BBC BREAKFAST - Elms a total disaster for food security..... TIME TO WAKE UP
- Thread starter Ceri
- Start date
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Hardly a typical Farm - Organic - its own milk round employing 20 people.
WHEN ARE WE GOING TO EXPLAIN THAT HAVING TO DIVERSIFY TO SUBSIDISE FARMING ISN’T ACCEPTABLE!
WHEN ARE WE GOING TO EXPLAIN THAT HAVING TO DIVERSIFY TO SUBSIDISE FARMING ISN’T ACCEPTABLE!
- Location
- Perthshire (It's a big place!)
Ground in flowers and ornamentals, grain for alcohol, crops that have little or no nutritional value (iceberg lettuce). Nothing to see here, plenty of ground to go at.
Courier
Member
- Location
- M62 - M1 - M18 triangle
Only the limited few can create a viable niche for themselves - Otherwise it wouldn't be niche.....!
Ceri
Member
I get that but at least it's in the back of people's minds about the rising costs in agriculture & the effect its having on food prices......
I was listening to the chap talk and thought exactly the same thing when he mentioned a possible caravan park. I did laugh when the lass asked whether it made sense for farmers to continue farming. The chap took a deep breath at that one
Bramble
Member
This isn’t our problem.
Less land in food production should push up our prices. I’m in farming to make money first, not provide the population with cheap food. Biofuels, flowers, trees, solar farms, rewilding I don’t mind any of it I will produce whatever pays the best whether that’s a commodity crop or a flower.
Policy is decided by the elected officials, civil servants, and the influence of pressure groups - they should be held accountable for these decisions
Why get so up tight about rising food costs? I intend to do what is best financially for me and my family, if that means farming as we are or planting trees and getting a job off farm then so be it.
It's not my job to provide cheap food for the masses, it's my job to provide for my family.
It's not my job to provide cheap food for the masses, it's my job to provide for my family.
toquark
Member
I thought it was actually quite a good piece by the BBC, they highlighted that CPI is at 9% whereas Ag inflation was about 26%. Agreed, not a typical farm, but the chap came across well. It was a palatable well explained piece which highlighted exactly why food prices were rising and how there is a direct conflict with the policy and their stated claims.
Diversification is nothing more than self subsidy. I do it myself but I'm becoming more and more aware that by doing so, I'm effectively underpinning cheap food for the masses whilst burdening myself with more work and financial risk.
Diversification is nothing more than self subsidy. I do it myself but I'm becoming more and more aware that by doing so, I'm effectively underpinning cheap food for the masses whilst burdening myself with more work and financial risk.
Ceri
Member
Very true I hope those pratts including eustice will have there answers ready when the chickens come home to roost.....
- Location
- Essex
What has elms got to do with the price of fish?
- Location
- Near Colchester
Less land won't push up prices necessarily, it just means that buyers have more contacts abroad and can import quicker and more easily.
This has happened in pigs where much more than half is now imported and it is a race to the bottom in price effectively.
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Ceri
Member
Absolutely nothing fish live in water.
- Location
- Cornwall
Eustice was at Devon County Show this weekend peddling the line that fam incomes were rising due to the rising farm gate prices again. The interviewer did suggest that he was living in a parallel universe but, nope, farmers are all doing terribly well at the moment don't you know!
livestock 1
Member
toquark
Member
The coal miners thought we couldn't live without a coal industry, they were wrong. The steel workers thought we could never live without a steel industry, they were wrong. The shipbuilders thought the Clyde would always be the world centre for ship building, they were wrong.
It's complacent to assume that any industry will always just be there because its existed for a long time, and that the loss of a neighbour automatically means less competition and higher prices for you. Look at the the pig and poultry job and the direction of travel in dairy. If you think the same can't or won't happen to arable, beef, sheep you're dreaming.
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
I think an even greater disaster than anything that tries to reduce output, is where good agricultural land is planted wall to wall in trees for "carbon offsetting", all with government grants and ministers puffing out their chests and saying look what I have done! Mind you, that is only marginally worse than government buying farms so it can run pop concerts on it!
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
except the world if not running short of food, has supply issues such that areas are short of food or will be soon, and government seems to have forgotten that everyone wants to eat. But no need to worry George Eustace is on the case, high fertliser prices, use cow muck instead, the only thing I can't work out, is where the cow muck is going to come from when Carries and Goldsmith brothers get their way and all the grassland in the UK is turned over to rewilding!