17th
The Lady from DEFRA
Well, that was a lot easier than I expected.
It turns out that Silverfish knows some people who know some people. Once I’d explained Haven to him, he got me in touch with some of his superiors at the MoD. It seems they’ve been thinking about this sort of thing for a while, but from a military perspective - apparently the boys with guns don’t like the idea of an enemy they can’t shoot (names ReDs), so they’ve been wanting to look into new quarantine situations. The governments haven’t been keen on their pitch, though, mostly because it was a military pitch, it seems. Apparently the government don’t like the idea of the army setting up on their own private, practically autonomous islands. Too many countries have had rumblings about military coups.
So, this colonel that Silverfish introduced me to put me straight onto a woman at DEFRA. I suppose it makes the most sense to go through them, as we’re talking about taking unused land and setting up modern, small yield farming. It’s small yield, yes, but it’s farming, and apparently DEFRA are actually getting really concerned about this whole Rasvenous global threat GEAS are talking about. Food production is top of their list.
The nice DEFRA lady likes our plans so far, but the location is a bit of an issue. Thanks to the wonders of devolution, the site’s actually under the jurisdiction of the Scottish National Assembly (makes sense, I guess). She’s got people on the case, though, and they’re talking to Hollyrood right now, discussing freeing up the land for a government-backed sustainability research project.
Yes, she really called it that.
In the current climate, with so many things for the gov to worry about, it seems there isn’t the money to throw at research into long-term solutions - as ever, they prefer to put funds into plugging holes and waiting for the future to fix itself. If we have a future, it’ll be held together with gaffer tape, if the UK government has anything to do with it.
So, no funding, or at least only a little actual monetary funding, but DEFRA think they can sort out securing the land for us and throw us a little hardy crop seed to get us started - something their scientists have been working on.
I’m a little worried about that colonel, to be honest. I mean, it’s great that he got us onto the right people at DEFRA - that’s all moving faster than anticipated - but I now have horrible visions of soldiers coming in and trying to take over. Maybe I’ll have to be stern about no military presence. It would help with the quarantine situation, though.
No, that’s stupid. I do not want Haven turning into some sort of martial law military installation. Thank you Colonel, but no thank you.
Things are progressing nicely, though.
