Matteeboy

Watched the "lie of the land" on More 4 last night.
Shocking documentary on how fecked UK farming is. Farmers have to kill any calves that aren't exactly the right breed and are pretty much all in deep deep merde.

Basically Labour are killing it, embracing the Supermarket superpowers and promoting massive importing.

Not good at all.

stilover

Exactly the same with Power.

Governments view is `Importing is cheaper`. That is until the importers start putting up their prices. See British Gas.

Another Government F*ckup that we end up paying for, again.

Paul3446

You have to remember that Labour can't stand anything to do with rural life, their base is inner cities and they hate the thought that people in the countryside have a better life.

You only need to look at their policies on things like Post Offices to realise this.

Leslie

They have been trying to do that right from '97. There was always a great deal of suspicion attached to the foot and mouth outbreak and their apparently inept dealings with that matter.

I think it may well be to do with the fact that in the grand secret plan for the EU Superstate, France is down to take care of agriculture, Germany all the engineering industry, and we are left with Tourism! This lot of course will do just what the Eu wants.

Les

David Lock

I think a few tons of well rotted manure left in Downing Street, a la French farmers, would not go amiss

But a lot of blame lays with the supermarkets and us consumers. dl

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

Hmmm importing is cheaper though. Tesco is powerful because people shop there. They shop there because it is cheap.

Either the government pays massive subsidies to the farmers to make them competitive or Tesco decides to cut some profit and buy from the UK.

Not going to happen but not really the governments fault blame the rest of the population.

Same reason petrol is rocketing. Massive demand from China thanks to all the industry because people want to go to Tesco and get a pair of Chinese jeans for £4

5t.

The Zohan

Er No, actually the blame lies with the supermarkets, getting into price wars to kill each other off, whilst i do not expect them to price fix, i think a fair price for farmer and the consumer would be a better option.
Supermarkets are just interested in market share, killing each other off and making money. No interest in us as consumers or farmers as suppliers. There is no loyality to me as a consumer or to the supplier.

I object to being blamed for something that the supermarket is soley responsible for!

I shop in Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys and occasionally M&S for food type stuff except for fruit & veg & meat. I do not go for the cheapest thing on the shelves, if that was the case then the supermarkets would only ever sell own brands, it is a falsehood to say people just shop where is cheapest.

We buy fruit and veg from the farm shop and meat from the butcher - why beacuse it is much better quality and often the same price.

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

I'll echo Paul3446 comments - New Labour couldn't give a rats **** about rural communities or affairs. Anything "rural" is instantly grasped by the old labour socialist dinosaurs and is turned into some kind of perceived warped class war by them. Throw money at "deprived" inner-cities with their considerable transport links, public facilities, ect ect, and screw rural communities who are lucky to see a single bus a day, have had the local post office, school, and police station closed, while bearing the brunt of anti-car and anti-4x4 taxes when they have no alternative.

My large village has its fairly profitable post office under threat (which the closure of will also result in the village shop closing - as the post office is responsible for much of its trade), sees maybe two buses a day, and its 20 miles to the nearest train station. We're lucky to still have the village school, but thats only because every other primary school in the area has closed and parents have no alternative but to drive their children in from upto 5 miles away.

All I can suggest is that those who do come from rural areas and do care about the issues that concern rural communities is to join the Countryside Alliance, who are about more than just foxhunting, and help support the considerable amount of lobbying they carry out in the Commons on our behalf.

Also - support your local butchers, farm markets/shops, game shops and the like. It makes sense in every way possible and I find it extremely frustrating when I see people buying meat, eggs, vegetables, ect in Tescos when you can buy far far better quality produce, free range, generally organic, with less impact on the enviroment, locally, for very often the same money.

pslewis

Labours fault is it??

You like cheap food don't you?

You like food available when you want it - strawberries in January, say?

Well, I'm afraid it is YOU who are changing the Farming of this country - want to pay big money for your food?? Hmmmm, no, I thought not!

It's market forces that are running the show - it's a free country - YOU the consumer are driving what happens in the countryside! NOT Labour!

Sorry, not edited, finger trouble!

The Zohan

Er No Pete, not at the risk of finishing off farming, read my post two up rom here mate!

Matteeboy

I only buy fruit and veg in season and get a locally sourced organic veg box delivered each week.
We buy meat from the butchers, fish from the fishmongers,

Only buy tins, booze and dried goods from the supermarket - I've had enough of them kicking the **** out of farmers.

Would I pay 10p more a litre for local fairly traded milk?
Yes I would.
Would I pay more for good meat from down the road?
Yes I would.

Supermarkets fuel the "cheap" war, consumers fall for it and lap it up.

Enough is enough - they throw millions at city "regeneration" projects, they spent 700 HOURS debating fox hunting. Foxes are safe, yet millions of head of cattle and other livestock now get killed at a young age because Polish meat is cheaper.

Manufacturing has all but gone, farming is nearly gone yet us Brits just accept it as "progress"

Progress my ****.

jjones

of couse people do, more money in my pocket less in someone elses.

welcome to the real world

David Lock

Paul - I don't follow why you think the consumer must not take some of the blame?? It's our choice whether to go and add to Tesco's profits or go and find a decent farmer's market and buy from there which will help farmers. Sadly most consumers take the easy option (including myself a lot of the time).

Plus I think Farmers could do more. Look at milk for example. Possibly the most refreshing drink in the world on a hot summer's afternoon. But do you ever see it advertised properly? Packaging is totally boring. I don't know who has replaced the Milk Marketing Board but they could treble milk sales and save the industry if they got their finger out. dl

Matteeboy

Which can't be sustained for very long.

UK farming will disappear and we'll be 100% reliant on imports. Which is very very risky.

Leslie

The best food was always in the days of eating seasonable goods. This present scheme of shipping in food from all over the world is a waste in the costs of transportation and more to the point, the imported stuff never seems to be properly ripened and tastes awful. I think it was an improvemnet when we produced most of our own food.

Les

al4x1

fortunately the programme is out dated calves are no longer worthless.
But it is a wake up call to consumers and we all should question where food comes from. Farmers don't want subsidising by the government they just want a fair price paid for what they produce. An example is wheat for breadmaking in 1990 it was in the region of £150 per tonne in 2005 it was under £100. No other UK industry could cope if that happened to their products on the other hand has the price of bread gone down? all thats happened is the major supermarkets are making vast profits at everyone elses expense and because of their buying power they just continually drive down the farmers prices with the threat of importing the goods if not. The whole result is our food travels miles and gets treated so you don't know either chemically or chilled giving the end result that it can be weeks old by the time you get it and no where near as nutritious as the real fresh deal.

Matteeboy

I think the goverment should set a cap on profit margins for food - Say 20% above what it's produced for and a body should set prices.

This would stop the customer being ripped off, make sure the farmer got a fair price and help curb imports (no room for any margin when it's been flown in from Peru).

pslewis

Les - off topic ..... you should have had a pm contact regarding GoodWood FOS?

OllyK

There seems to be a misconception that super-markets are cheap, they aren't for the most part. What they are, is convenient, you can get your fish, meat, veg, and other stuff all from one place.

We shop at the local butchers, 6 chicken breasts, 2 gammon steaks, 1/2 lb sausages and half a dozen eggs for £12 and you don't have 1/2 pint of water in the frying pan when cooking the chicken either. It just means we need to be there first thing on a Saturday morning to get it.

Leslie

Well I thought I was quoting the alternative to importing food.

Yes tnx for the heads up on the PM.

Les

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Don't let facts get in the way of a good story

Supermarket margins are on average between 7-10% if they are very good. Of course in absolute terms they make a lot of money because WE the consumer use their shops.

Tesco take at least one pound in every eight spent in the UK!!!

That gives them a lot of buying power.

The reality is that farmers produce too much food that we the consumer is not choosing to buy. So the Government (and the EU) step in to try and control this mass overproduction.

There is a place for farming in this country and it lies with quality, organic type produce. Unfortunately this is out of kilter with the move to mass, intensive farming that we have moved to, and now we cannot compete in.

Of course we could go down a protectionist path - if you think it is bad now just wait until a protectionist economic policy kicks in. Collapsing currrency, rampant inflation. How much fun would that be? At least my house would go up in price (on paper!).