To wonder why people care more about dairy farmers than ............

[ChocLover2015]

..coal miners when the pits closed because of cheap foreign coal?
Is it because farmers are more middle clarrsss. Have nice houses send their Dc to private schools and drive new land Rovers?

Where are all these rich dairy farmers OP? I live next to a dairy farm and they are not driving flash cars and sending kids to private schools. More like a 10yr old ford focus and making up the funds by diversifying into bed and breakfast and the wives taking off site jobs.

Well, if we're going to play that game, Op, I don't imagine you shed many tears over the Industrial Revolution putting all the farming tenants in poverty and starvation, did you?

Why are you so concerned about what was happening in industries 30 years ago? Have you only just realised?

Can we expect your thread mourning the plight of Dairy Farmers in 2045?

'it's not right buying a product at less than production cost'

then move out of production, or accept that milk is a fluctuating price product and put money aside in the good times.
I don't really want to out myself too much by giving location since I have alluded to the industry i work in.

I think you'll find people and communities did care about the miners. I live in a former pit village, they still do care.

I guess milk is a commodity that is largely used on a domestic scale, so people have control and choice over buying it.

Since the advent of central heating, coal is not a significant purchase for a great many households, so the majority of people don't use/buy it directly.

I buy my coal from the local village shop. It is a little independent run by a husband and wife but I'm not sure where the coal comes from.

Star that's if they own their own land. My best friend's parents are farmers and rent their farm off the owner. They work every hour god sends (milking cows at 4am on Christmas Day doesn't sound like fun to me) and every penny they make is put by for their retirement as they don't own the house and will be homeless once they can no longer work the farm (they are actually already past average retirement age). And before anyone says 'get another job', it's not that easy when farming is all you have ever known.

There are many farmers who aren't middle clarrrsss as you put it particularly if you are a tenant farmer.

I don't really want to out myself too much by giving location since I have alluded to the industry i work in.

But you're surrounded by very rich dairy farmers? So that would have you living in Texas then. Or in your imagination.

The problem with "sell the land" is sell the land to whom, for what?

I've no doubt much can be sold out dairy production into something more immediately profitable, like housing, or rich people playing games of one sort or another.

And the farmer may do nicely from this.

But the country won't.

Unless we're currently in excess, we'll have to replace that milk production with imports.

We will lose food security, which is always an issue for the UK (hence rationing in wars). And if farmland is built on, that loss of food production is even harder to reverse.

What's more, the price of dairy products will become more closely dependent on the price of oil, as we fly milk in from across the globe.

As described above, there are always difficulties getting the balance right between guaranteed pricing, as with the Milk Marketing Board, and cartels destroying a nationally essential industry by underpaying.

Also my dad drove an old battered transit van not some big flashy land rover/4x4

Every time there's a crisis in their industry they expect the public to sub them, be it compensation for BSE (suddenly the cattle they'd fed on infected ground down animal entrails) began to be referred to as the national herd and they began noisily demanding compensation to the current moaning about the milk prices which everyone knows are volatile.

Remember the horsemeat thing? Nobody knew that they were eating horsemeat? Same with animal proteins in animal feed. The farmers didn't know, they bought the feed like you bought food from Tesco. The national herd has always been called the national herd - maybe that was the first time you'd heard of it.

You've got me with the subsidies though, would love it if the British Public would start paying more for their food. You do actually realise that farm subsidies allow you to buy your food at less than the cost of production? Get rid of subsidies, get prices up to where they need to be, and be prepared to pay real prices.

Every time there's a crisis in their industry they expect the public to sub them, be it compensation for BSE (suddenly the cattle they'd fed on infected ground down animal entrails) began to be referred to as the national herd and they began noisily demanding compensation to the current moaning about the milk prices which everyone knows are volatile.

Remember the horsemeat thing? Nobody knew that they were eating horsemeat? Same with animal proteins in animal feed. The farmers didn't know, they bought the feed like you bought food from Tesco. The national herd has always been called the national herd - maybe that was the first time you'd heard of it.

You've got me with the subsidies though, would love it if the British Public would start paying more for their food. You do actually realise that farm subsidies allow you to buy your food at less than the cost of production? Get rid of subsidies, get prices up to where they need to be, and be prepared to pay real prices.

The term national herd is a misnomer. They are animals owned by private individuals not a nationally owned asset like the rail infrastructure. They seek to make a profit from the animals when things are going well, but want handouts from the public when things are going badly. They owned the cattle, they should bear the risk. If they were genuinely unaware what was in the crap they were feeding to their animals, they should have sued the manufacturers. It is equivalent of calling all the private cars in the UK 'the national fleet' and expecting the public to compensate if I have a crash in it.

I have no problem with subsidies for essential industries but more the 'subsidises for us and us only and every other industry can go to the wall' attitude that farmers have. Now farmers claim to be experiencing tough times, they are expecting those of us who saw our communities destroyed by the Thatcher government they voted for and benefitted from to start weeping hot bitter tears for them.

Dairy farmers are asking for a fair price for their milk.

Do you think we should subsidise the supermarkets instead, then?

Stars, the rail infrastructure has been privately owned at various times, famously when it was first built and most recently through Railtrack.

It doesn't cease being infrastructure according to whose name is on it.

So basically OP you are saying you don't really care about miners either but you are peeved that some consumers care dairy farmers because you are

Paying farmers less does not increase animal welfare.

Good to know you are backing our poor struggling supermarkets who of course contribute so much to the economy...oh hang on a minute....they don't.

YABU

And you're quite right, all the private cars in the UK really can be called "the national fleet".

We haven't recently had anything that highlights that, but if there were a war or other natural disaster requiring that fleet to be commandeered (just as privately owned boats have often been commandeered), that would suddenly become visible to you. Ditto if something happened to make all cars simultaneously undriveable (hard to see what, but not impossible especially with new technologies).

Your mistake is to imagine that something happening to your individual car would matter to the nation. It wouldn't. But anything structural affecting all car transport would.

that is pure bollocks by the way about the rich farmers.
they are certainly not like that round here.
On what do you base your claims? your imagination?

No but now it is a national asset flatly in a way it wasn't under railtrack. It isn't in private hands and primarily designed to make a profit for shareholders.

I picked network rail as I was struggling to think of anything the state actually owns anymore. The point renains, the cows are private property owned by private individuals seeking to profit from them, not a national asset.

Ditto national housing stock. Which is the reason government subsidises energy-saving measures like insulation. It isn't about being nice to individuals: it's about meeting an infrastructure need to reduce national demand for power.

Good point. Why would anyone prefer that the money they pay for their milk goes to the supermarkets than to the farmer?

because they are really really stupid and are all hung up on the farmers being 'middle claarrrse'. then they give their money to the likes of Shirley Porter. LOL.

Yes there were protests in favour of the miners in 1984/5.

But the Iron Lady was re-elected in 1987 after defeating them. And unlike 1983 she had no help from General Galtieri.

then move out of production, or accept that milk is a fluctuating price product and put money aside in the good times

So you don't give a shit about decline in manufacturing either?

Agreed the subsidies are annoying but they are what allows some supermarkets to bully the DF into accepting to low prices ..... They know that they can continue to produce because they will be subsidised and limp along hoping it will get better.

The consumer is paying full price for the milk to the df farmer effectively through purchase price and tax.....the only winner is the supermarket.

Some company's like Waitrose are competing in price but selling milk as a lost leader relying on footfall to increase their profit margin else where.

this is not something consumers could do for the miners.

Actually, although I'm too young to remember the closure of the mines we did study it at school in history lessons. To me that suggests we consider it a pretty significant event in the country's history. Do you think in 30 years time children will be studying the plight of the dairy farmers at school? Probably not.