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Friday 21 March 2014

Spring Farming

A familiar sight now is Black-headed Gulls following the plough or the rotovator.  


Farming is a difficult business to get right and there are many guidelines and regulations to follow.
There are Codes of Practice in existence for spraying pesticides etc on farmland. That said, they are only codes of practice and nothing is mandatory. I watched this spraying activity below from the safety of a car. The fairly high winds and sudden gusts at the time was blowing the spray across the fields and over public roads. There seems little point in having codes of practice, if contractors that carryout this work fail to stick to them and what is important to the Farmer paying for it is that half the spray is blown away and not on the crops.




12 comments:

  1. You make some good points, Roy. We were lucky not to come in range of any sprayers yesterday, while out walking in the wind.

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  2. "The Plant Protection Products (Sustainable Use) Regulations 2012 require that the application of pesticides must be confined to the land, crop, structure, material or other area to be treated. The spray must not drift outside the area of application."
    That's the law!

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    Replies
    1. I bow to your superior knowledge on this matter "Me Lord".

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  3. ...yes got your drift ....re the pesticides Roy

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  4. Hey Roy.... Wow glad I am not down wind of that waste of spray "gag". : (
    Wish it wasn't used at all!!

    I am jealous of the turned over ground !! It will be some time before that happens here!!

    Grace

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    Replies
    1. Thanks GG, yes pressure on farmers to produce more for less, means using all this stuff.

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  5. You have raised an important issue by posting these images Roy.
    Wildlife has always had some sort of benefit from farming activities. The picture at the top gives a very good impression of that, though in former times, there would have been much more gulls behind the tractor.
    Somehow, somewhere agricultural activities have started to hamper wildlife. You have symbolized this quite impressive in the images at the bottom of this post.
    Thank you very much for sharing,
    sjerp

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  6. Hi roy. Yes you have highlighted am important issue.

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