"A WORLD food crisis can be expected in the coming decades as our demand for food outstrips our ability to produce it," a UK Government adviser has warned.
New chief science adviser, Professor John Beddington said the crisis could be as serious as climate change and may hit sooner (BBC News, March 6).
". . food riots could spread across the globe." Lennart Bage – President of the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development.
On Thursday, Gordon Brown "called on the Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, the chairman of the G8, to devise an international plan to deal with rises in food prices with the World Bank, IMF and UN." BBC News, March 6
"The global price of wheat has risen by 130 per cent in the past year." The Independent. April 12.
"A complex interaction of factors has provoked the panic among dealers in international food markets." Independent 12 April 2008
I submit, in the context of the eco-town consultation, that eco-towns should not be built on agricultural land. It is utter folly to do so.
Keith J Vaughan,
Gartree Road,
Great Stretton.

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No time for the little people

HARBOROUGH District Council, it seems, has decided that we, the little people, need not be worried by such trivia as a new multi-billion pound town being built on our doorstep.
It also feels that our elected officials are not worthy of consultation. They have meetings about this little matter behind closed doors.
If you try to get any information from them direct you will discover that MI6 are running the place and everything is confidential. Or you would if anyone would talk at all.
I tried to speak to Sue Smith, our chief executive, but she is far too important to speak to such a lowly taxpayer.
Her assistant offered to send me a press release issued a week prior to the meeting I was asking about.
Let us all give thanks that we don't have to worry our pretty little heads about such big complicated matters. Nanny will take care of it, all we have to do is continue to pay for the privilege.
Remind me, who works for who?
Andrew Johnson,
Great Bowden Road, Harborough.

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Maintain pride in your parks

HAVING a lively six-year-old I have visited a number of parks and play areas in and around Harborough in recent weeks.
Uniformly they have been very clean and tidy. Although in my village volunteers have been active, which is wonderful, I am sure that the bulk of the work in the town has been undertaken by the council. Congratulations to all.
I really hope that this can be maintained throughout the summer. And I hope we all take responsibility for our litter so that the council's task is not made any harder.
Peter Wilkinson,
Old Hall Lane, Lubenham.

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Porkies on the pig front

NO-ONE wishes to restrict freedom of speech or to have the letters to a newspaper censored but I wonder if there should not be a duty to ensure that the wholly inaccurate and misleading don't see the light of day?
I am not sure which country Gwen Farrow has been living in for the past 26 years but it cannot have been Britain if she has not seen or smelt, a free-range pig farm in all that time!
You don't have to travel all that far from here to find free-range pigs and the Midlands boasts substantial free range piggeries. Vans belonging to a large free-range producer are a common sight in local towns and British free-range bacon is easily bought in local supermarket, butcher, farm shop and farmers' market.
Of course some pig production is industrialised but that does not excuse such a generalised and inaccurate slur. Buy British free-range bacon and encourage a growing part of the pig industry.
Bill Featherstone,
Dunkirk Avenue,
Desborough.

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Party plea

AS summer approaches, I cast my mind back to last year's fantastic party in the park on Symington's Rec celebrating the 50th anniversary of Harborough Rotary Club.
The many people there had a great time. It was well organised and provided entertainment of all genres for everyone. This was such a good evening, I would love it if this became an annual event.
Can anyone shed any light on if there will be another one this year and when it will be?
Philip Toye,
Britannia Walk, Harborough.

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Time to take note of other side of wind farms story

RECEIVING Nuon's Community Update in the post today, on the heels of featured articles in the local press, several things about this document are alarming.
Firstly, in the heading sentence they say that "The purpose of this community update is to let you know about the proposal and the benefits it will bring, not only in terms of generating clean electricity, but also for the local community, and what you can do to get involved."
The benefits to the community listed in this paper are that windfarms 'have been re-sited and removed to keep away from edges of the site;" which means the boundary they set for the development area has shrunk with the reduction in the number of turbines applied for, taking Starmore out of the proposed site and leaving seven properties behind with it. Which is what they mean when they say in the second 'benefit' that "Separation distances between turbines and houses have been increased."
The third benefit is most worrying of all. It reads:
"Setbacks to ecologically and historically sensitive areas have been increased to help ensure their preservation."
We had no doubt that the setbacks to sensitive areas would be increased dramatically by Nuon's proposed development (plus the heavy-plant infrastructure needed to build it in the first place), but doubt very much whether these setbacks would do anything to help in the preservation of the environment. Perhaps Nuon are guardedly admitting that in creating these setbacks in the first place, they would like us to think that preservation is somewhere on their agenda, even if we can openly and with certainty argue that it is not on their list of considerations.
What you can do to get involved, they say, is to register your support. Write to Nuon and to your local councillor. Nuon put out a questionnaire to ask whether people were in favour of renewable energy (77 per cent said yes), the development of wind power (70 per cent said yes), and lastly the Swinford wind farm proposal. Since few are in essence opposed to renewable energy, the leading nature of this questionnaire and the final "so, you don't want this on your doorstep, then?" style of the question relating to this development will have done much to ensure the uneasy 50 per cent support of the Swinford proposal, and Nuon have made even more of this percentage in its phrasing of the results.
Renewable energy as we know it does not help rescue the planet, it is expensive to produce and is priced at output three times higher than conventional electricity. The end user pays the ultimate price financially, the environment pays the ultimate price in terms of living things. Rewards go to the developing corporate in government concessions and sale of very expensive electricity (in this case Nuon), and the landowners on whose fields the turbines stand – who stand to gain the equivalent of an average annual wage every year for every turbine they house. Each turbine has a footprint the size of a house, and is ten metres taller than Rugby Cement.
The Government has its arm firmly up its back under pressure to conform to 'greenist' political wavering, which has to be seen to be doing something even if the something it is doing is totally ineffective. Wind farms can contribute only three per cent to the national grid in terms of useable electricity on demand. As an environmentally friendly 'solution' this causes far more damage and expense than it can possibly justify. Wind farms are highly visible and have been accepted as a renewable energy source, therefore the Government must prop them up with grants and subsidies and support, even while the figures and evidence speak loudly of the true case: political spin v. common sense.
We are fighting to make visible the other side of the story, the side the establishment doesn't want you to see. Please look for this evidence yourself. The risks to health, the impact of low vibration and noise on the environment and all who live in it, the destruction of landscape, and the frightening toll on wildlife which these monstrous devices generate. All for the sake of a high-cost, low-value product which suits the need of Governments desperate to gain ground, and the greed of the corporates cashing in our quality of life for their own ends. As are the landowners, most of whom are genuinely nice people, but money has a strange way of volunteering power, and we all know that power corrupts as certainly as iron will turn to rust.
We cannot blame anyone for this situation, there is no point. All we can do is establish the facts for ourselves, and know in our hearts that doing what is right for the planet which is Home requires us at times to argue with the powers that be.
Kathy Ratcliffe LCDip
The Dog House,
Swinford.

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Rugby team's debt of gratitude to coaches

MAY we give our heartfelt thanks to Steve Bishop, Roy Saunders and Jim Hankers for their great efforts in running our team for the last few years.
It really has been great fun and allowed us to enjoy the camaraderie of rugby as well as the sport itself.
The playing and training has been fun (most of the time!) and the tours have been a special bonus.
Let's hope if any of us become coaches in the future, then we can give something back to future generations.
You three are great guys – thanks again.
All the best, from the under-17 'boys'.
Richard Dunnicliff,
Austins Close,
Harborough.

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Who tried to set this in motion?

YET another windless day! Which genius thought of placing a wind farm anywhere near Kelmarsh? Name(s] please!
Peter Gibson,
Main Street,
Great Oxendon.

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