopeless. Since the reality has come home, I feel worse.
I desperately wish that the Greens were genuinely interested in the environment and a logical and reasoned debate about the future of the world or even Scotland. Sadly I have yet to hear one that involves them.
There is either a view that there is a money tree, from which any policy can be funded, or a discourse on the failures of the capitalist system, which apparently has caused everything bad in the world and nothing good.
Of course, it is fair to say that the capitalist system does not always produce good results. It’s just that the world is so infinitely complicated now; the flow of information and the range of options are enormous. In politics, the need to be seen as being on the right side has become so important that people are condemned almost immediately if they do not “virtue-signal” on absolutely everything.
So where does that leave the poor beleaguered food producer? I join salmon farming with other food producers because we all face a relatively uninformed public, and politicians who have no time and little interest unless there are votes in it.
Food production takes time, but politics is the story of now, especially in a democracy with a short time between elections. Producers on the ground have little time to spend educating politicians and so we end up with industry organisations, which are often perceived as malign by the media generally and very specifically by the environmental lobby. These conflated pressures make it extremely difficult to be heard, especially by those who view our work with suspicion.
I do believe the salmon farming industry has been making a very good case for its existence in our local communities. I could name a number of initiatives in Orkney, which have really resonated. The problem is that these are small communities with few votes. I am not suggesting that these initiatives should stop, not least because these places are where we exist and local support is crucial.
Political parties like the Greens are effectively the mouthpieces of what used to be called “the chattering classes”, mostly urban-based with views on how the world should be, even if it doesn’t fit with the way it actually is.
So when someone tells me that the Green Party have got their hands on the reins or a bit of the reins, I immediately get nervous for those people who have to cope with the countryside as it really is.
I have spent most of my career pushing for greater and greater sustainability in everything I have been involved with, but I have never found the Greens easy to deal with.
The underlying problem that faces the world is not just that the climate is changing, nor that plastics pollute, nor that homes aren’t insulated; it is also that there are a huge number of people and we have to feed them. We have to do that in a way that is sustainable in the long term. And before anyone mentions the word “vegan”, I cannot think of anything less sustainable. Biodiversity would crash and most of the countryside would be covered with plastic, followed by even worse problems with the water table in fruit and vegetable producing regions. It’s just not that simple.
Here’s some things that would shock your average Green Party enthusiast. Biodiversity is best on a mixed-stock farm. Most land is unsuitable for vegetable, arable or fruit farming, certainly in Scotland. If we allow most of our food to be produced abroad, what will happen when shortages occur? Will they feed us or their own people? (I won’t discuss what we have to done to Africa on that basis.)
The high-quality, healthy protein that comes from fish farming is simply irreplaceable. Every time I have asked the question of how it could be replaced, I have had an evasive or vague answer because there is no answer. In the end it is our job to keep on fighting, however tiresome and exhausting it is. Occasionally there are lights that shine from unexpected places. Such is Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm programme. Nearly everyone both from country and town enjoyed it. He showed farming as it really is, but also how tough and unprofitable it can be. In the end we have to find ways to get the public and the politicians to see our reality. If we don’t, we will end up living in theirs! FF
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