Letters
Farm reply
Sir: It is not surprising that Enoch Powell (Books, 9 June) is attracted by the author's puritanism in Richard Body's latest book Farming in the Clouds. However, there is a paradox at the heart of Mr Body's argument which he fails to explore. It is the reduction of farm income that has produced a declining number of farms, farmers and farm workers. Faced with lower prices farmers have exploited technology to increase yields. In a nation that has been heavily dependent on imported food stuffs, this is a laudable enough exercise, and by the standards of manufacturing industry a success story. Imagine, therefore, the confusion of farmers at Mr Body's argument that this should be reversed. How can the consumer sustain the present, let alone an increased, agricultural population, if price levels are to be reduced yet further, particularly if the undesirability of surpluses restricts the capacity of the industry to expand pro- duction?
As chairman of the Conservative Association in his constituency I can only add that Mr Body's views come strange to us who remember him in the past as a strong advocate of the European Community and the equally vigorous author of a pamphlet pressing for the rapid expansion of agricultural production at the time of his first election here. Your reviewer detects an anger in Mr Body's writing. In Lincolnshire there is, op yet, more bewilderment than anger at Mr Body's inconsistency, amusement at his rattiness at the pursuit of prosperity by his Berkshire neighbours and distress that the conviction with which he argues his case may mask its basic flaws.
John D. Taylor
Washway Road, H olbeach, Spalding, Lincs
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