The realities of post Brexit trade deals. Victim: British Sugar Industry.

[Hindsight]

Yes I can compete if if want to compete. I either keep my costs low by using the same old kit we have used since 1970 that owes us nothing or we go “modern” and get a huge contractor in where one man can shift hundreds of tons a day quite efficiently. But for me loss of actives, such as neonics, virus yellows and cescospora, and wet winters is a bigger concern. We lose yet another seed dressing next year and this year we lost the herbicide desmedipham. For agronomic reasons it’s becoming debatable as to whether we can continue with beet here. Foreign competition is a side issue for me that we are already enduring anyway with the price hovering around £20 per ton for years now where once it was £35.
And as I buy my fert from Lithuania, my technology from China, my tractors from France and Italy I’m not going to start telling other people that they can’t buy cane from Oz. And why prohibit cheap imports from people in other parts of the world who are trying to lift themselves out of poverty? Protectionism of flabby western industries is just another form of colonialism designed to keep the natives we once presided over down where we think they belong. Give them a chance to trade freely and benefit from their own hard work. Who knows? With wet winters and changing climates we might be grateful for having diverse sources of supply of commodities.
But in the meantime I’ll be nurturing this years crop of beet, maybe even with more attention to detail knowing I’m competing equally with foreign producers. And when people in the pub goon about cosseted British farmers I can say no not me mate. We take on all comers fair and square. No special favours for us. I’m just waiting for the day it applies to accountancy and legal services when I can get somebody in Mumbai to do my books for £20.

You may wait sometime my friend DrW. Those sectors of the economy will only allow Billy Bunter and the Tory Party to open up to Mumbai bases bean counters if it suits the partners in The City of London on their multi million salaries and bonus options. You are far to trusting of your political allegiances to the Tories and UKIP.

 

[DrWazzock]

You may wait sometime my friend DrW. Those sectors of the economy will only allow Billy Bunter and the Tory Party to open up to Mumbai bases bean counters if it suits the partners in The City of London on their multi million salaries and bonus options. You are far to trusting of your political allegiances to the Tories and UKIP.

It’s difficult to convey cynicism and irony with the written word. I’m sure you are right that liberalism in trade will never reach the front doors of its biggest proponents.
True Conservatism, true liberalism doesn’t exist other than on paper. What we have had with the Conservatives for thirty years is nothing more than vested interest opportunism and power for the sake of it. It took UKIP to achieve anything of any note with those fence sitters and ideological cowards. They haven’t really changed. They swing now to some sort of pseudo ecological crusade purely in the hope of picking up the middle class suburban vote.

 

[DrWazzock]

And the State has never been so big, so intrusive. Never has so much of the economy relied on printed money and state funding, bigger than enacted by any previous socialist government. Says it all really.

 

[Farm buy]

More worried by competition from India.....using our old tractors exported in 1985......no elf n safety costs.....and wages ???

Look like they are going nowhere fast