Rogered by a hobbit in the LL undergrowth, buried in a raised bed with Bert or harassed behind the arras with Adam? Pick your Ambridge fate here.

[PseudoBadger]

A big showdown tonight I hope.

Thanks to Zero (I think?) for the great title.

farmers need all the reliability they can get what with climate, weather, supermarket prices etc

:o Ici

I can just hear Jill's disappointed/disapproving voice: "Oh, Elizabeth!"

Re Helen leaving the shop - I agree that financials would normally have been discussed. Although they never discussed money in our earshot when she moved into Blossom Hill did they? He's going to have to pay maintenance too soon ...

they say eeelizabeth in a way that no one i've ever met does

But they'll need people to mend\service the robots won't they Petula? We've got a roomba (against my instincts but DH loves his toys ) and it keeps getting caught up in the wires on the floor, it's fun though I find myself talking to it like a cat!

Maybe supermarket prices are too reliable - how long has ASDA milk been £1 for 4 pints?

I should shop at Booth's more - they review their farmgate prices monthly to ensure that they are always paying more than any other supermarket. (I'm not sure what the shelf price is at the moment, I don't think it's way higher than the norm)

yy, but you could have one or two people supervising an ARMY of robots , all through the night too, instead of 20 times as many people doing the same work under legal working conditions. unfortunately i don't think the number of manufacturing/service/repairs/supervisory jobs will match the number of labourer jobs lost. i don't think it's great, but you can see why it's attractive to farmers, and (in the UK anyway) people are always moaning about the cost of living including food shopping going up, so...

I hate those "where to shop the cheapest " threads on here and I feel if we can afford it we should buy the best and pay for it too! Like the French used to. (to be fair a lot still do).

too reliable at the consumer end errol you're probably right. i expect all along the chain back to the farmer they're shaving off the amount they pay each other which all ends up on the farmer's bottom line

(incidentally it was interesting to me that the woman on farming today described herself as a farmer, then corrected herself to "farmer's wife". i wonder how much distinction there really is these days, and suspect it's just a bit of old-fashioned sexism in most cases)

i don't know... i think there are a lot of people who really just don't have enough money to give too much consideration to ethical questions like that. many would probably like to, but with housing, utilities, childcare, transport, etc food is just another cost that needs to be kept as low as possible. i can see all sides really.

But machinery isn't the answer to everything; humans have the advantage of being much more easily re-programmable. The average farmer looks at world prices and partly bases his/her decision on what to do next year on that. They need to be nimble and adaptable.
Look at the mess that Adam has got into. He has spent a quarter of a million pounds on a swanky new specialised machine for the Berrow Farm and Brookfield contracts - contracts that he looks likely to lose. Not such a good investment!

of course! this was a slot specifically about certain kinds of veg picking. it definitely wouldn't work for everything

But paying a producer of anything less than the cost of production isn't sustainable, so at some point the prices have to go up.

At the moment, farmers can't afford to invest and make their farms more productive - something like the Booth's initiative is helping them to be able to do this.

yes, i agree

So many people desperately in need of cheap milk - one of the few 'healthy' foods that is cheap - so I think it's down to the supermarkets to be fair to suppliers. We need a middle way that keeps the price fairly low for consumers, liveable for suppliers and the supermarkets' profits should adjust accordingly.

And the SWs should give up with the ludicrous plot lines. ASAP.

Is this another shares in the family business scenario? Since Tom(!) and Helen are partners in Ambridge Organics (?) will she still receive income from it even if she stops working at the shop?

And / or is she planning to carry on cheesemaking and live off the proceeds?

It's not as if they've even set a date for the wedding.... Oooh - she'll have plenty of time for that now.

good point re the cheese. she's the qualified one isn't she? or does she have apprentice cheesemakers who can do the work?

R4 true about robots and think how much they cost FGS! I don't understand what it's all about really; do we want humanely produced,local food or not? Why are world prices relevant ? The effing bankers and their ilk should not be controlling everything, Therein lies the way to insanity IMO.

Sorry rant over

The current Co-op advert for milk annoys me - they state something like 'that's why we sell it so cheap'. So who's making up the shortfall ? Co-op profits or the suppliers?

I was listening to one of the early morning farming programmes about a pig business which supplies bacon to McDonalds - another outlet for Bridge Farm?

i totally agree - there comes a point where we are forgetting what the point of it is all about - to feed everyone as well and sustainably as possible. if the goal of supermarkets is to increase shareholder profit with the result that farmers have to sell up then society has seriously messed up

stoppit campervan, you'll give tony another heart attack!

Don't Mcdo's use organic milk? Or SAY they do.

That ad annoys me too camper Most ads annoy me though

Well I feel faintly depressed when I go in to buy milk - £1 for 4 pints seems too cheap, but then you pay pretty much double for Organic, and there is no locally produced stuff on the shelves here any more. So I sometimes buy Organic, and sometimes the cheap stuff. I tried the milk man but he would only deliver every other day, and you couldn't change last minute that I kept running out of milk. Are Waitrose better? we're getting one soon.

wow I am way, way behind with these threads! But have been listening to TA as ever

Just listened to last nights episode and feel like I want to erase it from my brain! It's got me all irritated listening to Rob practically rub his hands in glee as his masterplan starts falling into place before his very eyes "But what about your career?" oh please!!

As much as I hate Roy, he is just a cheating idiot. Rob is just so much more....sinister.

oh and re milk...

I buy waitrose milk, usually the duchy one as it unhomogenised which I believe is healthier. We certainly pay a lot more than £1 for 4 pints but would be very interested know if the farmers are getting a better price from waitrose or are waitrise making all the profit just like all the other supermarkets?