Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Farmers demand greater crop circle subsidies

Farming representatives today began lobbying the European Union for greater financial compensation for the phenomena of crop circles.

Amos Billingsworth, owner of a huge farm near Yatesbury in Wiltshire, farm shop proprietor and owner of “Industrialists in Wellies Weekly” began the campaign with a press breakfast at the 5-star Warwick Barsey Hotel in Brussels. The central pillar of complaint he said was that struggling farmers such as himself should be better compensated each year with regards to crop circles on their land.


“As everyone knows, farming is no longer about growing crops, more it is about owning vast tracts of land and being paid taxpayers money from all over Europe not to grow crops. That is fine by us and something the farming community not only supports but we would hate to see a simple return to free market economics” began Mr Billingsworth. “But you must remember farmers are the trustees of the land for future generations to sell in lucrative land deals with Tescos or Golf Course developers. Until that time we have other costs of not doing business to consider.”


Mr Billingsworth then expanded upon his member’s central need for further subsidy. “In an attempt to earn more money from the land, many farmers grow crops each year in the hope that hoaxers will flatten them creating their increasingly complicated patterns to dupe the gullible or those desperate to believe in other forces. We farmers are more than happy to offer tourists access to the crop circles, as well as a wide range of souvenirs in our farm shops. However, as you know, crop circle hoaxing is seasonal in both quantity and quality and in recent years local home grown crop circle production has faced competition from Eastern Europe. In Romania, for example, a simple three circle interlocking Venn-Diagram will gain far more tourist money and press coverage than even the fantastically complicated 'Treble Julia Set' manages to gather at home."

During the buffet conference, noticeably missing any British produce, Mr Billingsworth drew on some of the important historical relationships between the circles and the farms in whose crops they are formed.


“Back in the late seventies myself and a few other farmers were drinking in a pub in Southampton. It was the night after a particularly good demonstration against imported New Zealand lamb, “ he reminisced somewhat wistfully. “We met a couple of chaps by the name of Dave and Doug who wanted to be rich and famous in the local community but were not farmers and therefore had no way of getting money for nothing. After a while we hit on the idea of flattening some of my crops into circular shapes and putting about that Aliens, or secret government aircraft or, well anything other than a couple of blokes with old floorboards, did it. It was a spectacular success! In subsequent years many farmers around the UK have had contracts with the Discovery Channel, Fortean Times and all sorts of paranormal magazines and writers. Without that idea I wouldn’t have been able to work in Hollywood, with that nice Mr Gibson on the movie ‘Signs’. Times are hard now and it is time the EU helped us out by giving us payments when farmers have no circles on their land and undamaged fields”


Several of the journalists present were keen to press Mr Billingsworth on why farmers just didn’t use their business expertise to profit directly from the land - perhaps by growing crops in preparation for the inevitable surge in demand for bio-fuels. Mr Billingsworth would not be drawn on what he called “futuristic plans that sound like hard work”.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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JesseHanson said...

Fund raising for a good cause is an excellent initiative and also a great way to promote and popularize yourself. Good going, I say. My team of academized really likes your work.

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