I read with interest Morgan Stanley’s report on his interview with the Countess of Carnarvon. 

It is refreshing to see someone put the climate crisis into perspective alongside the country’s need for food.  We are just about self-sufficient in producing grain, but if we take land out of production then we will be forced to import the makings of our daily bread. 

How many trees would we need to plant to offset the [conservative estimate] of 200 tons of fuel (that’s fuel made from oil) that a grain ship needs per day to bring goods to us? How many trees would we need to plant to offset the rainforest torn down to replace the field beans used for cattle fodder with soya beans? 

Certainly, increase tree planting and rewilding, but let it be on field margins and replacements for those we have lost.

We should also consider other ways we could lose our food-producing land. The last time I looked, which I admit is a few months back, the Basingstoke & Deane planning portal had 37 separate applications for solar farms.  I did not include those which were small-scale for community projects or to power a specific project.

Drive to Winchester and see the scale of the solar farm alongside the A34 then ask how we are to replace the food those fields produced.

Next time you go to the supermarket, see how many solar canopies cover the car park in France, any parking lot accommodating more than 80 cars must be covered with canopies. How many of the buildings on Basingstoke industrial estates are covered in solar panels? Why are new housing developments not required to have ground-source heating and solar panels on their roofs?

Who is behind these industrial solar developments? They are venture capital companies that rent the land from farmers. Once developed they will sell the company to organisations such as the ones which own Thames Water making vast profits for those organisations.

The government’s Net Zero proposals ask for rooftop solar, canopies and small community solar projects, but then the government must take things like feeding the nation into account not just how to make a fast buck.

Sheilah Openshaw

Kingsclere

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