To tell you how fucked UK agriculture is?

[eatsleepfarmrepeat]

God I just feel beaten this evening, I’m a farmers wife, I work in a professional role which pays well (thank god) we have two young children and I’m just DONE.

My husband is on his arse. This years harvest is so relentless, wet weather means it’s a real smash and grab operation, the heavy machines are running on wet ground and we’re just burning diesel trying to dry wet crops.

I’ve just escorted the combine from the field up to the yard (because it’s raining, again) and for about the fifth time this harvest I’ve been flashed at and given the wanker sign. I mean, I get it, it’s a big bit of kit, it takes up the whole road but honestly escorting is the only way to get them home safely and how the fuck do you get it from A to B without it going on the road? We’re not waggoning class As or having some recreational rave, we’re just making food.

We grow cereals which are either milling wheat for bread (which will be problematic this year due to the drop in proteins and the unfavourable harvest because of the weather) feed wheat for animal feed, oil seed rape for biodiesel and barley, for beer. The new green agenda means our subsidies are being replaced by taking good arable land (which makes up 24% of the country) out of production. This is why there is a shortage of eggs, the commodity price is being pushed and egg producers are not being paid the cost of production by supermarkets so they are importing, from countries which are not held to the same (necessary) animal welfare standards which the UK industry operate under.
we produce high welfare free range chickens. They retail for £10+ but our contract with supermarkets has them in at £3.24 per bird - imagine trying to operate on those margins with food and energy bills being what they are. In addition the UK market is absolutely flooded with Thai imports of cheap shit mean which again falls far below our own mandatory animal welfare standards - we just cannot compete.

ironically a lot of our feed wheat will probs go to vivirgo/e sos for energy crops. Literally thousands of litres of diesel burned producing something to go into a power plant and be sold as green energy for the lithium heavy teslas of Britain.

in the last decade we have planted 100acres of woodland, created four new wildlife ponds on the farm and drilled artichoke and wildflower shelter belts to enhance wildlife and pollinators on the farm.

I keep thinking we would be a million times happier (and better off) if we just sold out of the partnership and started again, get out of this shit, spiralling industry where the general public seem to think we’re trying to kill them and simultaneously fuck the countryside at the same time, go have a nice life where my husband isn’t hampered by stress and the never ending pressure of his arsehole father who got fat in the 70s where they used shit hot chemicals and decimated any balance of wildlife. This year is hard but with the commodity prices falling again against an increasing fuel and labour and fertiliser bill I just wonder what the fuck we are doing it for. Any trade off with the lovely holistic life the kids have is countered by stressed out parents.

we’re an island. We need food security, and we’re being paid to fallow productive acres which is already having a knock on effect to other food markets. Why are we so short sighted? We can afford to be virtuous with our farmland as a nation by offsetting but the outcome is that we’re outsourcing our footprint to these poorer nations like Thailand who are picking up our production slack and selling their chicken into our country at a criminally low value. It’s batshit.

Bit of a bump.

I generally do not think of farmers as friends or even allies. They have watched quite happily as other people in other industries and sectors have been ground down and destroyed: starting with enclosure, then textiles, coal, and now education and even health are under attack. Most of us have already lost the economic productivity of our working lives. I watched Jeremy Clarkson’s series, described lovingly upthread, thinking how privileged he is: he will never know what it is to work decades to own nothing at the end but the clothes you stand up in with his hundreds of acres, and will never know what it is to work yet struggle to afford food.

But I agree there’s a big problem right there: just what will be left in this ‘green and pleasant land’?

We are all fragmented into tiny little sector-based “communities” who have no idea what each others lives are like, and very few seem to be able to imagine it. Care for others is something forced on to poorer and more disempowered fools (typically more is expected of women than men for instance) who are being taken for mugs. We are entirely too specialised and so easily turned against each other. Rural communities have never cared for the difficulties of urban people even as they complain about a lack of interest in return.

We could all do with looking at the wider picture and asking prospective MPs just exactly what their view of Britain’s future is for all of us. It rather seems to me as if this group of London-based financiers and intercontinental rich bankers, enabled by vacuous trendy inheriting rich groups, want Britain to be one massive concrete city of people desperate to get any job, every penny, similarly drawn from all of the world’s poorest and disempowered, easily replaceable and fed on any bullshit drawn from the cheapest parts of the world.

Farmers have been as guilty of letting this situation develop as anyone, but what kind of hell is it leading to for all of us?

So we've established that it's not happening everywhere - therefore, it's perfectly reasonable for some people to find Starmer's proposals abhorrent.

Joining late but just to add, rural NI, veg farm with some sheep and barley. It's got to the stage I worry DH is going to have a heart attack or stroke from the worry about how farming is now. He's never known anything else, he's 5th generation here on this farm and several before that from nearby. We haven't had heating oil since before Christmas and our house is literally covered in damp. We have a door boarded up because we can't afford to replace it and it's so badly warped and another one has a glass panel covered with anything or everything to stop the cat getting out. One of our workers (local if it matters) moved on to a higher paid job to try and get a mortgage and we couldn't afford to replace him so just have to work even longer hours ourselves.
We have worked non stop since January to sow, raise, maintain, fend off disease and try to plant the crops before we can sell anything but it's so wet now we are well behind and what's in is either not doing well or flooded and lost. We are getting the same price for veg as my DH's father got 30 years ago in most cases, we got a 2.5p pay rise in 2 items last year but fertiliser, seed and diesel costs had trebeled and they trying to take it off again now. What we do sell we have to wait 90 days before getting paid and considering the old season ends in April with just a trickle and the new begins end of June/early July that's a killer for paying bills.
This is our last year farming like this, we have sold off tractors we actually need and everything else we can to keep going and there's nothing left to sell and it's still not enough. That means we have to let another lovely (also local) man go at the end of the year which breaks our hearts as he's not in great health and will struggle to find work elsewhere at his age, he's become almost family and we have gone without to try and keep him employed too. We will have to cut back a lot and just do what we can with a few sheep, some beef cattle and a few veg just DH (I'm disabled so only paperwork and sit down jobs only) the rest will be rented out if anyone is left to take it.

Everyone's entitled to their view of course - that should go without saying, but I wanted to clarify that the nightmare scenario envisaged if Labour win is already happening in my area and it turns out in many others so they literally couldn't make it any worse. Also if Labour is advocating replacing scrapyards with houses I can't get too excited about that. It's far from clear that there is a massive difference in policy or outcomes here.

What would make me more inclined to vote Labour on this is issue would be an actual enforceable requirement for more social housing and so-called affordable homes and much better standards of building - the Tories have really pandered to their paymasters in the large developers here by continually watering down standards.

What would make me more inclined to vote Labour on this is issue would be an actual enforceable requirement for more social housing and so-called affordable homes and much better standards of building - the Tories have really pandered to their paymasters in the large developers here by continually watering down standards.

Starmer is repeatedly calling Wales a blueprint for England if Labour gets in power. Looking at the state of social housing/affordable homes provision and building standards in Wales provides valuable insights into Labour's position.

I’m trying to understand the points you’ve made in your lengthy post so please forgive me if I’ve misunderstood some of them. You say you don’t consider farmers your friends or allies, which is fine, they don’t speak highly of you either. I’m curious as to who your friends and allies are though? Can you elucidate? Also, can you provide proof of actual farmers, not imaginary ones, who have stood happily watching others go to the wall?

Whilst I completely agree with you that rural folk don’t care about or understand the ways of urban folk in a lot of cases and vice versa, I think you’re missing the point somewhat. The rules are made in the urban centres, by urban dwellers, and imposed on country folk, but never the other way round. That’s why so many bad, amidst the good, regulations are introduced. As you say, we are largely two different groups with our own special understanding of our own, very dissimilar, environments.

Finally, you speak of various rich and trendy groups exercising power over the whole country and, again, I agree. You bemoan the fact that farmers, amongst others, have failed to stop these powerful forces. My question is, how could farmers (or non farmers) stop these people? We’ve all got a vote that we can use but that’s not stopped them so far has it? Do you think there is a political party that will keep our land green and pleasant whilst simultaneously building over large swathes of arable or pasture to meet ever increasing housing demands? Again, my question is how will they do this?

Basically in all policy areas we know what the Tories are offering.

It's this "gestures at broken down country"

So my priority is to get them out and someone else in.

I'll be tactical voting for whoever can unseat my "safe" Tory MP in the next General Election.

It's not in my power to decide the government or the Prime Minister. All I can do is cast one vote against the Tories winning the seat in my constituency.

So that's what I'm going to do.

Policies really do matter to me but the country has been left in such a mess by the Tories and Brexit, and so much future proofing needs to be done in so many sectors that I know we can't do it all at once.

There's going to be pain and dissatisfaction, but at least it will be on the way to something better rather than so we can pay Tory cronies inflated millions for a fat government contract that won't achieve it's stated aims and will probably just cause more problems.

'it will be on the way to something better' - what will be? You're voting purely based on getting a Tory out. On what basis do you think a different party would do better, or any differently?

Change isn't necessarily for the better. Things can always get worse.

True and having an active build on green belt policy isn’t something I’m going to vote for

This is heartbreaking to read. Can you contact Shelter for help with the damp? What about some of the farmer's benevolent organisations, can they help?

https://rabi.org.uk/

This page is Wales focussed, but several of the organisations are UK wide :

https://www.gov.wales/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-farming-families

Some offer mental health support, some offer financial help.

https://fcn.org.uk/

https://www.thedpjfoundation.co.uk/

https://www.addingtonfund.org.uk/

'Green Belt' policy is worth discussing. In practise it can just push development further into the countryside. The land designed 'green belt' isn't necessarily particularly good land, or useful or special, it's just a 'belt' surrounding an urban centre.

Forgive me if I’ve got this wrong but I believe that you’re saying life under a left wing party will make everything better for all of us, after a period of pain and dissatisfaction? How did you reach that conclusion? Have you been to the States recently? I hear life is far from luxurious or even safe, in San Francisco et al. Joe Biden is a Democrat so why are so many American cities now awash with human filth and crime? If left wing rule is the answer, can you explain how you came to you naïve, in my opinion, conclusion please?

Exactly - as pointed out upthread, only about 50% of green belt is used for agriculture. And none of the hundreds of acres of high quality farmland that has been built on here over recent years was green belt.
Just one example of green belt lane usage is scrapyards.

I don’t see it delivering in Wales either tbh

Ha ha the Democrats “left wing” - pull the other one, they are about as left wing as Thatcher. It’s a ridiculous comparison. Plenty of centre left (you’d probably call communists) governments doing OK in Europe and Scandinavia.

And the Tories aren’t right wing either, so checkmate on that one!

I’d be very interested to hear more about the successful European countries under a left wing government please. I’ve lived in two separate European cities and I’ve never found a socialist utopia to date but I’m willing to listen to your information if you’re willing to provide it. Thanks.

@NarcNarc

It was more of a

"We can't go on like this can we? Let's give someone else a go."

It's not up to me who it is. I have one vote in one constituency.

The only thing I know is that I won't be voting Tory.

I will vote for the candidate I think has the best chance of beating the Tory MP in our safe seat.

I don’t think anyone sneering about “socialist utopia” is interested in a proper non-partisan debate in earnest.
Starting with such a daft straw man suggests blind dogma.

Fair enough. I detest the Tories too so I’ve no idea who to vote for because I also detest Labour 🥺

You have drawn some rather wild conclusions about me, based on no evidence whatsoever 😂 I despise the Tories sweetheart. I think you should shovel up your own dogma and take it with you … wherever you’re going …

I never understand why we pay farmers not to grow food on good land.

I want to buy british/local wherever i can but look how we've allowed cheap chilean blueberries to fuck our local farmers

@ArabeIIaScott

I can't vote for any more of this.

I struggle to see how either of the two other major parties could be any worse.

This is the worst I can remember. So many sectors buggered, so much infrastructure crumbling or gone. The economy trashed, NHS, Police Ambulances etc no longer to be relied upon when needed.

We need a reset.

And the Tories need to give up along Trump and the lunatic fringe of the Republicans with their culture wars and actually GOVERN.

Since apparently they can't...

We'll need someone else to, won't we?

This is a really important post.

Putting aside all personal feelings about the importance of specific policy areas, it is beyond clear that the tories have failed on every single measure, except one; enriching the rich.

They will NOT suddenly become competent at the next election and all that matters is getting them out. The tory party is too divided, too self-centred, too corrupt and too filled with ineptitude to do anything good for the country.

Frankly, we've jumped from the "prosperity" plane now and, no matter what, we're heading for the sparse ground below.

The only choice now is whether we deploy the parachute and control our decent, maybe even land on a decent patch of land, or plummet head first into the ground.