grass roots Farmer jailed for Eco Vandalism on Industrial Scale

WRITE this at a time of year when there seem to be nothing but bank holidays, coronations, and other days of national celebration. In my very small town, I feel I am battling through acres of patriotic bunting. Mondays off work are all very well, but the poor volunteer writer does not benefit. And, as you may have noticed, the editorial hacks who labour to fill the pages of Broad Sheep were absent from the long lists of worthies invited to Westminster Abbey.

However, instead of awarding myself a day off, I decided to cut back my heavy workload by commissioning an article from a platform based on artificial intelligence. I am assured that the punctuation, style and sheer panache of this piece will perfectly match the articles I have been sending the editor every month for the last few years, a few days (minutes) before my deadline.

But this time those brilliant words and paragraphs will have been created by an AI system. It is called Pedantic! It seems to be working and doing its job already and to be honest, I can’t tell the difference. Did you spot the join? Perhaps there is a hanging participle, or a cliché? A split infinitive, or some other infelicity? If so, please write to the editor, or to me, and we will happily throw this AI prog onto the scrap heap of history!

You may have noticed that a farmer in Herefordshire has been jailed for causing environmental damage along a mile-long stretch of the River Lugg. John Price, of Day House Farm, Kingsland, has been sentenced to a year in prison and has been ordered to pay over £1.2 million, after pleading guilty to a string of environmental offences.

When it comes to the river and its banks, it seems that Farmer Price has a bit of form. This goes back to 2007, when he allegedly built a dam on farmland he was renting near Stretford. The dam was to enable him to water his potato crop. At that time the unauthorised earthworks caused a waterway, Stretford Brook, to dry up for about a mile of its course, according to the Environment Agency. Price pleaded guilty to two offences and was fined.

In 2018, Price carried out more works on land he rented at Marden, say local reports. In the ensuing prosecution, his defence maintained that these alterations to the landscape were made with good intentions. In 2020 and 2021, Price is alleged to have made more changes to the Lugg and its banks, breaching a series of regulations. Price admitted a number of charges.

As long ago as 1995, the Lugg had been rated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. As I read it, an SSSI is an area judged to contain wildlife valuable enough to require a special protection regime. But prosecutors have alleged that John Price caused such extensive damage to the River Lugg and its banks that the habitats of otters, kingfishers, crayfish, salmon and many other species were destroyed, along with dozens of plants and trees. Passing sentence on Price in March, District Judge Ian Strongman said, “Any person could not fail to be dismayed by the devastation caused by Mr Price.” Price had turned the river into “…a canal devoid of most life. It is ecological vandalism on an industrial scale.”

During his unauthorised works, Price was alleged to have used bulldozers and excavators along the Lugg, without consent. The defence argued that Price’s activities were part of a plan aimed at flood prevention. It was also claimed in Mr Price’s defence that he was autistic. Well, a while back, we were told that the Swedish eco-activist Greta Thunberg was autistic, but I don’t recall this being cited as justification for a program of dramatic environmental alterations impacting her neighbours in Stockholm.

Reports suggest that farmer Price’s assets mean he could be worth over £20 million all told. If so, he can hardly be seen as a poor son of the soil, struggling to survive. After this case, he faces a bill for £600,000 for the prosecution’s costs plus £600,000 to pay for restoration works ordered by the regulators.

When I raised the case of Price with an acquaintance who professes disillusion with environmentalism, she referred me to a website called Conservative Woman. It carried an outspoken article defending Price. Although the Tories have put out mixed signals on the environment in recent years, I couldn’t see many Tories taking up the cudgels on behalf of the alleged “vandal” farmer.

I then learned that “Conservative Woman” does not claim any links to the Tory party. In fact, it seems to be led by denialists, who refuse to accept man’s role in causing climate change. Their views on the environmental damage along the River Lugg must be seen in that context. A blind spot about global warming has apparently spilled over, to engulf the more prosaic, but equally important issue of our waterways and their health and vitality.

That’s it, basically! That AI device worked well, didn’t it? I might use it again! Julian O’Halloran