Walterp
Member
- Location
- Pembrokeshire
Even a kind-hearted soul like me gets tired, eventually, of hearing people like dairyman John Houseman from Harrogate (reported in FG 17.08.18) looking forward to trading conditions getting tougher so's he can expand at someone else's expense.
I guess it's true what they say - farmers, like sheep, are each other's worst enemy.
"He who digs a pit will fall into it,
and whoever rolls a stone, it will come back on him." (Proverbs 26:27)
Life is not a zero sum game: joining co-operatives, trades unions or pan-European federations can make sense, maximising everyone's opportunities.
The opposite is also true - when UK agriculture went through prolonged periods of low or negative returns it was the long-established farmers with paid-for farms, capital reserves, and family labour that struggled through (whilst, as The Duck has observed elsewhere, getting poorer every year that they endured). While aspirants like Mr Houseman went bust.
So it is time, in my opinion, that people like Mr Houseman learnt that life is a two-way street - if he wishes that inconveniently-established farmers would get out of his way and go bust, I hope that he goes bust in learning that life, and agriculture, doesn't work that way.
I guess it's true what they say - farmers, like sheep, are each other's worst enemy.
"He who digs a pit will fall into it,
and whoever rolls a stone, it will come back on him." (Proverbs 26:27)
Life is not a zero sum game: joining co-operatives, trades unions or pan-European federations can make sense, maximising everyone's opportunities.
The opposite is also true - when UK agriculture went through prolonged periods of low or negative returns it was the long-established farmers with paid-for farms, capital reserves, and family labour that struggled through (whilst, as The Duck has observed elsewhere, getting poorer every year that they endured). While aspirants like Mr Houseman went bust.
So it is time, in my opinion, that people like Mr Houseman learnt that life is a two-way street - if he wishes that inconveniently-established farmers would get out of his way and go bust, I hope that he goes bust in learning that life, and agriculture, doesn't work that way.