Is the government trying to kill our farming industry?

[flashbac]

It seems the government are trying to kill our farming industry. Australia trade deal means flooding our market with cheap (low quality) hormone-fed beef raised on super farms. Zero quotas and zero tariff. We seemingly don't get anything in return.
The government are also consulting on exit payments (of OUR money btw) for farmers to leave the business. They says it's to encourage younger people to go into farming (yeah right).

What the hell is going on?

Our farming industry only works due to huge subsidies. Preserving it in it's current form would be a nonsense. Either it needs to provide food competitively in a world market, or it needs to produce public good (carbon storage/biodiversity/natural flood management/recreational access etc) and be paid for it.

The government is wed to being able to do as many trade deals as possible to say that this is a benefit of Brexit. Even if they are bad trade deals. Led by people who are in my opinion not good negotiators (government rarely is).

The Conservative and Unionist Party government was prepared to sell Ulster Unionists down the river to get a deal, so harming farming is not a great surprise. Though most people I expect thought a deal with the US would be the one that caused harm, not Australia.

Though if we make sandpaper, perhaps we can export it to the Australian cricket team.

@Caselgarcia

But will the people want to buy cheap hormone fed beef? I certainly won't, I always buy British

I agree. I only buy free range, sourced meat currently and see no reason why I would change. I eat less meat as a result and not interested in increasing that by buying cheap meat. I know plenty of others who feel the same way.

@JamieFrasersAuntie

It is nothing to do with brexit. Indian farmers have been protesting all year.

It's to do with a new global food system. It's all there on the world economic forum.

Yes. This.

Guardian did a very good article about what was coming, in 2016. I will see if I can find it.

It is to do with Brexit in as much as farmers believed they would benefit and couldn't see this coming.

What I want to know is what will be exported to them from the UK in return? Is there much of what we produce in demand there? I think they'll benefit much, much more from this deal than us plus they know how desperate PM is to get a deal done.

There have been several articles in the Guardian, but this is the one I was thinking of. From 2017.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/04/livestock-farming-artificial-meat-industry-animals

Still we may at least get Tim Tams on our supermarket shelves....

@mummymeister

There is a crisis in farming that has been on the horizon for years. the average age of a british farmer is now nearly 70 and therein lies the problem. too few young people with fresh ideas able to embrace new technology, marketing and products. too few farmers able to cope with the demands of online, form filling, applications etc. Most are just asset rich and cash poor with no one to pass on to so they just soldier on longer than they really should have done. Yes, a small minority of people (more on mumsnet) will only buy locally produced ethically farmed meat. but the vast majority of the public wont give a monkeys because all they want is cheap. Remember the Hugh F_W programme on cheap food?

average age is 59

Australian beef is only 'cheap' if British beef is more expensive. British farmers will have to be competitive in their pricing, like every other industry.

I'm a dairy farmer. I didn't vote for Brexit because I thought the agricultural industry was safer under Europe. I'm very scared for the future of our family farm.

What’s worrying me is if they do destroy British farming, what happens next? Will the cheap imports stay cheap, or will they’ve able to charge what they like?

I feel this country is sleepwalking into being dependent on other nations to feed it. That can’t be good.

@AIMummy

What I want to know is what will be exported to them from the UK in return? Is there much of what we produce in demand there? I think they'll benefit much, much more from this deal than us plus they know how desperate PM is to get a deal done.

In 2019-20, two-way goods and services trade between Australia and the UK was valued at $36.7 billion, making the UK Australia’s fifth-largest trading partner. The UK is also Australia’s third-largest services trading partner, and our second-largest source of foreign investment by total stock

Investment! (As well as Pharma, cars and alcohol).

I am so bemused with what the hell is going on at the moment. Everyday there’s a new aspect that seems to screw us over and it’s our own Government at the helm. If a foreign power was trying to do the same to us we’d be at war by now.

To be fair why should food production, especially meat, be subsidised?

Farmers who opt out are the ones who dont want to follow greener processes. If the gov want farming done a certain way and are offering a subsidy farmers can take it or leave it.

I do agree that lower standards of produce shouldnt be acceptable but equally if that standard applied to everything we wouldnt be able to but half the plastic crap and fast fashion that is imported. So do you wsnt rid of that too? Or do you just have australian beef?

Me too @NewPapaGuinea
Was going to start a thread at some point, trying to work out Bojos priorities.
Vaccines come near the top
And trade deals.

@An0n0n0n
How much would be happy for UK food production to go down to?
0 percent?

And what about water?
That should be sold too?

@lightand id be happy to pay what it costs to produce and eat more seasonally. If that meant eating less meat so be it. Its unsustainable anyway.

Perhaps people would spend less on processed shit and more on quality produce.

Pasture is a huge waste of land.

Would help if farmers didnt have to plugh perfectly decent crops back into the ground as they are tied to supermarket contracts that forbids them submitting cauliflowers that are too big or small and contracts which forbid them selling them to anyone else.

Agree with you OP.

@NewPapaGuinea and @lightand Mr Johnson, born in New York, descended from a Turkish man who sought asylum in the UK, spent part of his childhood in Brussels, and until 2016 had US citizenship. If he was black then people would doubt he was really British.

Ironically his father worked on a policy panel on population control, something which Mr Johnson learnt nothing from.

@lightand i dont get your point about water. People are paying for water that has been treated and the convenience of it running to the tap. Youre welcome to harvest your own rainwater, there arent any laws against it.

BigWoollyJumpers oh! Thanks for that. Well that info sounds promising for some sectors at least.

Would help if farmers didnt have to plugh perfectly decent crops back into the ground as they are tied to supermarket contracts that forbids them submitting cauliflowers that are too big or small and contracts which forbid them selling them to anyone else.

^ this is what is so very wrong, but I do believe the tables are turning on supermarkets. very slowly other ways of obtaining foods will creep in and already have. Food shopping online is increasing, eventually the supermarkets may well go the way the corner shop did - no idea if thats a good thing or not?

a trade deal is more important for the government and the farmers will suffer.

I think this is because it comes/came from EU, and therefore no requirement to inspect/enforce regulations. Many EU countries have lower standards for meat production, but it passes because it's EU compliant. The horsemeat issue being one recent event of note

They found that fraud early on, the EU inspection system worked plus horse meat isn't actually dangerous to eat.
Member states enforce regulation and most countries do it very well.

Its the UK that had a mass food poisoning incident that killed people and the UK that had Foot and Mouth that cost the country billions and ended up with millions of animals cruelly slaughtered.

I ve lot more confidence that meat sourced in Europe is of the highest standard than eating over here, where councils have had to cut food hygiene inspections to the bone.

Brexit is the sole cause of these types of trade deals because we are desperate to prove Global Britain can make its own deals (at any cost, Indian visas, hormone treated meat)
Though i note a Tory donor pays for Johnson to eat Organic produce, delivered too!