Labour Agri Policy 2025

[tractorsandcows]

Farmer who is most successful in following Labour's farm policies will get to see Angela Rayner's growler

 

[DrWazzock]

I still maintain that the strength of BPS is the flexibility to spend it on what’s right for your business.
As soon as government starts prescribing how it should be spent you create all sorts of injustices and distortions. BPS even benefits the environment. I’ve left plenty of fallows and awkward corners knowing I’m still getting £80 an acre.
Production subsidies only lead to mountains of produce that can’t be given away at rock bottom prices. Best way to crash a market.

 

[DrWazzock]

BPS works like a universal basic income. It’s actually a very good idea and simple cost effective idea.

 

[deere 6600]

Give mr farmer money so he can produce food at a loss and still farm

 

[Oldmacdonald]

Farmer who is most successful in following Labour's farm policies will get to see Angela Rayner's growler

Is that helpful to the discussion?

 

[delilah]

BPS works like a universal basic income. It’s actually a very good idea and simple cost effective idea.

Steady on, that's Green Party policy. Speaking of which, the GP offers far more for folks on here than do Labour .

https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/our-policies/long-term-goals/food-and-agriculture/

 

[thesilentone]

The supply chain model is like the Antiques Roadshow.

A subsidised regulated manufacture/grower/rearer supplies an unregulated free enterprise that has control of the food-chain (or in the hands of very few). Then all those around this in the supply chain feed off anything that's left over.

Within this, the only way to guarantee reasonable prices at the start of the chain, is shortages of supply. (if any competition really exists)

The Retailers want full shelves to the point of huge volumes of waste, over selling and wastage at the end of the supply chain.

The dance we are now in, is who's balance sheet looks best, the beginning of the chain, or the middle, who has many shareholders to report to.

What difference will Labour make ? sweet Fxxxny Adams.......

 

[devonbeef]

What a surprise! They screw the suppliers down to the floorboards and then wonder why they won't deliver.

reap what you do sow

 

[BrianV]

Tossers the lot of them,

Will’s World: Cold Coffey comments leave a bitter taste​

wills-world-cold-coffey-comments-leave-a-bitter-taste

 

[fgc325j]

It’s a very simple system that has worked for decades. If the government want cheap food to avoid riots in the streets they need to subsidise it.

Food comes first before the health service or education etc. Hungry people in a 1st world country will mean looting and we are getting closer and closer to this happening.

They need to do four things.

1. reinstate BPS at £100/ac.

2. put some control over the supermarkets/processors with regards to prices they pay farmers.

3. put some control over the input suppliers capping the cost of fuel and fertiliser.

4. invest in the current Defra online portal where farmers do the stewardship and bps claims as a way to directly talk to us through polls. This will rid the industry of the Nfu which is acting against farmers and for the food processors and supermarkets.

Ideally it should be on a sliding scale - i.e £200 first 100 acres, £150 next 50 acres, £100 next 50 acres, nothing above. The current system favours large landowners
and this system, you might argue, is against them - but so what - they should have economy of scale in their favour.

 

[DrWazzock]

Steady on, that's Green Party policy. Speaking of which, the GP offers far more for folks on here than do Labour .

https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/our-policies/long-term-goals/food-and-agriculture/

A basic income is paid by the state now to many in all sorts of complicated and round about ways. It would be more up front and simpler just to pay everybody £10k a year and do away with all the existing forms of benefits. I was involved with the Green Party years ago when the universal income idea was mooted.,I didn’t think it a goer at the time but 30 years later it looks like common sense. As farmers we are forerunners as we have been recipients of a basic income for a couple of decades now. Instead of scrapping it, it should be rolled out to the rest of the population.

 

[BrianV]

A basic income is paid by the state now to many in all sorts of complicated and round about ways. It would be more up front and simpler just to pay everybody £10k a year and do away with all the existing forms of benefits. I was involved with the Green Party years ago when the universal income idea was mooted.,I didn’t think it a goer at the time but 30 years later it looks like common sense. As farmers we are forerunners as we have been recipients of a basic income for a couple of decades now. Instead of scrapping it, it should be rolled out to the rest of the population.

It should not be seen as a basic income, it is far more of a basic payment for all the work involved in looking after the countrysides hedges etc for the benefit of all, hedges that we are not allowed to remove but involve a lot of expense to ourselves to maintain.

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

If I were going to poke the Supermarkets, Id get them to have mandatory country of origin labelling on meat and fresh produce (and make sure it is genuine and accurate).

Am I the only one who doesn't think we have a food shortage and its all a bit of a concoction?

We don't have a food shortage, we have supply chain issues caused by short-sighted and thoughtless policy from successive governments.

Is that helpful to the discussion?

It's certainly not helpful for me trying to enjoy my lunch.

 

[farmerm]

Labour is all about redistribution of wealth... so expect assets tax including a land tax that works much like BPS but in reverse, the abolition of APR and an even greater enthusiasm for exporting envionmental harms and increased importing of food.

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

Labour is all about redistribution of wealth... so expect assets tax including a land tax that works much like BPS but in reverse, the abolition of APR and an even greater enthusiasm for exporting envionmental harms and increased importing of food.

and probably the end of agri diesel too

 

[Bossfarmer]

Ideally it should be on a sliding scale - i.e £200 first 100 acres, £150 next 50 acres, £100 next 50 acres, nothing above. The current system favours large landowners
and this system, you might argue, is against them - but so what - they should have economy of scale in their favour.

nonsense this is an unfair system and backwards thinking which would lead to inefficiencies all over the place i.e mine and many other partnerships would split their businesses, this makes them less efficient as they loose the economies of scale to get the upfront payments, also you could have a guy on 250 acres of prime land coining it in and a guy on 500 marginal acres being left to struggle,

the current system works fine everyone gets the same per acre which they would anyway if food prices were higher and they could each make another £90/acre from each acre of their land

 

[Grumpy71]

Farmer who is most successful in following Labour's farm policies will get to see Angela Rayner's growler

Just nearly bought my lunch up, behave!

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

the current system works fine everyone gets the same per acre which they would anyway if food prices were higher and they could each make another £90/acre from each acre of their land

Difficult when lots of other countries can produce lamb/beef/eggs/cucumbers/tomatoes cheaper than the UK.

Cheap food will always be a vote winner.

 

[delilah]

Bernie Sanders calls it Uber capitalism. The Global oligarchy. It has hijacked our food system . Where are labour on that ? That's what you need to ask. (I suspect the answer is nowhere to be seen.)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...oligarchs-ok-angry-about-capitalism-interview

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Difficult when lots of other countries can produce lamb/beef/eggs/cucumbers/tomatoes cheaper than the UK.

Cheap food will always be a vote winner.

Really? I'm not so sure. Affordable doesn't have to be cheap. Look how some people spend their disposable income.

Takeaway or restaurant food is neither cheap or necessarily healthy but look how the food service industry has grown in recent decades. If cheapness was so important, there would be no such thing.