US Chicken imports?

[Cowabunga]

'Small market', 'niche' 'premium price', all very nice soundbites. The fact is that UK agriculture trades in the tens of thousands of tons to feed people with a fixed income and declining living standards. Yet everyone thinks they can sell their own produce at a premium price over the competition.

Well I'm warning you here and now, unless UK agriculture and industry and banking are successful at lobbying for their own industry's interests, there is a very significant risk that Brexit will result in this country's industries being decimated through Brexit. The pressures are rising and the temptation for politicians is to sell out an industry like agriculture in order to get some brownie points for securing some inferior trade deal with countries that really do look after their own agriculture and industry.
We have been perfectly able to trade with those countries while in the EU of course, so there is only an advantage to competitor countries who wish to trade with us, without EU rules and restrictions, not to UK farmers or industry in general.

UK agriculture is only the second most vulnerable industry after banking. The difference with banking is that the actual companies, but not most of their employees, can relatively easily and quickly relocate to wherever it is most advantageous. Agriculture can similarly be exported as an industry but as a highly capitalised group of thousands of small businesses run mostly by family owners, the repercussions of our demise would be greater on a personal level but far less than banking for the Country.
Therefore if it comes down to a choice, I reckon the London-centric and highly profitable and tax generating banking industry will figure way higher in the priority stakes than farmers scattered around a vast area who are largely barely profitable and therefore pay little tax to finance the running of the UK.

 

[thesilentone]

To put things into perspective:

M&S Turnover: £ 10,600, 000,000 (£10.6bn)
Food Revenue: £5,600,000,000 (£5.6bn) or just over £15.0m for every day of the year.

That is without all the other outlets mentioned.

Interesting, your quite right about Aldi and Lidel (the other one) who have grown considerably during the credit crunch, not only that, people have found some of that 'cheap rubbish' is actually not to bad. Had there not been a credit crunch, we would not have had Supermarket wars, so well done to Aldi and Lidel, who have saved many from being ripped off !!

Aldi is market leader in Countries that have much higher incomes than the UK, and some of the real Giants like Carrefour aren't even here yet. Don't allow yourself to be brain-washed that the big 4 in the UK are untouchable.

You are wrong that everyone buys on price alone, most educated buyers are looking for value for money. The psychological war fought by the Supermarkets has duped us into being a wasteful society, this must change.

It really contradicts common sense, that we ' buy on price only ' ( according to you) then go home and throw away £40.00 every month. Or combined almost three times the M&S revenue on food per year !!

 

[thesilentone]

We need to clear up the term buying the cheapest and buying on price and agree which is which. If you want something, you shop around until you find it. This may not be the cheapest, in fact it may be the most expensive. (tractor, combine, TV, meat etc)
You then go and shop again for the product you have decided to buy to find the best price(like Amazon, competitive quotes etc) After taking all factors into consideration, you then make a buying decision !!!
If exactly the same product is £10.00 in one shop and £8.00 in another, then you make a choice.

 

[Cowabunga]

So just why is it that

We need to clear up the term buying the cheapest and buying on price and agree which is which. If you want something, you shop around until you find it. This may not be the cheapest, in fact it may be the most expensive. (tractor, combine, TV, meat etc)
You then go and shop again for the product you have decided to buy to find the best price(like Amazon, competitive quotes etc) After taking all factors into consideration, you then make a buying decision !!!
If exactly the same product is £10.00 in one shop and £8.00 in another, then you make a choice.

Food shopping is generally different. The housewife generally shops at the supermarket that provides the lowest prices and is convenient to location and within that supermarket a significant proportion of shopping will be on price and value, especially in the commodity sections, like meat, poultry, dairy and veg.

Otherwise why would supermarkets generally always heavily discount milk? Even to the extent that it is cheaper than bottled water! It should sell at a significant premium, but it just doesn't, no matter how hard the industry tries. Even the branded milk which sells for a bit more doesn't get near bottled water, much less what it really should sell for.

 

[thesilentone]

Well why does anyone buy at M&S who are usually in town Centres ?

or

why doesn't everyone buy at Netto, Aldi or Lidlel ?

I rest my case.........

Oh, I should have added, Aldi's revenue (which includes all the cheap household goods) is around half of M&S food sales.

 

[Cowabunga]

Well why does anyone buy at M&S who are usually in town Centres ?

or

why doesn't everyone buy at Netto, Aldi or Lidlel ?

I rest my case.........

Your case just not stand up to scrutiny when the constant pressure is for lower prices from these outlets so as to undercut their competitors. Only M&S are really successful at selling a reasonable volume of food at a premium and they make up a small part of the total market. A total market that will always be price-led.
The UK farm industry cannot possibly compete on your premise that we should command a premium price. It just will not happen. Pigs will fly before that happens.

 

[thesilentone]

Bye, bye Cowabunga

 

[Pasty]

Your case just not stand up to scrutiny when the constant pressure is for lower prices from these outlets so as to undercut their competitors. Only M&S are really successful at selling a reasonable volume of food at a premium and they make up a small part of the total market. A total market that will always be price-led.
The UK farm industry cannot possibly compete on your premise that we should command a premium price. It just will not happen. Pigs will fly before that happens.

Rubbish. What about Waitrose and a host of others? There are of course a hard core of people who will buy the cheapest of anything but it's not the majority you think. How does the Sainsburys in Dartmouth exist pretty much within a stone's throw of a Lidl? Having been to both many times I would say they are equally as busy. The only difference being that in Lidl the isles are wider to accommodate the fat people.

You really do want everything to be bad for everyone just so you can say 'I told you so' in 10, 20, 30 year's time. You'll pin anything bad on Brexit because of course, nothing bad ever happened before that vote did it? Then you'll gloat and crow and say 'ha, ha, got what you wanted'.

The point of this all being that there are a hard core of remainers who can predict the future. They knew for a fact what would happen if we stayed in and they know for a fact how it will be now we are leaving. They know it. They can actually see the future. Read the posts. It WILL be terrible. It WILL be awful. But if we had remained, it WOULD have been better.

What I think is that these clever folk who can see the future should have come forward sooner, proved their ability to see future events (could have been something quite simple like a coin flip) and then we might have listened to them.

 

[caveman]

Like I said.
I will shed no tears.
I don't recall the cowabungas and bossfarmers of this world worrying about their neighbours fortunes looking forward back in the sixties and seventies when they had the capital, land, ability to put in infrastructure such as concrete roads and bulk tanks, etc.
Did they say... "No mister. I'm not joining the race to the bottom".
Cheaper produce from elswhere is as progressive as their mantra back then........ or to be fair..... at anytime in history.

 

[Pasty]

Most complainers only care about THEIR sub cheque as they don't quite know what they are going to do if it stops landing. They will find all sorts of reasons to defend it but really what they are worried about is their own future and screw everyone else. You'll find this anywhere you have an unfair playing field. The fat ones uphill, kicking down will say it's fine, it's for the best. It's always worked. Leave it alone. We win. The crowd get to see a match. It's predictable. Everyone that we care about is happy. Even those guys down there are happy. At least they get a game. The ones downhill who will by now be fitter and stronger from their efforts will want the field leveled out. Both know what will happen if that occurs.

 

[Courier]

So is this US chlorine washed chicken Halal ?

 

[Cowabunga]

Rubbish. What about Waitrose and a host of others? There are of course a hard core of people who will buy the cheapest of anything but it's not the majority you think. How does the Sainsburys in Dartmouth exist pretty much within a stone's throw of a Lidl? Having been to both many times I would say they are equally as busy. The only difference being that in Lidl the isles are wider to accommodate the fat people.

You really do want everything to be bad for everyone just so you can say 'I told you so' in 10, 20, 30 year's time. You'll pin anything bad on Brexit because of course, nothing bad ever happened before that vote did it? Then you'll gloat and crow and say 'ha, ha, got what you wanted'.

The point of this all being that there are a hard core of remainers who can predict the future. They knew for a fact what would happen if we stayed in and they know for a fact how it will be now we are leaving. They know it. They can actually see the future. Read the posts. It WILL be terrible. It WILL be awful. But if we had remained, it WOULD have been better.

What I think is that these clever folk who can see the future should have come forward sooner, proved their ability to see future events (could have been something quite simple like a coin flip) and then we might have listened to them.

Sainsburys is just another supermarket that will be selling stuff from the cheapest source possible. They will be forced to lower prices to the lowest price that it takes to remain competitive which Michael Gove claims to be a 20% saving on their weekly food shopping. If that means lowering UK produced food to within a whisker of the competition and paying us the claimed 20% less, that is what they will have to do, regardless of the economics of UK production and our much vaunted welfare standards which, if truth be told, are no better than our competitors with some exceptions.

I don't claim to know what will happen with certainty but I do know what will probably happen if we are, as seems entirely possible, thrown to the wolves for political expediency.
There are NO benefits from this exit from the trading club we were in. If there are, I see nothing but platitudes and falsehoods from those that claim there are benefits. Like the hundreds of millions extra for the NHS. Yeah, right!

 

[wasted years]

Most complainers only care about THEIR sub cheque as they don't quite know what they are going to do if it stops landing. They will find all sorts of reasons to defend it but really what they are worried about is their own future and screw everyone else. You'll find this anywhere you have an unfair playing field. The fat ones uphill, kicking down will say it's fine, it's for the best. It's always worked. Leave it alone. We win. The crowd get to see a match. It's predictable. Everyone that we care about is happy. Even those guys down there are happy. At least they get a game. The ones downhill who will by now be fitter and stronger from their efforts will want the field leveled out. Both know what will happen if that occurs.

You've got some neck, you wouldn't have your yard and 40 acres without an inheritance, however small.
Maybe you should start from nowt and see how you go, I am happy to take less from the taxpayer but will my landlady?
As a friend said recently, yes she will, once she has drained me of everything I have and looked for someone else to drain in the meantime.

 

[Cowabunga]

I see that it is mainly hobby farmers that are not against this race to the bottom, probably hoping to benefit from the ruination of UK agriculture. Well I've got news for them, they won't. It will benefit the big players and institutions who will create massive businesses on the best land while the rest will go to rack and ruin.

Its happened before in the last 150 years in the UK and the lessons have been forgotten, that much is obvious.

 

[Pasty]

You've got some neck, you wouldn't have your yard and 40 acres without an inheritance, however small.
Maybe you should start from nowt and see how you go, I am happy to take less from the taxpayer but will my landlady?
As a friend said recently, yes she will, once she has drained me of everything I have and looked for someone else to drain in the meantime.

Yes I would and I have started from nowt. Anything I have 'inherited' is half in trust anyway and it's not much.

 

[Pasty]

I see that it is mainly hobby farmers that are not against this race to the bottom, probably hoping to benefit from the ruination of UK agriculture. Well I've got news for them, they won't. It will benefit the big players and institutions who will create massive businesses on the best land while the rest will go to rack and ruin.

Its happened before in the last 150 years in the UK and the lessons have been forgotten, that much is obvious.

What is CAP if not a race to the bottom? Most farmers are now producing away at less than COP. In effect, they are employees of an un-elected state except they don't get any employee rights. I take it you see some sort of future upside or change in this situation? Lots of things have happened in the last 150 years.

An industry has to be dynamic to thrive and survive and that means failure has to be allowed. At the moment we are on a slow trudge to the biggest CAP recipients gaining more and more and the rest falling by the way side. THAT will be the ruination of agriculture as it will end up being effectively state run. Those mega businesses won't be able to survive without their drug and the government will need total control over them for the sake of food supply. What will suffer is progress and innovation as it always does in any state run industry.

Farming is slowly being nationalised. Some farmers could see this and voted accordingly. Not for their own gain but for the future of the industry. Others who have a pretty cushy deal at the moment want to maintain the status quo and who can blame them? Must be nice having a massive payment arriving once a year for doing bugger all except in most cases, being lucky.

 

[Cowabunga]

What is CAP if not a race to the bottom? Most farmers are now producing away at less than COP. In effect, they are employees of an un-elected state except they don't get any employee rights. I take it you see some sort of future upside or change in this situation? Lots of things have happened in the last 150 years.

An industry has to be dynamic to thrive and survive and that means failure has to be allowed. At the moment we are on a slow trudge to the biggest CAP recipients gaining more and more and the rest falling by the way side. THAT will be the ruination of agriculture as it will end up being effectively state run. Those mega businesses won't be able to survive without their drug and the government will need total control over them for the sake of food supply. What will suffer is progress and innovation as it always does in any state run industry.

Farming is slowly being nationalised. Some farmers could see this and voted accordingly. Not for their own gain but for the future of the industry. Others who have a pretty cushy deal at the moment want to maintain the status quo and who can blame them? Must be nice having a massive payment arriving once a year for doing bugger all except in most cases, being lucky.

That chip on your shoulder must be a burden. Besides which it isn't warranted. Get out there and compete by producing affordable food for the masses instead of bleating about others having a cushy time, which isn't at all backed up by official figures.
One of the big themes at the Royal Welsh Show this week is the preservation of rural communities which mostly depend on agriculture and agricultural commerce. The danger of Brexit wrecking it and the social structure of those communities and even the language and culture of rural communities.

But you just stick to your blinkered insular and selfish ideals and let others grapple with the really important bigger issues.

 

[caveman]

Hmmmmmm.
So it's okay for Ethiopian bean growers to be protected from subsidised production but it's not okay to be a small holding "hobby farmer" in the UK and under constant threat of being swamped and driven out of his market by others with the advantage of massive government handouts to use in any way they see fit?

 

[Cowabunga]

Hmmmmmm.
So it's okay for Ethiopian bean growers to be protected from subsidised production but it's not okay to be a small holding "hobby farmer" in the UK and under constant threat of being swamped and driven out of his market by others with the advantage of massive government handouts to use in any way they see fit?

Is it? Small hobby farmers in the UK are by definition 'hobby' farmers, not commercial businesses.
If the hobby farmer wishes to be commercially viable he should work with and compete with all other commercial farmers on the same terms.
What I do agree with is the view that too much money goes to individual big businesses that are on a large scale.
What is a large scale? That's not for me to say but I suspect it is considerably larger that hobby farmers that are not dependant on farm income would like.

 

[Pasty]

That chip on your shoulder must be a burden. Besides which it isn't warranted. Get out there and compete by producing affordable food for the masses instead of bleating about others having a cushy time, which isn't at all backed up by official figures.
One of the big themes at the Royal Welsh Show this week is the preservation of rural communities which mostly depend on agriculture and agricultural commerce. The danger of Brexit wrecking it and the social structure of those communities and even the language and culture of rural communities.

But you just stick to your blinkered insular and selfish ideals and let others grapple with the really important bigger issues.

No chips on my shoulders and I do compete and make my full living from my little farm. I'm still allowed to disagree with the system. I appreciate that many in receipt of the larger handouts would rather folk like me didn't have a voice and take every opportunity to disparage and discredit them.

Do you make your full living from the farm? Who's the hobby farmer here?