Several aspects of modern agricultural practice have attracted their share of criticism in recent years. The removal of hedgerows to facilitate large-scale arable farming, intensive livestock production methods and the use of heavy nitrate dressings which eventually pollute watercourses, for example, have all been attacked. When it comes to causing damage and nuisance both general and particular, however, none of these can rival straw and stubble burning, and this season — with a drought in most parts of the country — has produced a veritable broadside of complaints. Smoke drifting across roads, sometimes with disastrous results, charred hedges and scorched trees and the pervasive blanket of smuts that followed the harvest are the factors that have at last prompted the Government into action, even though the full effect of the proposals will not be felt for three years.
Agriculture minister John Gummer has decided that powers to ban straw and stubble burning will be incorporated in a new Bill to control pollution and that the ban will be enforced in England and Wales in the late autumn of 1992, thus giving farmers three seasons to adjust to the new situation and develop alternative methods of cultivation. In arriving at this decision the minister had to balance the public’s concern with the farmers’ legitimate arguments that, at a time when their real incomes are falling and level of debt is rising, they will be faced with even higher costs. The outright ban is a far more effective solution than the compromise of a licensing scheme, put forward by the National Farmers Union, charging for the issue of licences and withholding them from farmers with a poor track record. Such a scheme would be not only cumbersome and expensive to administer but also fraught with legal difficulties in terms of withholding licences on a discretionary basis. More important, it would not have reduced significantly the amount of burning, irrespective of whether or not it was carried out “responsibly”.
Farming’s problems, however, cannot be dismissed as trivial. The growing of 20m tons of cereals each year produces some 13m tons of straw as a by-product, of which perhaps 5m tons is burnt. In the continuous corn-growing pattern followed on so many farms devoid of stock, time is of the essence, particularly on heavy land: fields have to be rapidly cleared after harvest to facilitate seedbed preparation for the next crop, and the residue of the previous one is a downright nuisance. Costs of baling, collection and transport may not be recoverable, and chopping and incorporation, another option, can slow the pace of autumn work unacceptably. The “good burn” has remained the choice of many — quick, conclusive and, above all, cheap — though the practice has undoubtedly been on the decline.
Alternative uses for straw are small-scale and relatively costly. Packaging, building and paper making take up only limited quantities, and a few specialist firms have attempted on-farm treatment with ammonia to produce an acceptable bulk feed for cattle. The manufacture of fuel briquettes, which achieved a passing popularity a few years ago, appears to have been the victim of rising costs. For many, accordingly, some method of cultivation is the only choice, and the Ministry of Agriculture should be continuing and intensifying research into best practice in this area. For some years the NFU has been fighting a dogged rearguard action on the question of burning, and this is now at an end. During this time, however, alarm over global warming and the greenhouse effect has spread rapidly, and this eminently sensiblegban is fully in line with the Government’s rather tardy acknowledgement of the overwhelming importance of environmental concerns.
