To say that every one of us needs to watch last night’s Dispatches on Ch4.

[NellyJames]

Just finished watching this. I knew it was bad but not this grim. Eye opening even for me. I knew about the meat but not the fruit and veg. And apparently the trade deal will only benefit the UK economy by less than 1%!
mobile.twitter.com/C4Dispatches/status/1315651199631319045?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

@CallistoSol

Not going to read through a zillion past WM threads, but you certainly came across as a brexiter before you disappeared.

How very odd. I didn't realise I had 'disappeared'. I can't imagine why you are going on like this. After the 2019 election it was curtains for Remain. There was nothing more to add

A question to all the people saying they will just buy organic or use local farm shops etc. What will you do about eating out and how will you check where the food you eat in restaurants is sourced? What about other food such as children's school dinners which are already produced on a tight budget or if you are unfortunate enough to go into hospital.
Also what will happen when your local farm shop or butcher stops selling high quality produce because the suppliers have gone out of business. The NFU seems to think this is a real risk for many small scale producers.

I'll tag @BigChocFrenzy and see if she comes to my rescue

Yes I'm pretty sure derxa hasn't been anything other than remain initially and then 'let's just get on with it now' resigned remain.

I think farmers are well aware we are mostly screwed though. Whichever way they voted.

@weepingwillow22

A question to all the people saying they will just buy organic or use local farm shops etc. What will you do about eating out and how will you check where the food you eat in restaurants is sourced? What about other food such as children's school dinners which are already produced on a tight budget or if you are unfortunate enough to go into hospital. Also what will happen when your local farm shop or butcher stops selling high quality produce because the suppliers have gone out of business. The NFU seems to think this is a real risk for many small scale producers.

This is very much a worry for me, and buying all meat from the local farm shop for as long as possible is my initial plan.

@Scrowy

Yes I'm pretty sure derxa hasn't been anything other than remain initially and then 'let's just get on with it now' resigned remain.

I think farmers are well aware we are mostly screwed though. Whichever way they voted.

Thanks @Scrowy

@weepingwillow22

A question to all the people saying they will just buy organic or use local farm shops etc. What will you do about eating out and how will you check where the food you eat in restaurants is sourced? What about other food such as children's school dinners which are already produced on a tight budget or if you are unfortunate enough to go into hospital. Also what will happen when your local farm shop or butcher stops selling high quality produce because the suppliers have gone out of business. The NFU seems to think this is a real risk for many small scale producers.

I suspect that just the same as now as now they won't care.

School/care home/hospital dinners NOW are full of crap meat. It might not be hormone laden but it's still the cheapest of the cheap. It's where most of the horse meat was.

People always say that they only buy high welfare etc, which I'm sure they do when it comes to their steaks and their chicken breast etc.

What they don't see as being real meat is the 'produced in the EU' or Thailand chicken, bacon, sausage meat etc in sandwiches, sausage rolls, scotch eggs, cocktail sausages. The Namibian beef in Wetherspoons steaks, catering size lasagnes etc. They don't question that.

First of all, I was well aware of the appalling conditions animals are kept in in the US and the reasons for chlorine washing but the % of feces and insects in the food chain was truly gross.
Another eye opener was the fact that a trade deal with the US would only increase our GDP by 1.6%! So why sell our standards down the river for that?
Liz Truss stated again the other day that we would not reduce our standards to have a deal. I can't see why she would have the balls to stand there in Parliament and lie again and again. The Agriculture Bill that is touted by Caroline Lucas as where we can protect our food standards is the wrong bill. That should be in the Trade Bill not the agriculture bill. Tory PMs who voted the bill through knew that. They were not voting away our food standards.

I think the next couple of years could be very interesting. Many rural areas have been strongly conservative forever. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Brexit and food standards ended up being the tory's equivalent nightmare of what tuition fees were for the Lib Dem's and ironically Brexit for labour.

@DorisLessingsLesson

This isn't just a Brexit problem. When the Brexit referendum occurred the EU was committed to TTIP which also meant opening markets to the US. YY between Trump and the EU they have currently stepped back from TTIP but that wasn't the case when the Brexit vote happened. The US has been pushing this for a long time from every side. Arguably the only way we could have stopped it is if we had a HOC willing to vote to protect our standards.

Nope. If still in the EU they would have protected our standards. That's the power if a large trade blocks and why all other developed nations are forming regional blocks not leaving them.

"Britain can't become self sufficient. You need 1 acre of farmable land to support 1 person. Britain has approx 40 million acres of farmable land. So even if food is being produced at maximum capacity a third of the population would starve."

The planning laws are putting paid to that idea. Viable farmland is being concreted over to keep their developer friends happy.

The EU have a great deal more chance of being able to protect food standards than we alone do. We are the weaker partner in negotiations with the US and it's utterly fanciful to imagine Parliament could do anything about it even if they were minded to, which this lot clearly are not. We will need the trade deal and thus not be in a position to resist US demands.

People voted for this and called it Project Fear when we said this would bloody well happen with Brexit. Thanks for fucking us all over.

I’ve just watched an excerpt of Robert Kennedy talking to the crowd the night Martin Luther King was murdered.

Off topic I know but, oh goodness, his eloquence, his intelligence and his compassion. When I compare to the baffoons we have on both sides of the pond right now, I could weep. We desperately need someone of RFK’s ilk in the world today.

Viable farmland is being concreted over to keep their developer friends happy. No farmland is being concreted over because it is no longer viable as farmland.

No. It is viable as farmland at £10,000 per acre. As housing land it can reach anywhere between £300,000 to £2,000,000 per net developable acre. A 200 acre farm only needs to sell 1 acre to have the cash to buy another farm and almost double in size.

Farmland is needed more than ever, not just for food production, but for energy. Much of the maize and oilseed you see goes into renewable energy.

The UK has extremely high food standards. Much higher than many eu countries.
Scandals still get exposed but our pig farming is vastly superior to most eu countries.
The eu never have the organisation or the teeth to carry out its well meaning standardisation. It was rubbish.

I'm just as concerned about horse meat from God knows where being passed off as steak from a Romanian factory, or Vile pork from an eu pork breeding factory where the pigs are kept in small tight cages and never allowed to move, as I am of USA shite.

We must have labels. And maybe its time to go back to the old fashioned way of eating. We have become terribly spoilt.
Have meat rarely, buy local. Keep it as a treat and buy good meat.

@Throckmorton

People voted for this and called it Project Fear when we said this would bloody well happen with Brexit. Thanks for fucking us all over.

^^ This.

Meh. The English voting public has shown itself to be self interested morons so after a long life time as a labour voting liberal, I've given up giving a shit about anyone other than me and mine. And I'm lucky. I can afford good quality food. Plus I'm a vegetarian anyway. So if Brexit means shit food, so be it. It's what "the people" wanted - let them enjoy their rewards at their leisure.

@Antonov

No. It is viable as farmland at £10,000 per acre. As housing land it can reach anywhere between £300,000 to £2,000,000 per net developable acre. A 200 acre farm only needs to sell 1 acre to have the cash to buy another farm and almost double in size.

Farmland is needed more than ever, not just for food production, but for energy. Much of the maize and oilseed you see goes into renewable energy.

Yep, that's my pension.

3 acres of perfectly good flat pasture, slightly offset from a major A road in a very desirable area.

It's been farmed and grazed for hundreds of years with cows and sheep, but in my lifetime it will be gone. We have plenty more (and that 'bit' is becoming a nuisance anyway for various reasons.

We haven't been approached directly yet by any serious developers (Lots of local entrepreneurs though) but it looks like that parcel of land has now been included in our local development plan so we expect it's just a matter of time.

Seeing as petitioning the government will get fuck all nowhere, maybe we need to lobby the supermarkets. Presumably if enough of their customers object to this sort of food they will in turn lobby the government, and maybe with more effect.

Liz Truss stated again the other day that we would not reduce our standards to have a deal. I can't see why she would have the balls to stand there in Parliament and lie again and again.

MPs tell blatant lies all the time with impunity. Why would you think she's any different? She's been caught lying on several previous occasions. She's also renowned for her stupidity (see her comments about two year-olds running around nurseries with 'no sense of purpose'), but that's a different matter.

’That's the power (of) large trade blocks and why all other developed nations are forming regional blocks not leaving them.’

This ^

@BaileysforBreakfast

Liz Truss stated again the other day that we would not reduce our standards to have a deal. I can't see why she would have the balls to stand there in Parliament and lie again and again.

MPs tell blatant lies all the time with impunity. Why would you think she's any different? She's been caught lying on several previous occasions. She's also renowned for her stupidity (see her comments about two year-olds running around nurseries with 'no sense of purpose'), but that's a different matter.

Amazing isn't it that some people still appear to believe that politicians don't lie to them. Have people been in a coma for the 5 years?

*last 5 years

Typo central with me tonight.