Government wish list for farmers - how dare they?

[DillieTantie]

After many years of trying to eradicate our farming sector - DEFRA, F&M culling scandal, failing to support our farmers in the EU, inter alia, this Government had the nerve to put the global warming onus onto farmers today.
Farmers must produce more food to meet the needs of the planet, but in a "sustainable" way.
What? Now they want a demoralised, unsupported industry to drag itself up from the depths and deliver the goods, just like that?
Where were the Government when farmers were committing suicide because their farms were going under due to the, er, Government and its policies which failed our farmers?
I am not a farmer, nor am I related to farmers. I just think that this attempt to shift blame is awful.
OK, rant over, but there is a PS - the Gov't say that if small farmers get bullied by supermarkets about pricing, the farmers must tell them. After decades of the Gov't supporting the likes of Tesco, I am not sure that farmers are reassured by this.

Prob not the best time to say I work for Defra really is it (Economics, not front line policy, and we're desperately trying to reform the CAP but when up against nations like the French and Italians who still protect and subsidise their agricultural industries heavily it's hard)...

But I sympathise deeply. I think a large part of the underlying problem is as later posters suggest, that we have a completely different cultural approach to agriculture in the UK over the last 100years or more, that has naturally informed and directed the political attitude too. Land and it's use simply does not have the same emotional and cultural resonance in the UK that it has in countries like France and Italy. Here we tend to regard agriculture as simply another industry, and one that has undeniably been heavily subsidised over many years in a way that other industries have not. Of course the major problems started with all the market interference and the CAP in the post war period, which has perversely handicapped so, so many farmers in the present day who are now unable to access genuine market prices because there aren't any! Consumers have been brainwashed into thinking that artificially low prices are normal and the food retailers have accumulated so much power as sole buyers of commodity products that they control the food chain, not the producers.

Economically speaking their are winners and losers on all sides, but you can't help but feel some sympathy for people who are facing not just the loss of a harvest or two, but the erosion of their very way of life. It's more than just production, it's a way of living and gaining meaning.

why should farmers receive any more or less support than other businessmen - who

1. create more well paid employment
2. have less in the way of large assets to raise capital against

farming is a business like any other, one that creates low-paid seasonal employment (average rate 7.50 ph i believe)

personally i find it very hard to get teary-eyed about it. certainly alot less than, say, local businesses that create good long-term well-paid employment that are struggling just as much.

and we could all eat alot less anyway.

Edgar, you are missing so many points with your post that I think you are either deliberately being obtuse or deliberately being inflammatory.

I could go into all sorts of reasons why farmers need economic help due to unfair competition from abroad, supermarket buying monopolies, changing government goalposts, non-payment of subsidies for not growing a particular crop etc, etc, ad nauseum. Suffice to say that when food shortages really begin to bite us all on the arse you may start to think that investing in farming was actually quite a good idea. After all, if we're stuck in the middle of food buying wars and massive food inflation, it would be nice to think that we could at least attempt to be self-sufficient. And if you think that the world isn't facing food and water shortages on a war-starting scale you really need to take the blinkers off and have a look around you.

Edgar - Are you Hillary Benn?

We do not ask for anyone to become teary-eyed about the situation probably because we are patronised enough as it is.

As Callisto said, there are many reasons why we need help and we are such a bad situation that it will be very difficult to recover. Irreparable damage has been done and ultimately it will show up in your food bill.

Also Edgar
if we lose our farms then we stop being 'a green and pleasant land'

"Labour hate and fear the countryside and aren't ashamed to show it."
I have said similar on this forum so many times. I live in north Norfolk which is predominantly farming country and we may as well not exist out here.

and slightly but not completely off topic, this could be a help to those starting out and wanting to know what they as a consumer can do to help.

There is absolutely no danger of the uk losing its farms. in fact the amount of land designated as farmland has increased in recent years,though the amount of set aside has doubled (meaning - farmers are calling bits of previously unfarmed land 'set aside' in order to claim the subsidy on it)...

although i rather resist the idea that land needs farming, or that farmers are doing it a favour by farming it....

where one farm goes out of business through any of the 3 D's (debt, divorce, death) what happens is the same as any other business - the land is used by other people for the same purpose.

there are really huge agri-businesses out there making bucketloads of profit. and some that aren't. just like any other sector of industry...

Edgar, my friends had to give up farming their land because they were losing so much money. My friend's wage as a part-time secretary were subsidising the farm while they scraped by on tax credits. This is a small Yorkshire hill farm which has been in the family for a couple of hundred years - nothing flash, they never made pots of money, but enough to support a family and get by. That put four people out of work. Luckily her dh has managed to retrain as an undertaker, while her father has retired on a pittance. Not sure what's happened to her sister who also worked on the farm.

It's terribly sad that XX Farm, home to farmers for generations, is no more. Just as it's ruddy sad when a town loses its livelihood because some fat cats can make more money exploiting people in the third world.

should think many agricultural workers can only fantasise about £7.50 an hour!

cheap, immigrant labour often paid at piece rate in Norfolk and Lincs

Looks like a re-run of a depressing thread we had a few months ago. Benn & DEFRA make my blood boil . Anyway, spotted an interesting article re dairy farming in the Times today; worth a read.