So we live in the midst of green - the village is a little island of buildings in an expanse of intensive, industrial, agricultural production. In every direction are fields, large and flat with tyre lines accross them where the sprayer travels. It's an agricultural desert. It's mostly quiet - apart from the noise of the cars from the roads, roads so straight it's hard not to let your speed drift up to 70 or 80mph. By way of contrast, the village which, has a lot of trees and gardens is a cacophony of bird-song most of the time. Since the 0% set-aside rate introduced by the EU this year and the tripling of the wheat price, there are not even field edges or fallow areas for the birds to enjoy. I recently went to a new woodland being created by the Woodland Trust. They bought a farm about 20 miles away last year and this winter have planted much of it with native trees and shrubs. The trees are just little and as yet don't offer much to improving the biodiversity, but as we stood and talked we had to raise our voices over the skylarks hovering above their nests. Just releasing the area from the regime of fertilisers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides has already brought change. I have lots of problems with this, but one of the main ones is that despite the expanse of farming in which we live, you are not allowed on any of it. Even in the rural life, most of us have lost our link with the land.
In the village, people complain that the 'youth' hang about on the streets in the evenings. Lincolnshire has one of the worst obesity problems in the UK, despite being an overwhelmingly rural area. Though surrounded by green fields (nitrogen green) you can't walk or play in them. You can't play or build dens, there is nowhere to be 'wild'.
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