The role of British farmers today

[Dave645]

I repeat, money spent is not value added. If you spend £100 to get £101 in sales, you've added £1 of value not £100.

And if you cared to peruse the figures I linked to you will see that the entire gross output of UK farming (ie value of everything sold, crops and livestock) is £25bn. Not £100bn as you suggested. Out of that £25bn in receipts, farmer pay out about £16bn in costs, leaving the £9bn in net value added. Thats it, in black and white. If you don't believe it go and take it up with the Office of National Statistics that you think they are undervaluing the contribution of the farming sector to the UK economy by a factor of 10.

If I spend £100 to make £101 but I earn that £100 from the farm then it's all counts only if that £100 came from outside farming would it not. If a shop purchased £100 in stock and sold it for £101 then your right only £1 income and net benefit. But we generate the money we spend by growing crops, not buying crops and selling them on. All the money we spend comes from the land, that includes the 16billion in running costs. Without farmers that 16 billion goes as well. (And so does all the jobs it supports)which based on £20k income is around 800,000 jobs in the support chain.

 

[Dave645]

Nothing is as bad as it first seems I always think. Yes a major cut back in farm support however done will be painful but no government is going to allow the total decimation of agriculture, it will go leaner but there will be enough encouragement to not allow wholesale collapse as should an event occur that threatens our food security and the public see an opportunity to blame government for this they will.
Consequently enough life support will be available to ensure the engine can be restarted.
I personally struggle with the idea of subsidy. When Leyland or British coal were asking for it I thought " well free market laws should apply get profitable or close "
Now elements within farming say agriculture must be a special case and get this help , my guess most never blinked at the closing of the mines and cheap Aussie coal.
Does an upland area or any area deserve to be in business if all profit is derived by subsidy ?
Keep stating agriculture is special is not really the answer . Maybe the money would be better spent on energy security as without this there is no food anyway.
There will be changes but there will always people prepared to take up the challenge of agriculture in the geographical areas where it's meant to be.

By the sounds of it you thought that the coal industry was worth support which it may have been, (I have no clue sorry) and if it had stacked up, what it was worth to the country in jobs and side industry's it may have been a big mistake to shut it down, repeating past mistakes is not sensible if it stacks up that an industry shows a profit and net benefit, and it is stream lined and efficient, then why can it not be supported, if needed.
if the farming industry was not returning a net gain to the economy then there would be no saving it. We could all agree to that.
But as we add £25billion at least to the national economy in direct and indirect ways, and subs are £3 billion which could be trimmed with better targeting. To support the ones that need it as is but give less to the bigger players that should be able to manage with less support with little effect.
For me we are better off with a healthy farming industry.

 

[holywell farmer]

My issue with the subsidy system is, too large a portion is allocated to the wrong people, those who don't produce food whatsoever. Why do they need such large subsidies to look after nature? All I do to promote nature is leave it the Fock alone, and nature does its own thing, it costs nothing. The national trust for example, don't have to take land out of production to promote nature, so they need nothing in the way of farm subsidies. I'm of the opinion that if farm subsidies in Britain are to continue, then they should be paid for producing food directly, not for conservation of useless mountains and bogs, that if left alone flourish anyway.

Are any Trust farms near you

 

[Massey675]

When were you born?
Farmers ripped out thousands of miles of hedges.
It's not condescending, a lot of farmers can't be trusted to look after what they have.
Sad but true.

I've only known arable farmers really to do that

 

[czechmate]

I've only known arable farmers really to do that

It was more an example than a specific

 

[Y Fan Wen]

Arthur Scargill has since been exposed as being in the pay of the ussr at the time of the strikes.

I had a good chuckle when it came out that the Greenham Common protest was being supported by the same people.