To support UK Farmers

[TheHateIsNotGood]

And due to KS's inability to face them in Wales today they are now thinking of going on strike. Because the govt are being too stubborn to reconsider how they apply IHT on working family farms. By all means close the loophole that allows the 'landed gentry' to take advantage of the agricultural exception but not with so blunt an instrument.

I was hoping to add a post to an existing thread but there isn't one despite it being headline news today.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/agriculture-in-the-united-kingdom-2023

Defra's report on farming from last year.

Well, Farmers allowed that to happen, they went for the highest prices Arla offered, which then killed off the smaller producer, they cared little for that consequence.

& if they tip it down the drain to make a political point, SM's will import far more.

Animal standards in Europe aren't that bad compared to UK, as feed quality and welfare is important to maintain production but the cows are still killed when yields drop or cow cannot get to calf.

👍🏼

A friend teaches farming children in a poor area. They go absent when there is lambing, harvesting, auction day. These children aren't doing it for fun but because staff costs are so high.

What makes you think that the milk will be imported from Europe

Wild guess: proximity?

But that's not what matters when it comes to prioritising cheapness.

China is one of our main dairy importers.

https://ahdb.org.uk/dairy/uk-dairy-trade

www.threads.net/@markfrommellor/post/DCctHqmId36?xmt=AQGz1s0ak8Ykvn8221JXpthk2OqHPHTCJEi4_Z86voLJTA

I think this explains it in a nutshell. Why shouldnt they pay as everyone else has to ?

DEFRA secretary Steve Reed has said “Only the richest estates will be asked to pay – not small, family farms”. According to the Chancellor, 72% of farms won’t be affected, with the treasury estimating that just 500 farms per year expected to pay more tax. Maybe farmers would be better off standing up to the supermarkets than this Government

Actually, I think I may have read that wrong. Apologies. I read China as 'one of the main importers of dairy' rather than 'UK main importers'. I can't find further info on that page other than 'EU' and 'Non EU'.

Cheapness is probably going to factor in transport logistics.

70% of estates won’t pay, not 70% of farms!

An estate is the total of all the goods, land and property left by the deceased when they die.

For Agricultural Property Relief that means anywhere that has an acre or two and some livestock that comes within the definition.

So potentially Mrs Hinch and her lifestyle llamas will be exempt, but Mr Jones and his 100 acre sheep farm won’t.

Still, good to know you are happy for the Mrs Hinches of this world to claim the allowance and pass on their property free of IHT whereas someone with a house the same value in town with no room for lifestyle llamas will get hit with a 40% IHT bill.

Yep, makes sense.

The government is purposefully going about the willful destruction of the UK.

Exactly this. At a phenomenal rate. People will look back on Liz Truss as the good old times.

I can’t help wondering whether Labour would actually like us to import even more food than we already do.

The Chinese governemnt subsidises export postage for business there. That’s how you’re able to buy something for 99p plus free shipping from China.

What makes you think they don’t do the same for food exports?

I'm not sure why pp seem keen on this when talking about importing

We need higher food security not lower, plus it's money spent here

Yes, but consider that it's cheaper for prawns to be shipped to Asia to be shelled and then shipped back again than it is to pay UK workers to shell them.

Old article on shipping logistics:

https://www.airportwatch.org.uk/2007/01/british-prawns-go-to-china-to-be-shelled/

'The geographical proximity of the EU influences the amount of trade that it accounts for, and for some animal products like bacon and ham, milk, cream, and eggs, all imports are sourced from the EU.'

From the food security report I posted a link to upthread.

We seem to import around 30% of our food from the EU, overall. And a bit over half is home grown.

I don’t think any prawns I ever buy are U.K. origin - except perhaps the very occasional pot of brown shrimps in butter. The majority seem to come from SE Asia. After the 2004 tsunami a dd was involved in helping Indonesian communities to fund and rehabilitate the lakes - then filled with mud and debris - where they raised countless millions of prawns.

No, most of our prawns and seafood get shipped to mainland Europe!

Because ten days on a slow boat from China might result in something more like cottage cheese than milk?

The madness of M&S flying out chicken to Thailand for Vietnamese cheap labour camps to assemble the sandwiches , then flying them back , putting on trucks to distribute to the stores was mind boggling.

Vast difference in shipping quantities though. Very few people eat prawns every day.

Food is likely to be a fair bit cheaper if we drop tariffs on imports. And outsourcing farming and manufacturing was a large part of the justification for leaving the EU. It could be a way to "make Brexit work".