Funds for farming shot into space

News from the RSPB site

Surplus money from Europe's agriculture budget could soon be spent on space research despite shortfalls in help for farmland wildlife.

The European Commission has just announced it may switch more than two billion Euros (£1.54 billion) away from farming and rural development funds to improve resources for its Galileo space programme.

At the same time, Brussels wants farmers to bring back into production fallow land that has been supporting declining farmland wildlife for nearly 20 years, but is not funding measures to replicate those benefits.

Dr Sue Armstrong Brown, Head of Countryside Conservation at the RSPB, said: 'This is madness. We have targets for helping wildlife and have been repeatedly promised more funds for rural development, yet cash that could so easily be used for both is being taken for something completely unrelated.'

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Personally I think space is exciting to view through a telescope but not to spend money on it is a waste we need more spent on the planet we live on

It's a great shame, as the environment which affects us all is the local countryside, it's all down to quality of life.