Well what do others think? It seems to me, while our govt, makes "our " farmers, jump through all the hoops, ( rules, regulations etc etc), right? Meat from wherever? floods into the UK? Why i say this, just phoned my vet, to get some alymycin, for treating some foul of the foots, and been told if the vet hasnt been out in the last 6 months, they then might have to come out to prescripe said "medicine" at my expense?
Uk Livestock Farmers A Dying Breed?
- Thread starter bluebell
- Start date
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
Sale Report - Tuesday 23rd January 2024
Forward 744 Head of Stock comprising of 18 Cattle including 3 Calves, 7 Stores, 5 Prime Cattle, 1 OTM, 1 Cow with 1 calf at foot and 726 Sheep comprising of 509 Prime Hoggs, 187 Ewes, 6 Tups, 24 Store Hoggs.CALVES Limousin Bulls to £335, Limousin Heifers to £300, British Blue Bulls to £315.Top...
www.holmfirthmart.co.uk
That might encourage some to keep livestock farming.
But do agree all the jumps & hoops are flipping annoying.
Batters & the NFU still don't bloody get it, there is absolutely no point to the Red Tractor bulls!t if there is no premium on sales & the UK government is obsessed with bringing in cheap imports with no assurance what ever.!!!
farmers-to-have-their-say-on-future-of-red-tractor-assurance
farmers-to-have-their-say-on-future-of-red-tractor-assurance
Nearly
Member
- Location
- North of York
We are a dying breed but recently the temptation is to get out before that happens.
Long before.
Long before.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
It has always been a requirement, laxly enforced, for a vet to have been on the farm in the previous 12 months in order to be able to prescribe POM drugs. Last Autumn, the RCVS tightened that up in their 'guidance' to members, and it now includes pets, farm dogs, etc as well, not just your farm livestock.
A cynic might think it was about revenue generation, but your vet's 6 monthly visit requirement most certainly is!
Red Fred
Member
- Location
- Hants/Dorset border
I'm trying to remember, was there ever a point in the early days when RT led to a premium? I never joined it as we only sell stores and culls.
So just like steel, what meat the UK "eats", will increasingly come from whereever? produced, fed, what ever? treated,dosed with what? killed by? then brought into the UK with what disease? While, while whats left of "our" lifestock farmers are gradually hounded out, by economics, rules and regs?
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
When we joined FABBL at the beginning, through Banbury mkt, there was £5/lamb premium consistently.
Even now, for supermarket/export spec lambs, there is often (though not always) a premium for FA lambs in Welshpool, with several buyers only buying FA. Many of the larger sheep farmers round here sell dw on supermarket contracts, which of course specify FA (plus extras), even Sainsburys, who don't sell meat with a RT sticker on it in store.
No doubt the haters will now be out to say they always top the market without FA and I have little doubt that some live mart buyers might stretch requirements when there is a shortage of lamb though, using magic lorries to gain FA status.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
One of the most vocal advocates of that policy is Jacob Rees Mogg, staunch Brexiteer and very much on the right of the current Conservative Party. Just saying.
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- Location
- southern riverina Australia
It's gotten the same here since our local clinic was sold to a larger group. Gone are the days of the vet knowing you and your business personally.
Red Fred
Member
- Location
- Hants/Dorset border
I'm told that rat poison is the same. You have to do the LANTRA course to be legal and buy it at MVF, but then a non-farming acquaintance will come along and say "I don't bother with all that, I get the "real stuff" off ebay and no-one asks about it."
If you haven't needed the vet gor 6 months you see obviously good at your job so prescribing medicine shouldn't be a problem.
It doesn't work like that though.
Who wants to see the vet? Its costly? What you try to do, is experience tells you, what you can deal with your self? We dont live in the james herriot, yorkshire vet world, wish we did? when every animal ailment large and small the vet would be called out, followed by a follow check to see that alls well, no every time the vet comes it costs it costs alot?
TelesnaAg
Member
- Location
- Portland, Victoria - Australia
Wef and cop28 want to reduce farming so it leads to starvation, sikent population reduction.
Ant...
Ant...
Nearly
Member
- Location
- North of York
We do live in the James Herriot, Yorkshire Vet location and they're all backing out of large animal work as fast as they can.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
On the other hand, when I moved here, a 60ac offlying block was added to the holding, which was part of a holding where the AHA tenant had been booted.
For many years I was finding skeletons of cattle, some of which had been buried (of a fashion) and some of which were still in the trod-in ditches in which they'd likely died. He had previously had a ruck of cattle taken and slaughtered for having no tags or passports.
He lived almost opposite a vet surgery, but he didn't get the vet out either.
- Location
- North Somerset.
The pressure on livestock farming through regulation and the withdrawal of subsidies would be regarded by the BBC as the modern equivalent of the Highland clearances or Ethnic cleansing if it was happening anywhere else in the world and the livestock farmers were black.
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
With the current policies for net zero carbon emissions and the apparent goal of reducing UK ruminant livestock numbers by 80% by 2050, then yes, UK livestock farming is in a terminal decline. No doubt our foreign competitors will take up the slack quite willingly.
Of course by 2050, we may well be in a cooling period and alarmists will be begging for cheap energy to keep warm and there may be no spare food to import. Or not. Policies are no more settled than is the science long term.
Of course by 2050, we may well be in a cooling period and alarmists will be begging for cheap energy to keep warm and there may be no spare food to import. Or not. Policies are no more settled than is the science long term.