AIBU to think that the UK cannot afford farmers?

[purpleleotard]

Given that for some farmers on marginal land earn 80% of their income from subsidies.
Presumably the government, of any colour, will be looking at the cost of these subsidies when we exit the EU.
Will the population be expected to pick up the exorbitant cost.
Some 'farmers' are controlling huge areas of land for their own enjoyment at the cost to the public purse.
I am especially exercised by farmers in mountain areas like Snowdonia who keep the hills bare of the natural trees by running large numbers of sheep, when more sheep equals more subsidy.

Glad to know our constant, constant back breaking work is appreciated though, OP. Yeah just get rid of us all.
Yup. Plus all the endless worry and heartbreak when things go wrong.
Plus all the businesses which service farming... feed firms, contractors, machinery businesses, auction markets, farm shops, etc etc

Are you George Monbiot?

Are you George Monbiot?

If we can't afford farmers we basically can't afford food and we will all die.

It's all much worse because we paid for all those bankers, they were terrifically expensive, and we couldn't afford them. That's where we went very wrong.

look at WW2 and rationing. This was because we imported a great deal of meat etc which made it impossible to continue during the war due to ships (commercial not warships) being bombed etc.

So with brexit going on the free movement and cost of importing would make your bread at £1 probably five times that amount. And heavily taxed.

Let's do it, let's fuck up farming and bring the cost of everything up because it's just so affordable at the moment.

whatever you think of my post, yours OP is the ultimate in stupidity. And i'm not a farmer, but i know a few. They don't exactly roll in dosh (most of them) so we'd end up with many more unemployed and many more people to subsidise which again makes a lot of financial sense 🤔

What an idiotic AIBU. Obviously YABU

WW2 and rationing... WW1 and rationing... the Napoleonic Wars and the blockade...

It doesn't matter how many iPads we have, the geography remains the same and we continue to need food not just fresh air.

What the? What would we eat OP? Ridiculous!

I've just funnelled 2 litres of ewe's milk into an old Diet coke bottle and put it in my fridge. The milk was taken off a ewe who's producing too much milk. To be given to an orphan lamb. Tonight my shepherdess lambed a ewe but the lamb's a bit poorly. She might have to give some colostrum. I've been out checking the ewes for lambing signs all day. All the mad bloody things we do all day long for our sheep. My fields are full of healthy lambs and their mothers eating organically produced grass. All because of a very specialised skill set. We don't know how to produce vegetables or grain and the land isn't really suitable for this. Grass is the crop. Rambling now

Actually we have never been as healthy as during WW2 rationing as we eat far too much food. If we could get everyone down to only 2 meals a dday and no snacks and eating much less we would do the nation a massive favour.

I don't favour any subsidy for farmers. If they can produce something people want to buy that's fine. if not we will import it.

Honestly if we do go through with Brexit I think we are going to need all the farmers we can get ............

So shut the farms down, put people on the dole, and you get to hate them twice over.

We shouldnt be so dependant on other countries that we have to import things we can produce ourselves.
It is actually better for individuals and society as a whole to have people in skilled work.
Once we lose those skills thats it.
Once we lose the genetic base of our farming stock theres no getting it back.

The issues are so complex, you have no idea. It snot just a matter of 'it costs us money so it must be bad'.
Some things are worth paying for.

Do people think farmers are living the life of riley from these subsidies? We never go on holiday - why? Because we can't leave the crops. We very rarely have an evening meal together - why? Because DP is out farming the crops even after I've gone to bed most nights. We have knackered cars because a farm vehicle repair always takes priority. We have people set fire to crops, hare coursing through our fields destroying crops, thefts in farm buildings so we are constantly keeping an eye on our land.

We're not just pissing about scattering a few seeds once a year and then rolling around the bed on £50 notes from the EU.

As a farmer, YABfuckingU and I can't even begin to summon the energy to argue with such complete ignorance.
THIS.

Here, have my very first

Oh fuck off

Oh and the farmers I know (dairy) are all either in massive debt or only just managing to avoid massive debt. They don't have loads of cash laying about.

Excellent plan, OP. It'll certainly solve the obesity problem...

JanetBrown2015, if they produced something that people didn't want buy then why would we import it? I think that the headline of this thread is way too general. There are a lot of farmers out there that work very hard and I am certainly glad that we are not relying on imports (or at least wholly reliant) for our food.

I'm fairly sure we'll need to keep the farmers, you know on account of needing to eat.

As the DP of a farmer, YABVVVVU. Bloody educate yourself!

There are pros and cons. Prices would likely fall if we reduced import tariffs from outside the EU. Australian beef has around 60% import duty (for example) and [[http://www.ahdb.org.uk/brexit/documents/BeefandLamb_bitesize.pdf
would]] be competative even taking into account transport.
Most EU import duties are around food.

Yes. Let's get rid of the expensive farmers.

Then we can import chlorinated American battery chickens at £15 a pop. And watch as Lidl's enticingly cheap imported fruit and veg begin to rise and rise in price.

What an ace plan.