...get me out of here

We have seen a lot of signs here saying 'No Farmers, No Food', more than at home. This seems to be (probably) a grass-roots campaign with the stated dual aims of alerting the public to the problems afflicting farmers, to engenger their support, and applying pressure on government to do something about it

A quick read of a single article, about it in Farmers Weekly highlights a shopping list of issues: opposition to net zero policies; extreme weather (I kid you not); "legislation" that creates risk and uncertainty; unfair prices, government subsidies (inadequate, presumably); farmers' wellbeing; supermarket power; unfair competition from imports; flood defences (inadequate); 'nitrate vulnerable zones'; bovine tuberculosis policy; the 'sustainable farming scheme'; 'green taxes'; 'staffing issues' (fallout from Brexit, presumably, though that is not made explicit)

As a way to engage with a wider public, 'No Farmers, No Food' seems to me a terrible slogan: a combative, negative amalgam of aggrieved and churlish. It may well tap into a genuine, justified, deep sense of betrayal that many farmers feel in the fallout from the 2008 banking scandal and the socio-economic self-immolation of Brexit, but self-pity is not an attractive quality, and I think most people will not be receptive to a message that, at its core, says "we're special" 

We found ourselves walking a 'perfect storm' footpath. What looked on the map like a gentle climb through a quiet wood turned into a desperate scramble up steep, slippery ground on a path that was overgrown from both sides by tangled brambles, nettles and thorn bushes, capped with bracken that was taller than both of us. (Yes, of course I was wearing shorts). Fallen timber provided a few additional headaches, as did some forks in the path that led nowhere and had to be retraced. There were stone stiles, capped with a wooden fence, some also with wire, that are higher than any I have ever encountered, with three or four protruding slates providing a precarious 'staircase' to the summit. Throughout, we were pursued by clouds of horse-flies intent on lunch

The icing on the cake - if you'll forgive the dreadful metaphor - was the discovery that several hundred metres of the path were flooded by undiluted cow slurry, that had obviously spent the winter seeping down the slope from a muck-heap at the summit, and was now curdling nicely in the hot conditions. Also not great PR, guys 

When we eventually emerged, these two, and several friends, were waiting for us, with expressions that say 'not many people come this way'