RSPCA seek to end "factory farming"

[beardface]

I studied marketing and the rise of anti farming groups is quite a problem. The first thing we learnt was advertising is the last, smallest and weakest part of marketing. Successful marketing is all about identifying and exploiting trends.
The problem is the anti farming adverts are only taking advantage of deeper societal and demographic trends. As has been noted on this forum the loss of connection between consumers and food is the root of the problem. Food is taken for granted and there is no understanding of the practicalities of it's production. The anti farming "Compassionate, eco-friendly, blame someone else and save the world without leaving your sofa" message is an easy sell to people who are removed from the realities of how the world must be fed.
Trends are deep rooted and notoriously difficult and usually impossible to create or steer. Adverts mostly reflect trends, they don't direct them. In our situation adverts are a sticking plaster, they can't turn the tide. It's hard to overstate what a challenge it will be to change the direction of things, but the only real solution would probably have to begin at the start by physically reconnecting people with food production

It all rests on education. We need more home economics and food production lessons in schools. All schools should have an annual farm or food processing visit by random year groups. I'd happily see my AHDV levy payments help fund this. Along with responsible use of the countryside lessons including control of dogs. I think we'd all be surprised how quickly we become the heroes of Britain, like the nurses and delivery men, if little timmy starts going home and preaching to mum and dad.

 

[Treg]

I believe the majority of livestock farmers hate factory farms , they damage the environment, certainly not nice for the animals kept & also damaging for the farming community as a whole on several levels-
1 - The public's view of farming, it just happens locally that the most intense & bad looking farms are in view of the main roads are a bad advertisement for all farming.

2- Intensive farming has led to lower prices & less people on the land, with the knock on effect that less people know where there food comes from.

3- In most cases factory farming produces lower quality food , which longer term turns people off all are products.

So on the face of it agree with the head line statement but in there is that wording that keeps popping up lately....eat less meat & dairy . We all know that has nothing to do with the environment, unless you count soya used but even that's a dubious argument as most used by bovine animal's, is by products from human end use soya.
So it's really a eat less meat & dairy campaign that longer term will probably create more Intensive farming as small family farms are already on the bread line & any drop in demand/ price will probably finish them off . Whereas the factory farms although they tend to come & go each time they tend to get bigger and swallow up more traditional farms.

The standard for farming I'd bring in is ....
If you don't know all your animal's by name you can't keep them . Simple.

...Tin hat on

 

[GeorgeK]

It all rests on education. We need more home economics and food production lessons in schools. All schools should have an annual farm or food processing visit by random year groups. I'd happily see my AHDV levy payments help fund this. Along with responsible use of the countryside lessons including control of dogs. I think we'd all be surprised how quickly we become the heroes of Britain, like the nurses and delivery men, if little timmy starts going home and preaching to mum and dad.

I agree, if humanity is to survive, we have to return to understanding and appreciating where things we use come from and where they end up. Everyone should be mandated to regularly spend time on a farm and at a sewage plant. In a factory and at a landfill site. Otherwise we continue wanting more and more but appreciating what we have less and less, it never ends. We never achieve happiness but destroy the world in pursuit of it

 

[bluebell]

can we please turn the clock back 50 years ? and that also means the size of the population ? in both senses ?

 

[yellowbelly]

Less cwt/acre, less livestock/acre , more bellys to feed = more value/acre maybe?

...............and more empty bellies, not necessarily here, but somewhere in the world.

 

[roscoe erf]

What’s factory farming ?

any one with more than 1 animal

 

[stroller]

It is a major cause. But it's indirect.

If it wasn't for farming feeding billions of degenerate fùckwads, then the world would be a far better place. Most of the problems wouldn't exist, because so many people wouldn't exist.

If you can breed 9 children and still not know how to grow carrots or catch fish, then don't bite the hand that feeds

I've been saying that for years, along with scientists and doctors keeping them alive, Alexander Fleming is probably the biggest cause of the problems we have now.

 

[JP1]

What’s factory farming ?

Good question

Conceivably even my Belties coming in to a shed for 3 months so they don’t cut up the wet fields

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I've been saying that for years, along with scientists and doctors keeping them alive, Alexander Fleming is probably the biggest cause of the problems we have now.

And the Haber-Bosch process, as with many other "advances", really it's retarded our species and its ability to cope, be resilient and adaptable.

We aren't "anti-fragile" anymore, hence covid has had a devastating impact where it once couldn't have had much impact at all.

Instead of a need to "travel light", we park up in mansions.
All this "progress" is the problem, and modern agriculture facilitates that, whether we like it or not.

 

[manhill]

can we please turn the clock back 50 years ? and that also means the size of the population ? in both senses ?

And look at the value of produce then! How many fat cattle to sell to buy the latest tractor? Not many I'd venture.
We just produce more and more for less and less.

 

[roscoe erf]

And look at the value of produce then! How many fat cattle to sell to buy the latest tractor? Not many I'd venture.
We just produce more and more for less and less.

the hamster wheel of farming

 

[Muddyroads]

Less cwt/acre, less livestock/acre , more bellys to feed = more value/acre maybe?

Less cwt/acre, less livestock/acre , more bellys to feed = more imports

 

[Christoph1945]

I studied marketing and the rise of anti farming groups is quite a problem. The first thing we learnt was advertising is the last, smallest and weakest part of marketing. Successful marketing is all about identifying and exploiting trends.
The problem is the anti farming adverts are only taking advantage of deeper societal and demographic trends. As has been noted on this forum the loss of connection between consumers and food is the root of the problem. Food is taken for granted and there is no understanding of the practicalities of it's production. The anti farming "Compassionate, eco-friendly, blame someone else and save the world without leaving your sofa" message is an easy sell to people who are removed from the realities of how the world must be fed.
Trends are deep rooted and notoriously difficult and usually impossible to create or steer. Adverts mostly reflect trends, they don't direct them. In our situation adverts are a sticking plaster, they can't turn the tide. It's hard to overstate what a challenge it will be to change the direction of things, but the only real solution would probably have to begin at the start by physically reconnecting people with food production

A lack of knowledge = a lack of gratitude!

 

[Hilly]

UK is a sinking ship for farming.

I did a tour of Scotland yesterday on business , drove 40 miles though thousands and thousands and thousands of acres of sitca spruce that all used to be farm land , place is extinct of life other than the tree , that’s a glimpse into the future this country is heading , unbelievable all used to be farmed.

 

[Christoph1945]

UK is a sinking ship for farming.

Surely, you have noticed that the United Kingdom is slowly becoming the Dis- United Kingdom, as those at the top scrabble to fill their own pockets and line their own nests.

Knowledge, via good education, is power; an agent that helps to sweep away ignorance, depression, and defeat.

 

[Christoph1945]

It all rests on education. We need more home economics and food production lessons in schools. All schools should have an annual farm or food processing visit by random year groups. I'd happily see my AHDV levy payments help fund this. Along with responsible use of the countryside lessons including control of dogs. I think we'd all be surprised how quickly we become the heroes of Britain, like the nurses and delivery men, if little timmy starts going home and preaching to mum and dad.

You have been the heroes since the time of Adam but it's just that those controlling the spotlight choose to shine it elsewhere, to meet their own needs.

Beware that showing children how the meat gets to their plates may just give the anti-meat brigade the wedge that they require to meet their policies!

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I studied marketing and the rise of anti farming groups is quite a problem. The first thing we learnt was advertising is the last, smallest and weakest part of marketing. Successful marketing is all about identifying and exploiting trends.
The problem is the anti farming adverts are only taking advantage of deeper societal and demographic trends. As has been noted on this forum the loss of connection between consumers and food is the root of the problem. Food is taken for granted and there is no understanding of the practicalities of it's production. The anti farming "Compassionate, eco-friendly, blame someone else and save the world without leaving your sofa" message is an easy sell to people who are removed from the realities of how the world must be fed.
Trends are deep rooted and notoriously difficult and usually impossible to create or steer. Adverts mostly reflect trends, they don't direct them. In our situation adverts are a sticking plaster, they can't turn the tide. It's hard to overstate what a challenge it will be to change the direction of things, but the only real solution would probably have to begin at the start by physically reconnecting people with food production

maybe what needs to happen is something like what happened in Cuba, when the USSR disintegrated and stopped supplying Cuba with food, so to stop the country starving, they had to instigate growing food, in a type of "dig for Cuba" drive. However that would reconnect the population with the realities of food production, but I would never wish the scenario on anyone, as for that to happed the food supply chain would have to fail first, but I think this virus has shown us how fragile our food supply system is. As Lenin said "Every society is three meals away from chaos" .

 

[ISCO]

Interesting thread so far. @GeorgeK makes some good points on what the problem is and on what needs to happen to start and rectify things.
I suspect how most farmers define factory farming and how RSPCA do will be very different.
The farming industry is very easy to attack as we are a group of individuals without in my view, a strong representative body. In my opinion the industry should fund the employment of some media savvy, camera friendly people with a grasp of the facts to debate with such as Packham , the RSPCA etc.

I cringe at times at the people the NFU put on TV who do their best, but lack a grasp of the facts.
Animal ag. is an easy target at the moment. Government has made it clear they are willing to sacrifice cattle and sheep to plant trees and then claim to be saving the planet.

We no longer have the protection of the EU and French farmers and we have PM whose ear is being bent by an animal rights orientated partner.

These are worrying times and false facts need exposing for what they are.

 

[beardface]

You have been the heroes since the time of Adam but it's just that those controlling the spotlight choose to shine it elsewhere, to meet their own needs.

Beware that showing children how the meat gets to their plates may just give the anti-meat brigade the wedge that they require to meet their policies!

I think it's Finland where thry do school trips to abbatoirs to show kids what happens to lucky the lamb. Be nice to think we could get yo that point in 10 years of realistic education. If people really want to "save the planet" then the next generation need to reconnect, and fully understand, with the production of food. The majority forget that without food producers they wouldnt be able to do any of the other things they fill there lives with.

 

[roscoe erf]