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[Nickbat]

This is brilliant and deserves a wider audience. 

It came from a poster at the WUWT blog (link at the end)

 Geoff Sherrington (01:36:16) :

Sorry for the length of this – I can’t vouch that it is authentic, but it resonates with aspects of carbon trading schemes.

…………………….

Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London
16 July 2009

Dear Secretary of State,

My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to join the “not rearing pigs” business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.

As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven’t reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?

My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is – until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.

If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding
myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?

Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don’t rear?

I am also considering the “not milking cows” business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits. I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.

Yours faithfully,
(Name supplied)


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/23/climate-craziness-of-the-week/#comments

[The Red Baron]

that is very good, could well be true of todays goverment.

[Entwood]

Excellent 

[Amigo]

Priceless! Take that to the Dragons Den.
  "I'd like you to invest £200,000 in my non livestock rearing virtual farm for a non existent percentage"!!!! 8-)

[joshwyatt]

I truly loved that, that is one of the funniest things I have read in some time 
Thank you for posting!

[Hannah Judes Dad]

Trouble is the lunatics have already taken over the asylum that is the EU/EEC or whatever they are calling it this week.

[Kevin Wood]

Meanwhile, a mate of mine who is a farmer and, thus, paid for not rearing things, got a letter a couple of years back asking why he had moved the boundary of one of his set-aside fields. He had replaced a fence and decided to remove a slight dog-leg in the fence, which involved moving a 20 foot section of fence about 3 feet. On a field that must have been several tens of acres.

So, there appears to be a market for watching Google earth to make sure people aren't doing the things they are paid not to do.

Kevin