not a prepper - but anyone prepping in case of farmers taking action?

[JellyTotsAreYum]

Along with fruit & veg crops which will have been affected in Spain, if British farmers start to take actions like those in France & Netherlands (blocking ports etc), then maybe we'll start seeing supply issues.
As I said, I'm not a prepper, I just keep a sort of one out one in type pantry, so any advice welcome (even if that's not to do anything 😀 ).

And they think Reform will care one iota. 🤦‍♀️

See I genuinely don't understand how people adding a couple of bits would cause anarchy. I do a monthly big delivery shop when I get paid, then small top ups of fresh stuff in store throughout the month. I don't buy things evenly throughout the month, or similar things every week. I don't fit with your forecasting at all 😁. People spend a lot of the time not behaving in a rational or consistent way.

for anyone who wants to grow things in future, my best easiest crops this years were dwarf raspberries and Reka blueberries. They have only been in the ground less than 2 years so still growing and the crops were great. The advance is with berries they grow year on year, so you don’t have to replant, so very low maintenance. The dwarf raspberries grow to max 1m bush and not long and cut so again little maintenance. Reka blueberries don’t need special soil, they grow in anything.
we have several of each and it probably several months of berries this summer, and some excess into the freezer

It’s not at all self sufficient, but berries cost a fortune so it’s a high saving for small space ratio also. Leaving berry costs to go towards other food price increases.

It doesn't. And this topic is designed for those who like to be prepared, and who grow and maintain their personal stores all the time. Not just when a potential crisis reaches the headlines (though of course the title of this thread is rather more reactive than the usual aim)

Though of course high profile events do sometimes lead the more thoughtful to begin looking at long-term preparedness.

I agree, they voted for Brexit and cut off the subsidies they got. Tough. They have to be £1 million farmers to be affected by the inheritance issue - so small farmers not affected. No excuse for them being exempt from inheritance tax - they hope to pass their farms onto their children untaxed. I hope to pass my house onto my children (not worth £1 million) and it will be inheritance taxed. I can't lose sleep over wealthy farmers thinking they are above taxes - reading the headlines that Princess Anne will not be able to pass on her farm free of inheritance tax..........my heart bleeds (another tax dodge royals and landed gentry have enjoyed too long).

They have to be £1 million farmers to be affected by the inheritance issue - so small farmers not affected.

😂😂
I think you have no idea how much a small farm cost.
Most £1million farms won’t allow you to survive unfortunately. They ARE some if the smallest farms.

£1 million is nothing these days.

Anyway this thread was about shortages of food and stocking up, not a thread to bash farmers.

Harvest just finished so my freezers, cupboards and storage are already full for the winter. Can’t say I’m particularly worried, but then I can eat for 6 months from my larder, so I won’t be affected.

tinned potatoes are fantastic in the air fryer - come out like little mini roasties

I've let my stocks run down slightly but am deliberately getting seeds and fruit bushes now. The combination of UK farmer unrest and weather in Spain could lead to problems.

Well £1 million isn't much to buy a house in some areas of the country - but it will still incur inheritance tax.
Its not about 'bashing farmers', it's about a context for the protests and subsequent possible temporary food shortages.

Animals still need to be fed. Animals still need to be milked. Eggs will still be laid and Chickens & Turkeys still need to be slaughtered. Crops can't stay in the fields indefinitely until they feel like they've made their point and they'll presumably be needing to sell them if they're so desperately close to the income and living conditions of a single Mum with a disabled child in a privately rented mouldy one bedroom flat in Crawley.

Of course, if they actually have substantial funds behind them, maybe they'd be able to go without income for months, if not entire years due to missing the Christmas trade whilst they attempt to starve the poor and city dwellers into submission (and the supermarkets get more of their supplies from overseas, rather than selling British stuff - and then not going back to them because they've proven to be unreliable).

It sounds very much like a 'look at me whilst I shoot myself in the foot' rather than a bringing the country to its knees and then begging their forgiveness scenario.

Not prepping but I have a greenhouse that is underused. I think I will start growing salad and tomatoes again come spring

I was talking to a chap with a 4 million pound farm mainly sheep. He’s earning £30k a year!

And the context includes that those farmers are often cash poor.

Which means that paying huge level of inheritance tax will lead to them having to sell instead because there is no way they’ll find the cash.

It might sound a non issue to you p. But to people whose life is defined by farming (that’s who they are, not what they do), it’s a pretty significant issue.

So yes context is important. ALL OF the context, not just the bits that feed into your narrative.

An interesting perspective in The Guardian today:
There is no acknowledgment of the potential wider benefits that go beyond the non-trivial contribution the tax will make to relieving the crisis in public services. The hoarding of land that has gone on since the bung was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, which has so steadily driven up land prices and farmers’ rents, will at last be checked as some of the larger estates are obliged to sell parcels of land to pay inheritance tax, as they did before 1984 without the world falling in, rather than be enabled to own it in perpetuity. Young farmers, now increasingly crowded out of the market, will get a chance to buy land: there is the prospect of a levelling off, even a fall, in farm rents. New life and ideas will be brought to the rural economy as innovative, energetic farmers enter the market – and production even increases.

I'm actually in the middle of drying out my compost to store it for winter and reuse next spring - I grew beans, peas, salad and tomatoes on my balcony quite successfully- and got about 3 courgettes from 8 plants. I've taken out the root balls of the plants, and will store the compost in black sacks in my basement cubby until spring. It's too cold here to grow overwinter outdoors, and indoors isn't really an option due to rented flat.

I have some peas and beans frozen, and a couple of small jars of oven dried tomatoes to use over winter.

Most people farming land are either paid employees or tenant farmers. The inheritance tax stuff is irrelevant to them. Possibly even beneficial if it means some massive landowners selling a portion of their land as it would give them an opportunity to buy.

Most farmland is owned by huge landowners. If the Duke of Westminster and James Dyson start blockading ports to protest IHT, I think it will be possible to drive around them quite easily!

(Yes, I am sure someone can point to some heart string pulling example of a small, quaint family farm but they are very much the exception to the rule.)

Then he should sell the farm and earn more than that by passively investing that £4million and keep some sheep as a hobby if having them is key to his identity.

The value of that land is being massively inflated by the IHT exemptions currently in place. If the only return on farming it is £30k/yr, then the land cannot be worth £4mln. It should be properly worth about 750k.

I’m pretty sure 10 people own something ridiculous 70% of Scotland. I live on the outer edge of an estate. I’d have to drive an hour to the estate office. If you stick loopholes in tax rules then people will pay accountants to find a way for them to wriggle out of it.

I already have a well stocked larder and freezer in case of illness, bad weather, events etc. I had been running stocks down a bit but will start buying a couple of extra things with each shop again. Nothing drastic and definitely no panic buying.

Prepping is not the same as short-term stockpiling in response to a news scare.

True preppers have full larders and stores of food all the time. They buy no more than anyone else once the stores are full (special offers excepted).
So they may spend many months or a year building stores, then keep the stores at a similar level for decades, rotating by using oldest first.

Prepping is a way of life.

I’ve gone back to buying in a farm shop. We moved 3 years ago. The farm shop in the village is good.

You can never have too much toilet paper as we have learned from 2020.