Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

As we reported yesterday, Dan Norris MP made a trip to the Island today.

We caught up with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) at the National Farmer’s Union in Carisbrooke where he talked to us about meeting the challenge of disposal of dead farm animals.

Mr Norris explained that the problem has arisen due to the isolation of the Island and the cost of transporting carcasses to the mainland for proper disposal.

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Dan Norris, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) will be coming to the Island tomorrow.

The visit was arranged following Island MP, Andrew Turner, speaking in the House of Commons about the safe and legal disposal of fallen animal stock back in June this year.

Dan Norris will be visiting Vikoma in the morning to hear about the Rotawave Technology, which has been developed by their parent company Environmental Energy Group. In the afternoon he will be meeting to discuss the issues about fallen stock facing livestock farmers on the Island and to try to move this difficult issue forward.

UPDATE: We hear from Geoff Lumley that he and Mark Chiverton will be meeting Dan Norris with pensioners in Cllr Lumley’s Newport East ward during the afternoon.

image: Dan Norris site

Watching TV is one of the favourite pastimes of this green-couch-potato reviewer, and I’ve even had the cheek once before to recommend it to VentnorBlog readers when inspired by the wonderful Rebecca Hosking’s Natural World programme ‘A Farm for the Future‘.

Well, on Monday night it was time for some serious couch activity again.

George Alagiah is presenting three programmes on the ‘Future of Food‘, and the first episode was broadcast on Monday 17 August.

George Alagiah visits many places around the world, illustrating the impacts of rising population, dwindling oil supplies and rising oil prices, and above all climate change, on the farmers who produce food and the people who eat it – all of us. He also talks with several of the world’s greatest food experts, such as Vandana Shiva and Tim Lang.

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Those with an interest in agriculture on the Island will have been keeping up with the issue surrounding fallen stock.

For those not familiar with the phrase, this refers to livestock that have died of natural causes or been humanely destroyed.

Since the introduction of new EU legislation in May 2003, any farmer with fallen stock had to go through the expense of sending the carcass off the Island rather than be able to bury the dead animals here.

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