Category Archives: Documentary

Jack Hargreaves on deserted villages and the enclosures (25 mins)

Jack Hargreaves had a beautful way of talking about the world around him at a time when the urban and rural were becoming more and more divided. Many episodes of his ‘Old Country’ series can be found on Youtube and are well worth a look. This one on deserted villages, the black death and enclosures is as good a place to start as any.

Last Acre (12 mins)

Lovely short film about a plotlands settlement on the salt marshes of Lowsy Point near Barrow-in-Furness in northwest England. Watch via https://vimeo.com/wurstundgritz/acre or embedded below. Read Colin Ward’s Arcadia for All to learn more about the Plotlands.

Last Acre from Nick Jordan on Vimeo.

Panorama – The Money Farmers (30 mins)

2012 BBC Panorama revealing how millions of pounds of public money are paid out to businessmen and millionaire farmers in an abuse of the farming subsidy system. Investors tell us how they have been paid without having to do any farming at all. And Samantha also sets out to see if she can take advantage of the subsidy system and become rich from the loophole.

The programme also examines the rest of the subsidy system and hears criticism of large payments to wealthy individuals like the Queen and the Duke of Westminster simply on the basis of owning large amounts of land.

Rich landowners paid millions in farming subsidies

Six-figure subsidies meant to help struggling farmers are being paid out to some of Britain’s richest landowners, BBC Panorama has found.

Recipients of the EU subsidy include the Queen and the Duke of Westminster.

The programme requested details of the number of landowners claiming a slice of the £3.5bn subsidy in the UK.

The EU’s Agriculture Commissioner has called for a cap of about £250,000 for each farmer and measures to ensure that they are actively farming their land.

Privacy rules mean that the names of most recipients are not known, but anonymised details were given showing how many landowners across the UK received more than the cap proposed by Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos.

‘Honest farmers suffer’

The data from England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland shows that 889 landowners received more than £250,000. Of those, 133 were given more than £500,000 and 47 of those were given more than £1m in subsidy.

Jack Thurston, who campaigns for reforms to the Common Agriculture Policy’s subsidy, said: “These are very wealthy people and if we’re in the business of handing out public money to farmers because they’re poor, these are not the kind of people that we’d be handing that money to.”

Mr Thurston said the system is flawed because it rewards large landowners based on the number of hectares they own, not on financial need.

Officials in Scotland and Wales said they would consider a cap, while Northern Ireland has endorsed a cap of £100,000. But the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for England is against the proposal.

In a statement, Defra said charities that are also large landowners, such as the National Trust, would be harmed if the subsidy requirements were changed.

In a statement, it also said: “Successive UK government have been opposed to capping payments. This is because to avoid losing subsidies, bigger farms would restructure and the only gainers would be lawyers.”

EU Agriculture Commissioner Mr Ciolos said the system needs to change: “I am very frustrated because this means millions of very honest farmers have to suffer because some speculators who use this opportunity with the Common Agricultural Policy became more rich only because they have some hectares.”

The National Farmers Union has also defended the current subsidy system, saying some payouts to wealthy landowners are “unavoidable”.

Peter Kendall, NFU president, said it still remains the best possible system for farmers: “It is one of those side effects of the system we have at present. I want money to go to active farmers who are producing food, and that should matter whether you’re producing on two acres, or two thousand acres.

(From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17225652)

The Super Rich And Us (60 mins)

Excellent TV documentary by Jacques Peretti with a section on land and property which is compelling. You can follow Jacques Peretti here – @jacquesperetti – https://twitter.com/jacquesperetti

super rich

Jacques Peretti investigates how the super-rich are transforming Britain. In part one, he looks at why the wealthy were drawn to Britain and meets the super-rich themselves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04xw2x8/the-superrich-and-us-episode-1

Jacques Peretti investigates how the super-rich are transforming Britain. In the final part, he looks at how inequality was pinpointed as a business opportunity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04yn2yq/the-superrich-and-us-episode-2

This has now been succesffuly cleansed off the internet – I have a copy on my computer which I am looking to put online soon.

Fields of Gold (20 mins)

Short documentary about EU farming subisidies (CAP payments) and how they are being abused by large companies to force small farmers out of business.

The website is an amazing resource – http://farmsubsidy.openspending.org/

Fields of Gold: Lifting the Veil on Europe’s Farm Subsidies from farmsubsidy.org on Vimeo.