From a farmer
I have never had the misfortune to read a bunch of utter tripe in all my life.
As well as being a farmer's son I work in IT as a contractor.
A few key points about how idiotic most of the posts on here are.
1) Food production is ALL about chemicals.
2) All plants require 3 key chemicals usually in large quantities - Nitrogen, Phosphate & Potash.
3) Plants require other key chemicals for example Sulphur - which because we no longer burn Sulphur baring coal we have to apply to fields.
4) When a crop is grown ALL those chemicals in the food leaving the farm gate have to be replaced otherwise each successive crop yields not only less but of lower quality - ie not fit for human consumption.
5) Wheat fit to make bread requires HIGHER levels of nitrogen.
6) There IS NO MAGIC FALLOWING of fields to MAGICALLY create Phosphate or Potash. Fallowing MIGHT create some Nitrogen but it also MIGHT not.
7) Trees were burnt to create Potash in times past.
8) Phosphate comes from poo - this is why farms apply poo to fields.
9) Minerals in fields CAN provide Phosphate IF the mineral is within the soil/rock and sufficient years have passed for the weather to break down the mineral.
10) Fungicides are applied to crops - one of the main reasons is to ensure fungi residues don't send people and animals mad.
11) Herbicides are applied to kill weeds because otherwise this promotes fungi and produces a lower quality crop not fit for humans to eat.
12) Insecticides are applied to kill insects because they carry fungi diseases and produces a lower quality crop not fit for humans to eat.
By far the most STUPID point none of you realise is the MAIN polluter of rivers and seas is all of you personally.
Most of the Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash gets eaten and excreted by all of you, flushed down the pan and into the sewer - in fact there is so much still in poo if it was treated it could be eaten again, probably several times - and yes it does actually happen in farming for example in Asia duck houses are put over ponds to allow the fish to directly consume the chemicals.
So you all are the main polluters - but worse still those of you who are vegans need crops grown with higher fertiliser content otherwise the crops would not be fit for humans - this unfit for human food goes to animals who are able to convert poor food into meat/milk/eggs fit for humans to eat.
Worse still is the fact that nitrogen fixing crops such as beans and peas are not grown because all of you refuse to eat them in large quantities - so it is you all again which are causing pollution and all of you do it by choice but blame everyone but yourselves.
Personally on our farm we buy in processed human poo in the form of "biosolids" - so we recycle your pollution.
Not only that we also buy brown bin green waste in the form of "compost" which is again farmers recycling your pollution.
Note the words BUY - I BUY your pollution and deal with it - all you do is cause it.
Now all of you are so good at recycling that my compost comes full of metal, plastic, dog toys and any old crap - still ultimately you are eating your own rubbish so tough luck.
Now lets turn to the crap about farmers, chemical companies & DEFRA creating ever increasing pollution - well obviously that is not the case because we recycle your sh@t literally. Further we are limited in what fertiliser we can apply based on the crop we are growing. So that is twice you've been knocked down.
But of course fertiliser that MIGHT find it's was into streams is not caught because the "Environmentalists" can't literally be bothered - it's easy to do by creating reed ponds and processing the reeds every so many years - not one single penny is spent on capturing anything. Mind you there isn't much to catch because in summer MOST drainage ditches are dry which means MOST farms cant cause ANY pollution.
Runoff from farm can only occur during winter in most farms.
As regards the looney position you have on subsidies I would dearly love to have no subsidy - then I wouldn't have to put up with idiots like you moaning like a pathetic little child with wet knickers. But because you the public refuse to pay a decent price for food - for example milk is being sold at below the cost of production - then farmers need extra money or they will go out of business - which means you go hungry which so far hasn't happened since world war 2.
Shame the same can't be said of any other industry.
The subsidies are not enough and dairy farmers are still going out of business - over half have in the last decade or two.
We have to subsidise the farm by having local businesses on the farm using our facilities or we would go bust.
That means a family, their home, way of life, business and job has gone - this has happened in the 10,000s
It's obvious that most of you care about how or where your food is grown - the UK has some of the highest quality food in the world - go drive to Germany through France and you will rarely see ANY hedgerows or wildlife.
Still don't let me interrupt your destruction of something you are completely and utterly clueless about.
Personally I hate having to provide food to idiots like you at the insignificant wages I get - I can make far more in IT but I do it for my father and because I like farming and the countryside - not to provide food to retarded ignorant idiotic backward idiots like you.