Big M, I see what you and other farmers do on a regular basis, I am surrounded by farm land and farmers, when I am having a lay in, I hear then trundling past on a quad or towing something, when I am having a nice beer of an evening sat on my patio I see them still hard at work. It isn't vocational its a life not even a chosen lifestyle but a complete way of life. I did a vocational job for the best part of 14 years and then had enough, I could use my skills towards making a better paid less stressful life and took it. Farmers quite often don't have that luxury. Sadly the majority of the public have no idea of how hard it is for farmers to even keep their head above the water, tied to a land that generations have worked with a tremendous emotional connection. Christ most kids haven't even see a cow let alone understand that it provides the beefburgers that they consume, we have lost our connection with our land, with our produce, with our understanding of the food chain. This is backed up by a lack of understanding in Westminster and sadly it is not unique to farming and farmers, my uncle is a fisherman in cornwall and complains all the time about the bureaucracy, about policies that determine his ability to work and earn an honest wage. We the consumers will be the ones that suffer ultimately as our farmers are priced out of business, lose their ability to farm and support the very infrastructure of our country. Then they are replaced by uber farms pandering to big business. (Christ that makes me sound like a communist, which im not).
Yes, I get this, but you have a farmers' union, don't you? Get them to earn their sub. It can't be impossible. Farmers co-ops have got to be the way to go or you're all only going to get more screwed in the future. It can get worse, you know. What makes you think you've hit rock bottom? And you lot want to get serious about lobbying. A lot more serious than you clearly currently are. All strength to your collective elbow. I don't mind spending 50% more on my milk - and I drink a lot of it. In the scheme of things, it really won't make much difference to my monthly budget.
You seem to be saying that farmers are a mixture of awkward buggers and half-wits who are incapable of agreeing that the sky is blue even if their lives depended on it. They would rather hang separately than hang together. They have allowed the giant supermarkets to divide and rule them, but will do nothing about it except whinge. So they are all going to hell in a handcart. All terribly unfortunate and sad, but also bloody typical.
Yes in a way you're right but even though it is obvious you are quite intelligent you are one of the people I refered to before that have no understanding of why people do what they do or have any concept of what lies beneath the surface. I have read some of your comments in previous threads where you will simply skim over the surface of a statement and be objective for the sake of it without standing back for a moment and trying think about the subject in more depth. Yes it is true some farmers are awkward buggers and are incapable of agreeing between black and white. It's also true to say some are terrible business people and would be better off financially packing up and getting a job elsewhere in another industry, but one thing I see everyday in every farmer I come across no matter what sort of operation they run is passion, commitment and pride in what they do against all odds. Many farmers who are struggling cling on to what they have, even though they make nothing they carry on because giving up the farm is much more than a personal failure, farms have often been in families for hundreds of years, they see it as they've failed the generations of family before them and the ones that would have become the successors. The farm is more than a place of work that provides a job, it's a home aswell and a way of life. Like I said before some people won't understand that. Supermarkets became powerful by slowly removing the competition in the form of smaller retailers. As I said earlier forming cooperatives is easier said than done and would be similar to trying to convince the entire country to vote for Ukip at the next elections. At the end of the day it's not whinging, all that farmers and producers ask for is that they get a fair and balanced price for what they provide and I think I'm fair in saying the consumer would like to see a fair price at the till. There's no reason why this can't happen, other than for the pure greed of the supermarkets.
Do you know about Fonterra over there? A NZ farmer owned Dairy Co-operative, about the world's 15th biggest dairy producer, but the worlds biggest dairy exporter, they (we, I work for them) produce about a 1/3 of all dairy exports world wide, we export to approx. 150 countries, directly and indirectly, supply some of the worlds biggest food companies, Nestle, Coca Cola Amatal, McDonalds, Pizzahut, Dominos etc, plus have joint ventures/partnerships with lots of companies/countries in the industry, supply most of your large supermarket chains as well. We are NZ's biggest exporter and biggest importer. No farmer government supplied subsidies/hand-outs either over here. Look it up and talk to your farming mates .
if it's any consolation i seen the humor and sincerity in post 29, although it did miss out on some positives, bar going on strike, which i guess a farmer cant do. there must be a way you guys can all get together and lobby the responsible minister, the same way the P.M pulled the supper markets days before the reff.
I've just got home from the local farm where I bought the turkey and everything else I possibly could for the holiday meals and was pleased to see they were having their seasonal 'birthday' with the car park full, a queue at the till in the shop and their cafe full of people eating. In a perverse way I did not mind at all that it did not save me any money, but buying bacon, 'With no water added' made it almost worthwhile on its own. Unless we want every town's high street full of charity shops sitting in the rain shadow of a mega supermarket at the end of the road, we all need to change our shopping default to our local businesses and the farmer wherever we still have that option..
The sad thing is that most people do not want to know the provenance of their food. They want cheap quick food which by definition is full of additives . That's how the horse meat scandal happened. You can get meat reasonably priced just go straight to the source, we currently have half a lamb, quarter of pig and a huge bag of various cuts of beef in our freezer. All bought direct.
I shoot my own. Bargain. I shall add another deer carcase to the freezer over the festering season. Cost: one round, about £1.20 and about £3.00 in diesel to bring it home. I've got about 100 rabbits in the freezer and in January I'll start on the pigeons as well. Thing is though, if I take wild game to a game dealer I'll probably get more for each carcase than a farmer would if he'd reared it. Either farmers are the victims of racketeering or consumers will pay high prices for wild game because its trendy Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall food but treat farmed food which they depend on for survival with contempt and expect to get it for nothing. I suspect both.
Got at great butcher in Amesbury who only buys from local farms - refuse where possible to buy meat from supermarkets now. Eggs I try to get from local farm who has a honesty box on side of road - there is also a good twice weekly market in salisbury and a farmers market once a month - the nearest farm shop isn't great unfortunately
Correct me if I am wrong but didn't NZ go through a painful reality check re what the state can provide in terms of welfare and benefits some years ago, which forced it to get it's house in order and live in the real world and not some socialist utopia ?
So not only do you support the black economy you also flaunt health and safety regulations in relation to the sale of foodstuffs ? Well done that girl.
I hate to bring it up but we can't have a NZ-style shake up without leaving the EU because our agriculture is controlled by CAP.
