Just remember when your paper's Tory,

Raider112

Member
I have told them I can't join until they drop their membership of an 'eat less meat' campaign. Which is petty of me really, as they do an awful lot to support new entrants and promote what is now described by the mainstream as 'regenerative agriculture'. I am not aware of any collective farm ambitions, on the contrary their members are far more free market orientated than most on here, given that they typically get no bps.
If they stick up for pikeys and promote eating less meat they don't sound like landworkers to me.
 

delilah

Member
I am being flippant obviously but I don't think they'll have many herdsmen, tractor drivers, stockmen or GFWs as members.

True. Most members are in hortic, and work bloody hard. That said there are plenty of members with stock, including some with on-farm abattoirs. End of the day they are food producers just like folks on here.

I would say that the LWA works at the interface between the envi movement and mainstream ag, and the line between the two is quite rightly becoming increasingly blurred.
 

Cowcorn

Member
Mixed Farmer
My Grandparents had a bolt on the attic door, to be slid across at night so that the harvest workers sleeping up there couldn't do a midnight flit with the silver.
The relationship between farmers and travelers has always been an uneasy one, but above that it was one of mutual benefit. Did they turn to laying tarmac and dealing in scrap because it was an easier living, or because mechanization forced them out of farm work ? Probably a bit of both.
I found the article useful in reminding us that, until yesterday in the scheme of things, farmers depended on travelers as much as they now depend on mechanics and IT nerds. Some tolerance within the law to allow a way of life to continue seems to be the thrust of the article.
As another minority that often gets vilified by society at large, farmers should have some empathy with their efforts to resist punitive legislation.
Back in the day when many farms grew a few acres of spuds and the johnson chain digger and hand picking were the norm travellers were much in demand .
Later on when the Grimme cavalier single row became the machine of choice where did one go for a picking of crew only to the local travellers
One or two traveller families had a steady round of farms around here nearly all year round. Working at planting harvesting and riddling through the winter .

We had them when i was a boy and the were great workers and never gave us any bother .
The older generation of travellers and farmers could get on the needed each other
But with potato and veg now concentrated in bigger and fewer hands and the coming of the unmanned harvester and automation the old ways died out
Travellers are rarely seen working on farms nowadays . The younger members of the " picker " families now earn a crust at shed painting scrap and dealing in " dud " fivers . Depends on who you listen to:);) The arent the only section of society who have started to dabble in crime when their traditional role gets abolished.
Every community has its bad apples .
 

Swarfmonkey

Member
Location
Hampshire

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
I have told them I can't join until they drop their membership of an 'eat less meat' campaign.

Do you take the same position with The Green Party or are you hypocritical in that regards?

I seem to recall you’re also pro-crime and have confessed to both theft and also encouraged others on here to commit theft from large companies.
 

delilah

Member
Do you take the same position with The Green Party or are you hypocritical in that regards?

I seem to recall you’re also pro-crime and have confessed to both theft and also encouraged others on here to commit theft from large companies.

Hypocritical thief. Guilty as charged.
 

delilah

Member
Thought so. Won’t be taking any moral guidance form you and your type then. Are you from travelling heritage, given you share so many of the same undesirable qualities?

it was £00’s of feed bin you were advocating stealing, wasn’t it?

It was a 1100 litre wheely bin, from the premises of a bankrupt business where the waste firm had clearly written off the bin, to use as a feed bin.
Much as I enjoy these little chats with Victor Meldrew, I've got a farm club to go and run, teaching teenagers how to care for lambing sheep and calving cows. Laters :) .
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
It was a 1100 litre wheely bin, from the premises of a bankrupt business where the waste firm had clearly written off the bin, to use as a feed bin.
Much as I enjoy these little chats with Victor Meldrew, I've got a farm club to go and run, teaching teenagers how to care for lambing sheep and calving cows. Laters :) .

You told the readership to “go around the back of an industrial place and steal one - the waste companies are big enough”. No mention of abandoned premises or the likes.

But yes, I have a lambing to attend to. Make sure you try and find a better moral compass for the youngsters than you show on here.
 

traineefarmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Mid Norfolk
Now that more and more stolen family pets are being found during traveller camp raids, I think that the tide of public and political opinion will well and truly turn against this criminal subculture.

The hardworking, noble, yet mischievous Romany became extinct a couple of generations ago. Those that have now adopted the lifestyle are organised criminals indulging in theft, slavery and extreme animal cruelty to name a few, living under the protection of historic nomadic laws, modern anti racism movements and a police force too scared to intervene.

Good riddance to them. I hope that I am right and the sight of a filthy emancipated Fido being rescued from their cesspool encampments will be more emotive than stolen ATVs and power tools.
 
Hold up. There are a few true Romany people around, there are a couple about in this part of the world but you seldom see them in the same place within a 12 month span. The one couple you will see around here locally have a wagon/sheppard hut type thing and a horse and make a living selling crafty stuff by the roadside. I happened to speak to one whilst the wife was in the garden centre nearby so I took the kids to see the horse. Very nice people. Never cause any harm, never stop on private property or cause any nuisance. The only way you could tell they had been there was where the verge had been nipped down by the horse. They cause no complaint and if one happened to setup camp in the village on the verge I would not be concerned in the slightest. The council could in fact designate pitches on highway verges etc and offer to collect their domestic waste as the bin men pass on the way by.

These sort of folks are clearly not travellers in the usual sense. If this kind of people were more prevalent I'd have no issue with it whatsoever and I believe most of this forum would agree. I don't know if the Romany do any agricultural work, it would not surprise me if they got involved with the apple harvest. It is an increasingly rare way of life unfortunately.
 

DairyGrazing

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
North West
Very casual acquaintance who has dairy out east in europe said they leave the outside swaths of Lucerne hay for the Romanys horses. Guarantees no drama with them. When smaller kit goes missing one phone call and it's usually back the next night.
 

delilah

Member
You told the readership to “go around the back of an industrial place and steal one - the waste companies are big enough”. No mention of abandoned premises or the likes.

But yes, I have a lambing to attend to. Make sure you try and find a better moral compass for the youngsters than you show on here.

Hope lambing is going well. We did some rubber ringing and then went and chawed some more heras to make the chicken run bigger (y) .
 
Back in the days of small bales, we used to get a regular gang who would help every year and were completely reliable. By about 1989 however, the attitude changed and it became harder and harder to rely on the younger generation for help, culminating in a lost field of hay after the "foreman" decided to take the afternoon off having promised to pick up the bales. The money was always very good so it wasn't the pay that put them off, but there were easier ways to get by so they didn't care any more. I reluctantly bought our first round baler for 1990 and did it all myself, but the machine didn't force them out, it was the only way to get the job done when no one wanted the work any more.
 
Some tolerance within the law to allow a way of life to continue seems to be the thrust of the article.
As another minority that often gets vilified by society at large, farmers should have some empathy with their efforts to resist punitive legislation.
This way of life is provided for, at tax and rate payers cost, in the form of official traveller sites. There will unlikely be action against the traditional roma family staying a night or two on the verge or greens, with a horse and traditional cabin, sharpening knives and selling good luck charms. We have one who comes through every now and then. No problem at all.
This law will hopefully stop the invasion of multiple caravan towing transits over bank holiday weekends, onto village greens,school playing fields and farmland, turning them into a latrine and a rubbish dump, and generally terrorising and intimidating all the locals. Can't come soon enough imo.
 

SteveHants

Member
Livestock Farmer
This way of life is provided for, at tax and rate payers cost, in the form of official traveller sites. There will unlikely be action against the traditional roma family staying a night or two on the verge or greens, with a horse and traditional cabin, sharpening knives and selling good luck charms. We have one who comes through every now and then. No problem at all.
This law will hopefully stop the invasion of multiple caravan towing transits over bank holiday weekends, onto village greens,school playing fields and farmland, turning them into a latrine and a rubbish dump, and generally terrorising and intimidating all the locals. Can't come soon enough imo.

Residents on council traveller sites pay council tax just like everybody else.
 

SteveHants

Member
Livestock Farmer
Like most people on here, I have had mixed experiences with travellers, some very negative, many positive: I was "looked after" by the head of our local settled gypsy community as a child on the way back from sea fishing trips which ran out of our local pub when my dad couldn't make it, I have fond memories of being fed kit kat in the back of a transit whilst the men drunk cans on the way to the pub. It also meant that they were extremely polite to my family, with my mum being head of the local primary school often having had an errant child dragged back in by their mother to apologise to her for being naughty etc.

The thing I cannot stomach about this bill its it's attempts to criminalise an entire ethnic group for nothing other than existing.
Wherever nomadic and settled groups coexist, there is conflict, and this is often used to bring in draconian legislation of this nature - in almost every authoritarian far right society, it was the Gypsies that were targeted first.

"First they came for the Gypsies, but I did not speak out, for I was not a Gypsy....."
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Like most people on here, I have had mixed experiences with travellers, some very negative, many positive: I was "looked after" by the head of our local settled gypsy community as a child on the way back from sea fishing trips which ran out of our local pub when my dad couldn't make it, I have fond memories of being fed kit kat in the back of a transit whilst the men drunk cans on the way to the pub. It also meant that they were extremely polite to my family, with my mum being head of the local primary school often having had an errant child dragged back in by their mother to apologise to her for being naughty etc.

The thing I cannot stomach about this bill its it's attempts to criminalise an entire ethnic group for nothing other than existing.
Wherever nomadic and settled groups coexist, there is conflict, and this is often used to bring in draconian legislation of this nature - in almost every authoritarian far right society, it was the Gypsies that were targeted first.

"First they came for the Gypsies, but I did not speak out, for I was not a Gypsy....."
They are their own worst enemies, if they didn't leave rubbish & scrap everywhere when they leave people might be more accommodating but sadly that is rarely the case!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top