The UK Farmers Union - is it time ?

Henarar said:

not enough people really want to do anything about it

Click to expand...

agri knives said:

That’s all the proof of the failure of the Ifa to do their job right, the Ifa let the factories away with murder. But they won’t get away with it much longer.

Click to expand...

rancher said:

Farmers have the same chance of telling processors what they should pay for beef as they have of telling you what to charge for cutting silage
Has the legal cases finished in the new organisations yet.

Click to expand...

Clive said:

how about the bullet points of my first post being a “how the nfu needs to change” suggestions ?

Click to expand...

Hampton said:

The soil association sit on more defra steering group meetings than the NFU (NFU are always invited but don’t always attend).
To illustrate how close the soil association are to the goings on in defra, many of the defra meetings are hosted at soil association headquarters.
What percentage of farmers do the soil association actually represent?
Punching above their weight

Click to expand...

delilah said:

Then start it again, with a different title. The opening premise of this thread has set everyone off a 'the NFU are sh!te we need a new union' chain of thought.

Click to expand...

Vader said:

Facts are facts.
They are shite.

Click to expand...

delilah said:

I don't think that that is in dispute. The question was, and is, is it easier to change the NFU so that it is no longer sh!te, or to start a new union ?

Click to expand...

ski said:

I could go on

Click to expand...

ski said:

I stopped posting on tff some years ago and occasionally I have a look at various threads and think sadly I am not missing much, most of it is pantomime in my view.

However this question is interesting as it is heavy with heightened awareness of the times we are living in, "can we get some control / influence / power back towards farmers, and that is a worthwhile question.

Philosophy, ethics, morals and culture are all bound up in it and it speaks to greater sense of unease than at any time in decades if not hundreds of years.

To work out ones own answer to the question we must to cultivate sense of perspective or history, not in detail, but in philosophical terms of the forces that work upon all businesses not just farmers, and equally importantly the effects that these forces have on regulators. The direction of travel we are currently subject to have been in play since sometime in the late 50's to the 60's which can be summarised as a philosophical belief by our politicians of all sides in globalisation. This can be defined at its core by, an assertion that we are all one people, the people of Nambia are totally equal to the people of the Netherlands or Nepal and that policies both national and international recognise this and push towards this equality by greater international supply chains, common international and national rules, the lessening of the importance of the national compared to the international. It also sees national boundaries as superfluous and these impede the progress of globalisation. Its roots can be traced back directly to the enlightenment, it was the enlightenment (reason, logic and rationality) that won the second world war and gave birth to the modern incarnation of this philosophy. It used 'national sentiment' to motivate people to support the fight, it valorised the mastery of science in the fight, it was a progressive union and it waged war on the outdated idea of Nationalism.

The war having been won, it started on building supra national institutions, (UN, World Bank, WHO etc) and pushed and supported various declarations supporting the view of global equality ( particularly Human Rights declarations). Capital became global in the 80's under Thatcher and Reagan, Communism was also defeated in 80's, and China was welcomed in the fold by Clinton in the 90's. The philosophy dictates that the project is above the individual, and should be universal or global, there is no room for religious belief, historical norms, traditional culture or custom. ( States that remain hostile to this philosophy will be given 'incentives' to realign) The nation state and eventually the supra national institutions supplant God as the deliverer of all that is true right and just. Science will be used to "work out" policy, though in reality this is scientism, not science. The project is not a conspiracy, but a Dogmatic belief, born out the reformation that this is the natural progression of the human state toward a higher plane.

The outcome of this project is the west today, de-industrialisation in the USA and Europe, the rise of a technocratic elite and mass migration and the vilification of our history. It has led to state centralisation of standards in nearly all industries and particularly agriculture and producer bodies such as the NFU become hand maidens to this process. They actively sought to have bodies such as Red Tractor to try and influence this process, in reality they are merely fighting a rear guard action, they effectively 'go native' whilst simultaneously trying to appear farmer friendly. ( I have seen this as a Council member of 8 years for a producer group)

Thus we are nearly up to date.

When discussing the fall of the USSR it is common to see only detail as the cause, ie inefficient bureaucracy, corruption and ineptitude when in fact its downfall is due entirely to fact that the system was at odds with Human Nature. Any system of governance that does not accord with Human Nature will ultimately fail, though great amounts of authoritarian energy will be spent trying to save it and its downfall may be bloody. Thus we see that the philosophy was well advanced before there began a stirring of resistance to it, it is apparent in Brexit, AFD, gilets jaunes, Le Pen, Trump, and various political parties throughout the EU. The philosophy is not embedded in the Far East or Middle East, quite simply because they never had an enlightenment.

So Clive, your idea is of its time, are you ready for it because for it to be really successful it must eschew all the above philosophy of globalisation, which will implications across every aspect of our farming lives, it will place more importance on national production over imported food, on regional over national, on local over regional, it will value tradition over technology, family over corporate, reliance on self over the state, the particular over the abstract, man over machine, it will decide on value and then use science in support of the value (not, 'follow the science', but let the science support the aim) and a hundred other implications, and if it does not do this then it will fail or at best become another organisation that goes native to the philosophy of globalisation.

Are you really up for it? There is obvious awareness in your question that something is wrong but you have been one the winners of the present system but your wording suggests an uneasiness that your time as a winner may be limited. It takes a Man (or Woman) of significant courage and valour to go where the answer of the question takes him even if it leads to his material demise. It is the opposite of the faustian bargain that most of us unknowingly entered into. It has never been more pertinent in the last 60 years.

"It is a kingdom of consciousness or nothing" Your view on this saying will tell you what you'll do.

I could go on but you get the picture.

Click to expand...

Grass And Grain said:

Do we simply need a method by which we can organise our terms, prices etc. The NFU don't seem to do this as an organisation.

So don't set up a new NFU (although I think the current lot are not fit for purpose), but more of a negotiating group.

Edit. Changing the current NFU would be an uphill battle.

Click to expand...

shearerlad said:

Can any organisation organise/set prices?
I may be completely wrong and happy to be corrected but this would be against WTO rules.
Prices are dictated by local and global supply and demand

Click to expand...

FarmyStu said:

Click to expand...

FarmyStu said:

Yep, it's called price fixing. Totally illegal.

Click to expand...

glasshouse said:

Farmers need prices to be fixed, because after you have grown it, they have you over a barrel

Click to expand...

Grass And Grain said:

Do we simply need a method by which we can organise our terms, prices etc. The NFU don't seem to do this as an organisation.

So don't set up a new NFU (although I think the current lot are not fit for purpose), but more of a negotiating group.

Click to expand...

delilah said:

I don't think that that is in dispute. The question was, and is, is it easier to change the NFU so that it is no longer sh!te, or to start a new union ?

Click to expand...

ski said:

I stopped posting on tff some years ago and occasionally I have a look at various threads and think sadly I am not missing much, most of it is pantomime in my view.

However this question is interesting as it is heavy with heightened awareness of the times we are living in, "can we get some control / influence / power back towards farmers, and that is a worthwhile question.

Philosophy, ethics, morals and culture are all bound up in it and it speaks to greater sense of unease than at any time in decades if not hundreds of years.

To work out ones own answer to the question we must to cultivate sense of perspective or history, not in detail, but in philosophical terms of the forces that work upon all businesses not just farmers, and equally importantly the effects that these forces have on regulators. The direction of travel we are currently subject to have been in play since sometime in the late 50's to the 60's which can be summarised as a philosophical belief by our politicians of all sides in globalisation. This can be defined at its core by, an assertion that we are all one people, the people of Nambia are totally equal to the people of the Netherlands or Nepal and that policies both national and international recognise this and push towards this equality by greater international supply chains, common international and national rules, the lessening of the importance of the national compared to the international. It also sees national boundaries as superfluous and these impede the progress of globalisation. Its roots can be traced back directly to the enlightenment, it was the enlightenment (reason, logic and rationality) that won the second world war and gave birth to the modern incarnation of this philosophy. It used 'national sentiment' to motivate people to support the fight, it valorised the mastery of science in the fight, it was a progressive union and it waged war on the outdated idea of Nationalism.

The war having been won, it started on building supra national institutions, (UN, World Bank, WHO etc) and pushed and supported various declarations supporting the view of global equality ( particularly Human Rights declarations). Capital became global in the 80's under Thatcher and Reagan, Communism was also defeated in 80's, and China was welcomed in the fold by Clinton in the 90's. The philosophy dictates that the project is above the individual, and should be universal or global, there is no room for religious belief, historical norms, traditional culture or custom. ( States that remain hostile to this philosophy will be given 'incentives' to realign) The nation state and eventually the supra national institutions supplant God as the deliverer of all that is true right and just. Science will be used to "work out" policy, though in reality this is scientism, not science. The project is not a conspiracy, but a Dogmatic belief, born out the reformation that this is the natural progression of the human state toward a higher plane.

The outcome of this project is the west today, de-industrialisation in the USA and Europe, the rise of a technocratic elite and mass migration and the vilification of our history. It has led to state centralisation of standards in nearly all industries and particularly agriculture and producer bodies such as the NFU become hand maidens to this process. They actively sought to have bodies such as Red Tractor to try and influence this process, in reality they are merely fighting a rear guard action, they effectively 'go native' whilst simultaneously trying to appear farmer friendly. ( I have seen this as a Council member of 8 years for a producer group)

Thus we are nearly up to date.

When discussing the fall of the USSR it is common to see only detail as the cause, ie inefficient bureaucracy, corruption and ineptitude when in fact its downfall is due entirely to fact that the system was at odds with Human Nature. Any system of governance that does not accord with Human Nature will ultimately fail, though great amounts of authoritarian energy will be spent trying to save it and its downfall may be bloody. Thus we see that the philosophy was well advanced before there began a stirring of resistance to it, it is apparent in Brexit, AFD, gilets jaunes, Le Pen, Trump, and various political parties throughout the EU. The philosophy is not embedded in the Far East or Middle East, quite simply because they never had an enlightenment.

So Clive, your idea is of its time, are you ready for it because for it to be really successful it must eschew all the above philosophy of globalisation, which will implications across every aspect of our farming lives, it will place more importance on national production over imported food, on regional over national, on local over regional, it will value tradition over technology, family over corporate, reliance on self over the state, the particular over the abstract, man over machine, it will decide on value and then use science in support of the value (not, 'follow the science', but let the science support the aim) and a hundred other implications, and if it does not do this then it will fail or at best become another organisation that goes native to the philosophy of globalisation.

Are you really up for it? There is obvious awareness in your question that something is wrong but you have been one the winners of the present system but your wording suggests an uneasiness that your time as a winner may be limited. It takes a Man (or Woman) of significant courage and valour to go where the answer of the question takes him even if it leads to his material demise. It is the opposite of the faustian bargain that most of us unknowingly entered into. It has never been more pertinent in the last 60 years.

"It is a kingdom of consciousness or nothing" Your view on this saying will tell you what you'll do.

I could go on but you get the picture.

Click to expand...