Times - Grubbing Orchards

Farming subsidies buy precious little protection

By Kent Barker

A bulldozer was in the field the other day near one of our regular dog-walking routes.  Above the insistent roar of the big diesel engine was the clang, clang , clang of the metal plate at the front, lowered to the ground, forcing all before it.

I knew what it was doing. Removing stumps and roots of trees. Trees that had been cut down more than a year before in what, round here, we dubbed the great Kentish Chainsaw Massacre.

It all started one lovely Sunday May morning. The blossom was resplendent, bees were buzzing, and birds were singing in the warm sunshine.  Then came that awful penetrating whine of two-stroke engines that just went on and on.

In the countryside, chainsaws are not uncommon. I use one myself quite frequently, but only in short bursts. You may fell a small tree and cut it up into lengths. But then you stop the engine and pile up the logs. Not so in this field.   The noise just didn’t stop. What could they be doing? It was a bit late to be pruning and, anyway, pruning with a chainsaw is rather radical. So I went to investigate.

I knew this was an orchard but, as they were hidden behind high hedges, I’d never actually seen the trees. And how magnificent they were. As we walked through the gate we stared at the great old full-standard apples with boughs spreading outwards, probably planted in the 1940s or 50s. Possibly Bramleys or Coxes. And a whole field of them. Well, there had been a whole field of them. Now half were gone.  Two men were systematically felling and sawing them up.

I asked, politely, if they had a licence and got a surprised response. Didn’t think we needed one. We’re only contractors. We’ll go and check with the farmer.  

When I got home I did some checking too. The Forestry Commission’s website is clear: “You normally need permission from us to fell growing trees.” But a little later: “felling carried out without a licence is an offence unless covered by an exemption.” And of course, you’ve guessed it, fruit trees in a garden or orchard are exempt. But how could they be? What possible logic is there?

  Traditional orchards are fast vanishing. A recent survey from Natural England and the National Trust found that almost two-thirds of England’s ancient orchards have disappeared since 1950 – and they rest could go by the end of the century unless action is taken to save them.

So let’s take some action! I phone the council’s Tree Officer. Could you slap a Tree Protection Order on those left in that orchard on my walk? Sorry, he tells me, it’s not that straightforward with commercial orchards. Fruit trees are exempt from TPOs. A farmer has to be allowed to profit from his land.

So I write to my MP. She seems sympathetic and will forward my ‘case’ to the Environment Secretary. A month or so later she gets a reply from a junior minister, Richard Benyon: “I would like to assure Mr Barker that we value very highly the contribution that orchards make to biodiversity. They support a wide range of wildlife, including an array of Nationally Rare and Nationally Scarce (his capitals) species.”

Excellent, I think, the Government is behind me. Laws will change. Orchards will be saved. I’ll get a knighthood or some other gong for my services to Saving the Trees.  But then I read on:

“The reason that orchards are excluded from the tree felling regulations in the Forestry Act 1967 is that fruit trees are not recognised as timber producing species. There are no plans to amend the legislation to include the felling of fruit trees.”

So that’s it then. The Government recognise orchards are important and that they are disappearing. But they will do nothing to save them because fruit trees are not “timber producing”. What nonsense is this?

But the clue, I think, came from the council’s Tree Officer. “A farmer has to be allowed to profit from his land”. Hmm.

I can still remember when the fields across the valley from my house were criss-crossed with hedgerows. A vitally important wildlife habitat, everyone agreed. But the hedges were systematically removed, as ever larger tractors and combined harvesters were employed. The little stream at the bottom of my garden used to have brown trout in abundance. Until pesticides and agrochemicals ran off the land and poisoned the water. We used to have hundreds of acres of traditional apple tress until they were grubbed up and replaced with easier-to-pick dwarf and bush varieties.

We pay something like £3 billion a year in subsidies to UK farmers. You might have hoped that would have bought us some environmental protection from their activities. Sadly it seems not.