- Location
- Welshpool Powys
Will UK Ag up it’s production
- Thread starter Kevtherev
- Start date
- Location
- East Sussex
If anyone can find a link I'd be grateful.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
BBC One - The Sunday Show, Series 2, 13/03/2022
Martin Geissler brings you all the main issues from the world of politics and beyond.
10 minutes in
Bossfarmer
Member
- Location
- between Perth and Inverness
Thats a good point, is the sunflower oil the reason tattie prices arent rising slong with everything else?
- Location
- DD9.
Dunno, but could be an unforeseen effect - crisps, fast food, frozen processed products, spreads.
Sunflower oil isn’t good for you anyway, it’s an inflammatory.
anyone suffering aches and pains in their joints should try cutting it out.
SilliamWhale
Member
Usually a % per litre
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
Who are "the masses"? I bet most farmers do their shopping at the supermarket, you're just as much a part of the public as anyone else.
We all depend on a huge number of people every day to have enough food to survive and have society function properly, not just those tasked with farming the land, you're just a link in the chain like the rest of us.
Its not compulsory to be a farmer, if you don't like your job, go do something else.
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
I'm curious, you're a farmer, so you can afford to not crop and do nothing for a year and be OK?
wanton dwarf
Member
It's called diversification.
Wheat at £60 a tonne some years ago, consider it lesson learnt.
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
I suspect getting paid by the government to own land has helped a bit with that too.
beardface
Member
- Location
- East Yorkshire
I do shop at a supermarket ( my wife works long hours aswell so it's not as easy to shop at multiple places). We do depend on a number of people for food production yes. And I do like my job.
I just don't see why we should pander to the needs of "the masses" if they aren't willing to acknowledge the lengths we go to feed them. Why should food be cheap and the people who produce it be forced into ever longer working hours with ever decreasing availability and affordability of labour? Local food production was once the backbone of communities. It defined us as a people. It set our calendars and celebrations. It brought us together. If we follow the current integrated food chain model it will lead to small if non existent rural communities. By upping production we are only feeding the continual race to the bottom. Perhaps the apparent death of globalisation is the wake up call we all need. Local production, not only of food but other goods, is the only sustainable model.
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
Rural communities in the UK died a long time ago though, they died when farms got more efficient and workers were laid off. Now there's a few small farmers still making a living and actually doing ok, but many have taken the easier road of renting out land or having it contract farmed whilst building holiday lets or converting buildings into industrial units and turning the countryside into an extension of the city.
The life you're describing is already long gone, things have changed and there's no sign that many of those who own the land want to go back to the old ways.
wanton dwarf
Member
Paid to not grow food, paid to stop breeding livestock, paid to keep land fallow and put under regulation & tax by agencies.
Whilst other countries are given preferential treatment.
How's it going under the cosh of Green policies in NZ ?
Simon Chiles
DD Moderator
- Location
- Surrey/ Kent Border, UK
Me too, although it’s not the stopping for a year that I think will be the painful bit it’s the finding the capital to invest back into the business when you haven’t any cash flow.
A long time ago I had a customer who definitely wasn’t short of a few bob. Their family crushed more than the UK production of OSR, they had farms in Europe and the US, they even owned their own bank. When his combine caught light he was on the phone ordering a new one before we even found out how much damage had occurred to it. When I said that we’d probably be able to sort it out as the fire damage wasn’t that great he said it wouldn’t hurt to have a spare one, he’d would have written the cheque out for it on the spot as he always did. However one year when we had a wet autumn he decided not to bother plant much although I advised him that he’d miss the working capital, a few years later he admitted that it did hurt drawing out capital to get back into production. If he noticed it I’m certain most would find it difficult if not impossible to start up again after a break in production.
- Location
- Perthshire (It's a big place!)
As I've said before I'll worry about it when people stop buying flowers, plenty of palm oil and high fructose corn syrup to go around.
warksfarmer
Member
different income streams and I’m not subsiding food production. That’s the governments job.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I’ll go and grade spuds for somebody else and just stop the farm operation. Probably be better off than spending my savings buying costly inputs for mediocre outputs.
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
Its always doom and gloom where ever you are but I think most are adapting and carrying on, with more compliance work taking up their time.
One difference I see here is, generally if a farmer gets fed up of farming, or doesn't feel they are making money, a For Sale sign goes up and someone else has a go. There's some leased ground but the whole landlord/contract farm thing doesn't seem to work here.
The UK seems to have a lot of land owners that don't want to farm but wont give the ground up either.
I don't think there's any money offered for "green" schemes.