Monbiot's TV show.....Apocalypse Cow: How Meat Killed the Planet

[DrWazzock]

I didn't, I assumed that you claimed the "farming dole" to prop up your business.
I understand that every farming enterprise is not the same - on average, sheep enterprises seem to make a loss from their farming activities. I didn't - I made a profit from sheep and didn't claim a penny.

If the "farming dole", as you patronisingly call it, is on offer, and I am eligible for it, then as a businessman I would be a fool not to claim it, as not claiming it would put me at a disadvantage to my competitors. I don't use it to prop up my business but have invested it in the rural economy to achieve gains in productivity. In that respect its taxpayers money well spent though I appreciate it doesn't allow me to take such a high moral tone as you do, when it comes to worries about creeping nationalisation of the land we farm.

 

[SteveHants]

If the "farming dole", as you patronisingly call it, is on offer, and I am eligible for it, then as a businessman I would be a fool not to claim it, as not claiming it would put me at a disadvantage to my competitors. I don't use it to prop up my business but have invested it in the rural economy to achieve gains in productivity. In that respect its taxpayers money well spent though I appreciate it doesn't allow me to take such a high moral tone as you do, when it comes to worries about creeping nationalisation of the land we farm.

Nationalisation?
How is allowing free market capitalism by removing subsidies "nationalisation"? It may well allow corporatism into farming.

Also, there is no "moral tone" in capitalism, it's a system of exchange, it doesn't have morals.
My tone is more my disbelief at the sense of entitlement within agriculture, having come from a background of having nothing.

 

[neilo]

I didn't, I assumed that you claimed the "farming dole" to prop up your business.
I understand that every farming enterprise is not the same - on average, sheep enterprises seem to make a loss from their farming activities. I didn't - I made a profit from sheep and didn't claim a penny.

Were you not just a grazier though, renting someone else’s land in an area where there was little demand, and likely from someone claiming sub (& HLS?) on it, thus subsidising the rent that way?
Presumably, as a grazier, you would just have been taking what’s there, with none of the fixed/capital/maintenance costs that long term tenants or landowners incur?

As a stand-alone enterprise, my sheep would be reasonably profitable (certainly if I was paying Home Counties grassland rents). With the additional costs of trying to improve things, fence & maintain extensive hedgerow networks, maintain & repair/replace drains, etc, I need all the sub I receive to wipe my nose.
Obviously a lot of that can (and likely will) stop, given what we are facing as an industry, but the farm will go backwards very rapidly as a result.

 

[Suffolk Serf]

I wouldn't normally say this, but if you want cheering up and returning to the real world, have a look on the Oxford Farming Conference website and look at some of the videos of the proceedings.
You will realise how insignificant the mad wittering of Monbiot are.
Yes climate change, the environment, healthy diet (and veganism) are issues and steering the direction of policy but farming and meat production is in no way doomed.

 

[SteveHants]

Were you not just a grazier though, renting someone else’s land in an area where there was little demand, and likely from someone claiming sub (& HLS?) on it, thus subsidising the rent that way?
Presumably, as a grazier, you would just have been taking what’s there, with none of the fixed/capital/maintenance costs that long term tenants or landowners incur?

As a stand-alone enterprise, my sheep would be reasonably profitable (certainly if I was paying Home Counties grassland rents). With the additional costs of trying to improve things, fence & maintain extensive hedgerow networks, maintain & repair/replace drains, etc, I need all the sub I receive to wipe my nose.
Obviously a lot of that can (and likely will) stop, given what we are facing as an industry, but the farm will go backwards very rapidly as a result.

Yes, but that's business. Identify a profitable enterprise and make money from it.
I would certainly have been paying more "rent" than those with inherited farms and not claiming those very subs that my landlord was claiming (and my rent) that a landowner/farmer would get.

Remove subs and the value of land (and therefore its rented value) would go through the floor, ushering in an age of young, dynamic farmers and clearing out the deadwood.

 

[neilo]

Yes, but that's business. Identify a profitable enterprise and make money from it.
I would certainly have been paying more "rent" than those with inherited farms and not claiming those very subs that my landlord was claiming (and my rent) that a landowner/farmer would get.

Remove subs and the value of land (and therefore its rented value) would go through the floor, ushering in an age of young, dynamic farmers and clearing out the deadwood.

I agree, it’s good business to take advantage of the opportunities that you’re presented with. I would suggest that it isn’t necessarily much good for that land in the long term, or for the patchwork of small fields, surrounded by wildlife corridors, that make the British countryside so beautiful and such a diverse environment. I guess it depends how short term your attitude is, as regards the land & countryside.....

If subs get removed overnight then I’m sure rents will fall. However, they won’t fall low enough, fast enough, for most of the tenants that are on 3 year review cycles.
The average sub to UK farm businesses is supposed to be something like £26k iirc, and most livestock benchmarking figures show that the average beef & sheep farm is lucky to break even with that sub included. If sub disappears, how many tenants could stand a loss of £26k for 3 years Potentially, before arguing like hell to get (maybe) a 10-20% rent reduction from their landlord, then another 3 years of losses before the next battle?

Or should we just throw them all out, along with the ancillary industries they support, in order to let the ‘efficient’ young guns in to harvest what fertility & infrastructure they’ve left behind?

 

[Raider112]

There is a discussion within. The feeding of large volumes of grain to beef cattle is a waste of resources, and if a detailed life cycle was done, would make it look ridiculous and senseless. Remember why we fed grain in the first place, then ask yourself if it's sustainable. it is also a major chink in the armor.

I suppose the debate could move onto feeding virtual gloop to cattle ?

That's when it gets complicated, the dairy boys are being discouraged from killing bull calves but B&W bulls can only be effectively finished on a grain based diet.

 

[DrWazzock]

Yes, but that's business. Identify a profitable enterprise and make money from it.
I would certainly have been paying more "rent" than those with inherited farms and not claiming those very subs that my landlord was claiming (and my rent) that a landowner/farmer would get.

Remove subs and the value of land (and therefore its rented value) would go through the floor, ushering in an age of young, dynamic farmers and clearing out the deadwood.

Last time we had no subs the forestry commission bought 3000 acres of land next to us for 7 shillings an acre in the 1950's because no farmer could find a way to make it pay. Consider draining, fencing, liming, reseeding, fertiliser, spraying out weeds. That land is still nationalised to this day with public access.

Expect a lot more of it as subsidies are channelled towards public goods, and away from keeping land in good agricultural condition. You will be competing against efficient corporations who will buy land purely so they can draw down taxpayers money to rewild it. They won't particularly care that it ends up effectively under government control open to the public.

I am not quite sure what you are driving at really and I think we have our wires crossed, but my original post in this matter raised concern about the growing consensus that land should be in public ownership. You seemed to imply that I shouldn't be surprised at the clamour for public ownership when I am claiming public money. That might be a fair comment but I still think that a lot of these rewilders have a public ownership agenda at the very forefront of their ideology and the fact that you don't claim subsidy directly won't make a jot of difference to their opinion.

 

[SteveHants]

I agree, it’s good business to take advantage of the opportunities that you’re presented with. I would suggest that it isn’t necessarily much good for that land in the long term, or for the patchwork of small fields, surrounded by wildlife corridors, that make the British countryside so beautiful and such a diverse environment. I guess it depends how short term your attitude is, as regards the land & countryside.....

If subs get removed overnight then I’m sure rents will fall. However, they won’t fall low enough, fast enough, for most of the tenants that are on 3 year review cycles.
The average sub to UK farm businesses is supposed to be something like £26k iirc, and most livestock benchmarking figures show that the average beef & sheep farm is lucky to break even with that sub included. If sub disappears, how many tenants could stand a loss of £26k for 3 years Potentially, before arguing like hell to get (maybe) a 10-20% rent reduction from their landlord, then another 3 years of losses before the next battle?

Or should we just throw them all out, along with the ancillary industries they support, in order to let the ‘efficient’ young guns in to harvest what fertility & infrastructure they’ve left behind?

There was lots of land "in question" some was western downland - high chalk, and as far as I could tell, it was the only land like it for miles around grazed in the "traditional" manner.
Lots of low lying dairy wet ground that benefited from sheep when the cattle would poach and "other" sheep would get foxtrot.
Lots of turnips with the required borders.

I suspect rents would fall rather quickly.

Either way, it's capitalism, and since we apparently all despise socialism, its what we should want, right?

 

[DrWazzock]

I don't despise socialism. I just don't want too much of it. I don't rate outright capitalism either.

 

[JP1]

Rather than complain to C4 and be fobbed of why not make a note of the companies whose advertisements run before, during and after the programme and point out that they are supporting propaganda that means you and yours wint be buying their products. If enough do it and advertisers withdraw from C4 they are finished.

Good point. I spot a number on Twitter complaining that Mitsubishi are "sponsoring" this broadcast. There's one the NFU discount team can have a word with at least surely ?

 

[egbert]

Yes, but that's business. Identify a profitable enterprise and make money from it.
I would certainly have been paying more "rent" than those with inherited farms and not claiming those very subs that my landlord was claiming (and my rent) that a landowner/farmer would get.

Remove subs and the value of land (and therefore its rented value) would go through the floor, ushering in an age of young, dynamic farmers and clearing out the deadwood.

Be nice if life was as simple as that.
I believe there's tonnes of opportunity for 'young dynamic farmers' already -in some areas- to 'manage' land owned by the sub claiming deadwood, or moneyed blow-ins.
And the value of land has as much to do with interest rates and blow-in money as it does subs.

I'm firmly in the deadwood category you mention, and as we've said in these conversations many times.... if it's so easy, go round the bank in the morning, borrow 2-3 million, and fill yer boots.
You too could soon be deadwood!
I've every respect for realistic lads who'll chance their arm, and run a flying flock or fatten lambs on tack, working with a pick up, a prattley, and a couple of keen dogs.
Good for them, I wish the rewards were commensurate with the skill and graft.
But I don't harbour envy - and worse- of those better off than me. (Deader? Woodier?)

 

[ifindoubtflatout]

Its not actually. Some spcies can cope better than others but there are few trees the higher up you go for a reason. The air is thinner up there. Humans lack oxygen, which makes up a higher proportion than the already tiny concentration of CO2.

A Google search of Tree Line in Lake District
A Natural England publication says
The tree line is at 535m

 

[ifindoubtflatout]

There are 156 hills fells and mountains above 535 m in the Lake District (Google search)
535m is the Tree Line in the Lake District

therefore what Nonbiot said was a misleading lie. It’s not the sheep that are eating the little trees, they just physically cannot grow and thrive above 535m
According to Natural England

 

[Treg]

Good point. I spot a number on Twitter complaining that Mitsubishi are "sponsoring" this broadcast. There's one the NFU discount team can have a word with at least surely ?

Exactly any company that looks like it supports these anti farming campaigns should be boycotted by the farming industry.

 

[J 1177]

Well iv just been to the local factory shop for a pair of combats and a couple of hoodies, I thought I'd get a paper so I walked down the street. I walked past the vegan cafe, all very fancy looking. There was one person in it in a Jeremy Corbyn hat. Ten yards later on the other side of the road there's a big long Wetherspoons that you can see all the seating area. Well this place was packed, half ten on a weekday morning and it was packed with people scoffing full English breakfasts. The public aren't daft

 

[Gulli]

I think that if we consider the even bigger picture, one begins to realise that if the soya wasn't grown then the human food industry would still need to replace that oil with something else. It could be sunflower oil, rapeseed, or more probably palm oil.

So less soya grown would probably mean more palm oil grown. All those crops have byproducts - all of which can be utilised very efficiency in animal production.

What else can we do with these byproduct? Only other thing is either burn them or tip them in an AD plant, both of which produce either methane or CO2. You can't alter the carbon cycle!

Just because we can feed it to cattle doesn't mean we have to. Or that we should pay for it.
I just find it a difficult argument to make that it's not farmings fault it's humans fault, like we aren't human or we don't contribute in any way. just because its not frown specifically for animal food doesnt mean that we dont benefit from it being grown.
As an aside palm oil is more land efficient than soya so replacing it with that a arguably a good thing

 

[Grass And Grain]

Just because we can feed it to cattle doesn't mean we have to. Or that we should pay for it.
I just find it a difficult argument to make that it's not farmings fault it's humans fault, like we aren't human or we don't contribute in any way. just because its not frown specifically for animal food doesnt mean that we dont benefit from it being grown.
As an aside palm oil is more land efficient than soya so replacing it with that a arguably a good thing

Obviously the livestock industry utilises the soyabean meal (oil removed), but I would have thought that was a good use for it - turning a byproduct into food.

It could be eaten directly by humans I suppose, but humans don't seem to want to eat all that is available after the oil extraction process.

Don't see many people wanting to munch on palm kernal, rapeseed meal or sunflower hulls either.

I do take your point, but personally think that it is a good news livestock story.

 

[Pond digger]

Obviously the livestock industry utilises the soyabean meal (oil removed), but I would have thought that was a good use for it - turning a byproduct into food.

It could be eaten directly by humans I suppose, but humans don't seem to want to eat all that is available after the oil extraction process.

Don't see many people wanting to munch on palm kernal, rapeseed meal or sunflower hulls either.

I do take your point, but personally think that it is a good news livestock story.

I was quite surprised to see linseed meal in the supermarket. It goes quite well in flapjack.

 

[primmiemoo]

I was quite surprised to see linseed meal in the supermarket. It goes quite well in flapjack.

Boundaries for you in the next couple of days, eh?