Food security is a silly argument…

[delilah]

We're all doomed Capt'n Mainwaring.

GFY

 

[Mythoughts]

60% of UK land is best suited to grass production, and my cattle and sheep can turn grass that we can't digest into high quality food that we can, food that is high in Omega 3 fatty acids, low in Omega 6 and as my pastures are organic and diverse, the fat lambs I produce are nutrient dense with a range of micro nutrients. This meat is good quality and if you eat it, it is part of a healthy diet (as opposed to eating Carb rich food which leads to metabolic syndrome and diabetes). My rotationally grazed pastures also sequester carbon, as opposed to arable farming that at best does not build soil. Also, as an organic farmer who doesn't use fertliser (produced from natural gas), I certainly sequester more carbon, than ever I produce.

As long as you drive production from

Ask yourself one question, if the sfi you are so excited about was genuine in intention as they state why is it so intent on taking good arable land out of production while is hill farmers have by far the largest share of the birds flowers and walkers that sfi is supposed to protect

thats why the government is looking at creating a new upland focused scheme. The SFI is driven by the principle of income foregone, there isn’t much income foregone in the uplands tbh. SFI isn’t about taking productive arable land out of production, it’s about creating more a balance between habitat and land use eg boundaries, headlands, corners etc. The problem is that some parts haven’t been well thought out. The principles however are good.

 

[BrianV]

Do you seriously believe that this government any particular interest in the farmer’s vote? There’s so few of us nowadays that the interests of the ‘newcomers’ to the countryside are far more important to them than us farmers, who they assume will vote Tory anyway (as we’ve always done and will probably continue to do)
Most of this administration’s time nowadays, as they’ve accepted that they will lose the next election, is spent in trying to leave traps and minefields for the incoming Labour government.

I think you might find in some key areas then so called "countryside" votes can still sway elections, don't always assume "countryside" only relates to actual farmers, there are many voters further down the line very reliant on farmers staying in business.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Your thinking will bite you on the arse rest assured of that and when it does you can’t say you weren’t warned

Why?

 

[livestock 1]

how ? i can return every acre to food production if it suddenly becomes more financially attractive

and there is no way I or my family are starving - i can shoot straight and can grow stuff


stop worrying about stuff you have zero control or influence over and that haven’t actually happened ………. you will sleep better

The discussion I had with you in August has started to come true. You made noise about bps being poor value to the taxpayer while it did deliver cheap food. Infact if you took away NT the water authorities and such like who shouldn’t have been claiming it in any case it was generally good value. Now you are bragging about something a lot worse. It delivers nothing and is going to have a huge impact on what is produced in this country. As soon as there’s any shortage the noise made about bps being bad value will be nothing in comparison to the waste that is sfi
I’m not sure you realise how you come across on here with these take take take selfish statements

 

[primmiemoo]

Is food security on a country level any different to family home level , you make sure you have plenty to feed the family….. you make sure you have enough to feed the nation …. Fail and their will be a row !

Joe Jacobson* knew that some millennia back.








* did well in the end. Became a Pharaoh.

 

[Ted M]

The West is rich enough to trade its way out of any local (eg European) food shortages caused by climate change.

A far more likely "shortage" of food would, I think be due to the centralisation of food processing/abattoirs or a failure of the delivery supply chain.

Just imagine a total breakdown (eg a fire) in one of the UK's "super dairies" or major slaughterhouses. Or something like an overbridge collapse on the M5 or M6

Panic buying would do the rest.

I always think places like that are prime targets for cyber attacks.
A friend of mine is a manager for a large potato grower and grows for Walkers.
If I remember correctly they are owned by PepsiCo and they updated their IT system in the US.
For a period of time after, every time they came on line in America it would affect the factory here and they couldn't take unload into it resulting in spuds still in the field and the weather turning against them.

 

[livestock 1]

As long as you drive production from

thats why the government is looking at creating a new upland focused scheme. The SFI is driven by the principle of income foregone, there isn’t much income foregone in the uplands tbh. SFI isn’t about taking productive arable land out of production, it’s about creating more a balance between habitat and land use eg boundaries, headlands, corners etc. The problem is that some parts haven’t been well thought out. The principles however are good.

I farm in the uplands and have the land in a productive position so there is ‘much income forgone’

 

[Clive]

The discussion I had with you in August has started to come true. You made noise about bps being poor value to the taxpayer while it did deliver cheap food. Infact if you took away NT the water authorities and such like who shouldn’t have been claiming it in any case it was generally good value. Now you are bragging about something a lot worse. It delivers nothing and is going to have a huge impact on what is produced in this country. As soon as there’s any shortage the noise made about bps being bad value will be nothing in comparison to the waste that is sfi
I’m not sure you realise how you come across on here with these take take take selfish statements

i’ve never agreed or said BPS was value or has ever been anything other than morally corrupt - it hasn’t kept food cheap ……… imports have (and will continue to do so regardless of bps or sfi)

there are no food shortages …… food is so dam plentiful it can be bought very often at less than its cost of production

sfi and css have already delivered public good on my farm - to say they deliver nothing is provably wrong

nothing was more “take take” than bps …… tax payers cash JUST for owning land ! utterly wrong on every level imo and completely indefensible

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

The discussion I had with you in August has started to come true. You made noise about bps being poor value to the taxpayer while it did deliver cheap food. Infact if you took away NT the water authorities and such like who shouldn’t have been claiming it in any case it was generally good value. Now you are bragging about something a lot worse. It delivers nothing and is going to have a huge impact on what is produced in this country. As soon as there’s any shortage the noise made about bps being bad value will be nothing in comparison to the waste that is sfi
I’m not sure you realise how you come across on here with these take take take selfish statements

SFI will hopefully convince the buyers of what we produce, that they will have to consider the cost of production and competing land use. In other words they will have pay up.

Hopefully as soon as the much predicted shortage is identified, prices will go up too.

Don't worry, we export millions of tonnes of wheat and barley and a great deal of cropping land is used for growing biofuels as well.

 

[Hilly]

Joe Jacobson* knew that some millennia back.








* did well in the end. Became a Pharaoh.

O i thought he became a footballer.

 

[livestock 1]

i’ve never agreed or said BPS was value or has ever been anything other than morally corrupt - it hasn’t kept food cheap ……… imports have (and will continue to do so regardless of bps or sfi)

there are no food shortages …… food is so dam plentiful it can be bought very often at less than its cost of production

sfi and css have already delivered public good on my farm - to say they deliver nothing is provably wrong

nothing was more “take take” than bps …… tax payers cash JUST for owning land ! utterly wrong on every level imo and completely indefensible

Couldn’t disagree more with you

 

[brigadoon]

it is quite difficult to comprehend a time when UK food security could be challenged.

Most of the food coming into the UK is carried in shipping containers

Every container terminal in the world depends on computers - many are at least partially remote controlled by computers.

All it needs is a good software crash.

 

[Hilly]

i’ve never agreed or said BPS was value or has ever been anything other than morally corrupt - it hasn’t kept food cheap ……… imports have (and will continue to do so regardless of bps or sfi)

there are no food shortages …… food is so dam plentiful it can be bought very often at less than its cost of production

sfi and css have already delivered public good on my farm - to say they deliver nothing is provably wrong

nothing was more “take take” than bps …… tax payers cash JUST for owning land ! utterly wrong on every level imo and completely indefensible

I agree with you.

 

[DrWazzock]

All it needs is one container ship sunk by a Russian sub or undersea cables cut by similar sub and we’d have serious problems.

 

[BrianV]

i’ve never agreed or said BPS was value or has ever been anything other than morally corrupt - it hasn’t kept food cheap ……… imports have (and will continue to do so regardless of bps or sfi)

there are no food shortages …… food is so dam plentiful it can be bought very often at less than its cost of production

sfi and css have already delivered public good on my farm - to say they deliver nothing is provably wrong

nothing was more “take take” than bps …… tax payers cash JUST for owning land ! utterly wrong on every level imo and completely indefensible

Perhaps you could point out to the average person struggling to put food on their table & keep a roof over their head exactly what public good this SFI money is doing for them rather than just you?

 

[DrWazzock]

Play them at their own stupid game. They are panicking already. There’s no sub for production yet every possible obstacle in the U.K. If it takes shortages to turn that situation around then so be it. Max out on SFI. But keep your drains running and be ready.

 

[Mythoughts]

60% of UK land is best suited to grass production, and my cattle and sheep can turn grass that we can't digest into high quality food that we can, food that is high in Omega 3 fatty acids, low in Omega 6 and as my pastures are organic and diverse, the fat lambs I produce are nutrient dense with a range of micro nutrients. This meat is good quality and if you eat it, it is part of a healthy diet (as opposed to eating Carb rich food which leads to metabolic syndrome and diabetes). My rotationally grazed pastures also sequester carbon, as opposed to arable farming that at best does not build soil. Also, as an organic farmer who doesn't use fertliser (produced from natural gas), I certainly sequester more carbon, than ever I produce.

As long as you drive production from

There's zero chance of them blaming their own idiocy. They'll flail around looking for other targets. That's why, in my humble opinion, farming unions should have been screaming from the rooftops about how SFI/ELMS is reducing the countries ability to feed itself and that the "public good" of BPS was the production of food. In other words, get the message out there early so should the worst happen they could say "we told you so, we've been warning you from the start". Same kind of story with the rewilding craze.

we can feed ourselves quite happily with the staples we need. If by some incredibly weird event eg our navy sank, brexit went even more silly and no food was to come in we could quite happily produce the food we need. There would be far less pork, ham and chicken, no productive land used for livestock food and only marginal crop land used for ruminants.
BPS was just a welfare payment to farmers like me and you. Really we were being compensated for our lack of scale which is required in a commodity market. People now want different outcomes and hopefully SFI etc will deliver.

 

[Mythoughts]

Play them at their own stupid game. They are panicking already. There’s no sub for production yet every possible obstacle in the U.K. If it takes shortages to turn that situation around then so be it. Max out on SFI. But keep your drains running and be ready.

There won’t be any shortages in the staples - ever…

 

[Mythoughts]

All it needs is one container ship sunk by a Russian sub or undersea cables cut by similar sub and we’d have serious problems.

We would have far bigger issues then. Food security would still not be an issue.