The U.K. Is unprepared to feed its own people

[OfficiallyUnofficial]

AIBU to highlight this statement?*

Something the industry have known for while but the public just don't seem to get. We are at below 60% food security in the UK.

The U.K. Is unprepared to feed its own people

What a bloody scary statement, this isn't a BREXIT thread it's a "think local" thread. We have become so reliant on cheap imports, on retailers choosing what's best for us, never shouting British on products, so forgetful that our grumpy farmers are the only ones standing between us and starvation that this has quietly happened.

We are an island, the world is uncertain, God forbid there were war and blockades now. EU or non EU when will we start paying for food security?

*Sarah Boumphrey, global lead for economies & consumers at Euromonitor?

Less than 35% of the electorate voted to remain...

Robin I agree, agricultural land is vastly undervalued and under protected. Yes there are housing needs but we need to be more environmentally friendly and that means higher density housing with more flats.

At 10k an acre and wheat at £100 a tonne I'm not sure if call farmland overvalued!!

I thought she said Undervalued Silver.

There are plenty of brownfield sites to build on but big builders don't like to do the clean up first!

OfficiallyUnofficial Funding is often the barrier to developing brownfield sites - high upfront costs make it hard for small and medium sized developers to want to do it. Lots of brownfield sites aren't contaminated, but site clearance costs are high. Plus greenfield sites are generally cheaper to develop - land value is often lower and the build costs are less.

Yes there is lots of old industrial land in our cities. But people like to be on the edge of town, looking at the green field. For a few years at least until the next swathe of housing is built in front of them.

it is a difficult conumdrum.
do we want to be unable to feed ourselves?
do we want our farmers to make a living
do we want green land or do we want to house people

we want it all

To encourage building on brown field sites there should be zero VAT on clean ups and clearance.

There should also be zero VAT on repairs and renovations of older properties, the empty office blocks, of which there are many, should all be changed into residential use.

less than 35% of the electorate voted to remain

And less than 37% voted leave...

Haha! I'm a farmer and ironically the reason we don't produce enough food in this country to feed our own people anymore is because of the EU and their quotas! Maybe the future will be a bit brighter...

I think seasonal workers can do the work on min wage when British workers can't because they come for a short period of time, share accommodation with othet seasonal workers and don't spend much while they are here, so then take their wage back to their home nation where it is worth more. I'm not sure if it is still the case but I thought they could claim CB for their dc in their home country while working here.
The British worker though has to pay a mortgage or rent on a family home, council tax, child care costs, utilities etc. It can't be done on that wage, esp when you factor in how hard the govt makes it if you get tax credits. They make claiming so easy to mess up and then penalise people for getting it wrong that taking on seasonal work is just too hard.

My sister does a min wage cleaning job in a hotel - she doesn't even get sick pay. Her partner gets min wage in a cafe. They ccsn only afford to do this because they live with my mum and pay min costs. I honestly don't know how they could live independently and raise kids on that money.

I've said this on other threads but the 28% who cba to vote have, by not bothering, agreed to accept the result whichever way it went.

Hope not sure of the relevance here?

Could you explain that Pumpkin? I was under the impression that the EU has been largely good for farmers, but is that not the case?

And back on to the OP - I agree that this is a serious issue and it has been for a very long time. The problem is that we want cheap food, variety, and convenience which we cannot get from British food alone.

Unfortunately, I don't know whether it is possible for us to move back to eating predominantly British food - the average disposable income in the UK is too low for the majority of people to absorb extra food costs without a similar decrease in mortgage/rent costs which is very unlikely to happen.

Relevance of first post was because lilly said that foreign workers are paid less than min wage and other posters denied this and said that they will take the work that Brits won't. Was trying to explain why that might be.
Second post was to posters who are stating that it wasn't 52% of the population who voted to leave. Coversation moved on while I was typing though

I have some vague idea that farmers are paid to set aside land?

Perhaps the jobless could be required to do some farm work?
I don't mean long hours for slave wages

Methods of growing food which are more energy and space efficient are being developed all the time, hydroponics and what have you

If we ate quorn instead of meat that would be much more efficient

Most of us eat too much anyway, less food a bit of farm work and we could reverse the obesity epidemic, save the NHS £££££
A win on all fronts😇

Haha! I'm a farmer and ironically the reason we don't produce enough food in this country to feed our own people anymore is because of the EU and their quotas

Yep. Another farmer here who voted Leave, as did the vast vast majority of farming people I know.

One of my main gripes was that the EU set all these new and very expensive welfare laws - like banning sow stalls. All fantastic for the animals. Costly to change a whole system, but for the best. And the same for everyone, right?

Wrong. In this instance alone, 6 countries just didn't bother. 3 of those, 4 years on, STILL haven't bothered. France included.
The EU will not sanction them, and force us to accept their produce.

So, whilst British farmers have spent hundreds of thousands on new systems, pushing the cost of our high welfare pork up, other EU countries churn out low welfare crap which we are forced to import, undercutting our OWN farmers. It's NOT a level playing field.

And that's JUST sow stalls. It's the same with bloody everything. Don't even get me started on how much we get paid to NOT farm large areas of our place.

I would love to see a fairer price for our produce and less need for subsidies. The subsidy systems also need complete reform.
In the current system, we have 70 year old landowners hanging onto their farms to get the single farm payment, and renting the land out at vastly inflated prices. It's all wrong.

oneflewoverthedodosnest

The EU and farming is a relatively complicated relationship and it does depend on the type of farming but for myself and DH who farmed dairy it was terrible, took away our livelihood and six farm workers lost their jobs as a direct result. The EU placed quotas and restrictions on UK produced milk which they didn't place elsewhere within the free market so we couldn't competitively compete with countries such as Poland and the U.K. ended up importing milk from other EU countries and wouldn't pay a fair price for milk produced here you couldn't produce it and even break even any more. Now there are grants etc but they are all to offset the trade the UK has lost through other EU red tape. Farmers are split because they probably will struggle to survive without the grants but they only need the grants to make up the shortfall caused by the EU in the first place.

100% agree with everything WellErr says.

That's very interesting WellErr and Pumpkin
Thanks for explaining😎

It sounds as if the EU worked against efficiency and self sufficiency for farmers?

The EU placed quotas and restrictions on UK produced milk which they didn't place elsewhere within the free market

Sorry, I may be being completely dense but how did they justify this? I get the points that WellErrr is making about other countries just refusing to implement standards which is outrageous but at least comprehendible, but I thought the whole point of the single market was to have a level playing field?

That's horrible about the animal welfare issues, but (and forgive my ignorance if this is wrong) I thought that it was also globalisation that is pushing welfare standards down. It can't be a level playing field if that's the case.

GlassBrexiteer Thu 30-Jun-16 10:44:47
It sounds as if the EU worked against efficiency and self sufficiency for farmers?

The EU is the reason most UK farmers are still farmers. Without the grants and support many of them would have gone out of business 20 years ago.