BREXIT - Is This Really Still Rumbling On? 😴
Comments
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Farms will go out of business and new houses will be built.rick_chasey said:
So something has to change. All you guys are doing is shooting it down because RC is a townie and doesn't know anything, but not changing is to kill it off. You do realise that, right? Brexit has screwed it. It's change or die.
This is a win-win to some people.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
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I found the comparisons with some of the attitudes and approaches on this thread interesting. Especially the ones in bold above.morstar said:Stevo_666 said:An interesting article from a old Cake Stop favourite, Lord Frost:
https://telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/06/ultra-remainers-mobilising-prepare-ground-rejoining-eu/
A few choice quotes which are pretty accurate to the extent you wonder if he reads Cake Stop
"The Brexit battle seems long over. The titanic debates after the referendum, in which both Remainers and Brexiteers played to sweep the board, seemingly ended with near-total victory for the advocates of a real Brexit. With a supreme effort, Britain shook itself free of the European Union and became a full democracy once again, an outcome which had seemed impossible almost until the moment it happened.
The grand new free trade agreement we had been told would take 10 years to agree was put in place in 10 months. And the behaviour of the EU in 2021, from subverting the Northern Ireland Protocol to rubbishing the Astrazeneca vaccine, left few people interested in refighting old battles.
And yet. On the fringes of politics the unreconciled Remainers are regrouping."
And:
"Of course there is little chance of a serious “rejoin” campaign developing in the short term. Remainer Jacobitism in support of Ursula von der Leyen as the queen over the water is just too unpopular.
The leaders of the pro-EU cause recognise that themselves. Instead, their aim is to keep us aligned with the EU, often using the Northern Ireland Protocol as a weapon. They know that if the UK doesn’t diverge much from EU law, it will be much easier to take us back in later if events work in their favour.
To do this they have to get it established in the public mind that somehow Brexit is “already failing”, and thus destroy our nerve to do things our own way. Their picture of Britain is not the one the rest of us see: living with Covid successfully, leading on Ukraine, coming out of the economic downturn faster than Germany, and with PMI business confidence levels higher than the eurozone or the US. Instead, they try to suggest that, whatever problems the world has, we in Britain have them worse.
They use any argument that comes to hand. Last autumn it was HGV drivers and the threat to the Christmas turkey supply chain. This month the story is the latest trade figures and delays at Dover (the latter caused, in fact, by the withdrawal of P&O ships)."
And finally
"The economist Tim Worstall noted this week that “the EU had 1973 to 2020 to show that UK membership was a good idea. 47 years. Let’s measure Brexit by that same standard.”
See y'all in 2069...
Do you really find that interesting?Stevo_666 said:An interesting article from a old Cake Stop favourite, Lord Frost:
https://telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/06/ultra-remainers-mobilising-prepare-ground-rejoining-eu/
A few choice quotes which are pretty accurate to the extent you wonder if he reads Cake Stop
"The Brexit battle seems long over. The titanic debates after the referendum, in which both Remainers and Brexiteers played to sweep the board, seemingly ended with near-total victory for the advocates of a real Brexit. With a supreme effort, Britain shook itself free of the European Union and became a full democracy once again, an outcome which had seemed impossible almost until the moment it happened.
The grand new free trade agreement we had been told would take 10 years to agree was put in place in 10 months. And the behaviour of the EU in 2021, from subverting the Northern Ireland Protocol to rubbishing the Astrazeneca vaccine, left few people interested in refighting old battles.
And yet. On the fringes of politics the unreconciled Remainers are regrouping."
And:
"Of course there is little chance of a serious “rejoin” campaign developing in the short term. Remainer Jacobitism in support of Ursula von der Leyen as the queen over the water is just too unpopular.
The leaders of the pro-EU cause recognise that themselves. Instead, their aim is to keep us aligned with the EU, often using the Northern Ireland Protocol as a weapon. They know that if the UK doesn’t diverge much from EU law, it will be much easier to take us back in later if events work in their favour.
To do this they have to get it established in the public mind that somehow Brexit is “already failing”, and thus destroy our nerve to do things our own way. Their picture of Britain is not the one the rest of us see: living with Covid successfully, leading on Ukraine, coming out of the economic downturn faster than Germany, and with PMI business confidence levels higher than the eurozone or the US. Instead, they try to suggest that, whatever problems the world has, we in Britain have them worse.
They use any argument that comes to hand. Last autumn it was HGV drivers and the threat to the Christmas turkey supply chain. This month the story is the latest trade figures and delays at Dover (the latter caused, in fact, by the withdrawal of P&O ships)."
And finally
"The economist Tim Worstall noted this week that “the EU had 1973 to 2020 to show that UK membership was a good idea. 47 years. Let’s measure Brexit by that same standard.”
See y'all in 2069...
Genuine question."I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.0 -
Come on, I'm using Ned as an example of using investment, innovation and technology to improve the situation, right?briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.
I'm not saying "use Dutch tech" i'm saying, the Dutch approach to evolving and improving the industry is successful.
It doesn't need to be "grow tomatoes in the same way" but it probably does need to be "we need to be more efficient, technologically orientated".
My impression of the UK farming sector when reading the economist etc is that the big farms are pretty efficient but there is a long tail of inefficient small farms who are propped up by subsidies and lack sufficient investment.0 -
In other words, just another 'here's a link that agrees with my preconceptions.'Stevo_666 said:
I found the comparisons with some of the attitudes and approaches on this thread interesting. Especially the ones in bold above.morstar said:Stevo_666 said:An interesting article from a old Cake Stop favourite, Lord Frost:
https://telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/06/ultra-remainers-mobilising-prepare-ground-rejoining-eu/
A few choice quotes which are pretty accurate to the extent you wonder if he reads Cake Stop
"The Brexit battle seems long over. The titanic debates after the referendum, in which both Remainers and Brexiteers played to sweep the board, seemingly ended with near-total victory for the advocates of a real Brexit. With a supreme effort, Britain shook itself free of the European Union and became a full democracy once again, an outcome which had seemed impossible almost until the moment it happened.
The grand new free trade agreement we had been told would take 10 years to agree was put in place in 10 months. And the behaviour of the EU in 2021, from subverting the Northern Ireland Protocol to rubbishing the Astrazeneca vaccine, left few people interested in refighting old battles.
And yet. On the fringes of politics the unreconciled Remainers are regrouping."
And:
"Of course there is little chance of a serious “rejoin” campaign developing in the short term. Remainer Jacobitism in support of Ursula von der Leyen as the queen over the water is just too unpopular.
The leaders of the pro-EU cause recognise that themselves. Instead, their aim is to keep us aligned with the EU, often using the Northern Ireland Protocol as a weapon. They know that if the UK doesn’t diverge much from EU law, it will be much easier to take us back in later if events work in their favour.
To do this they have to get it established in the public mind that somehow Brexit is “already failing”, and thus destroy our nerve to do things our own way. Their picture of Britain is not the one the rest of us see: living with Covid successfully, leading on Ukraine, coming out of the economic downturn faster than Germany, and with PMI business confidence levels higher than the eurozone or the US. Instead, they try to suggest that, whatever problems the world has, we in Britain have them worse.
They use any argument that comes to hand. Last autumn it was HGV drivers and the threat to the Christmas turkey supply chain. This month the story is the latest trade figures and delays at Dover (the latter caused, in fact, by the withdrawal of P&O ships)."
And finally
"The economist Tim Worstall noted this week that “the EU had 1973 to 2020 to show that UK membership was a good idea. 47 years. Let’s measure Brexit by that same standard.”
See y'all in 2069...
Do you really find that interesting?Stevo_666 said:An interesting article from a old Cake Stop favourite, Lord Frost:
https://telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/06/ultra-remainers-mobilising-prepare-ground-rejoining-eu/
A few choice quotes which are pretty accurate to the extent you wonder if he reads Cake Stop
"The Brexit battle seems long over. The titanic debates after the referendum, in which both Remainers and Brexiteers played to sweep the board, seemingly ended with near-total victory for the advocates of a real Brexit. With a supreme effort, Britain shook itself free of the European Union and became a full democracy once again, an outcome which had seemed impossible almost until the moment it happened.
The grand new free trade agreement we had been told would take 10 years to agree was put in place in 10 months. And the behaviour of the EU in 2021, from subverting the Northern Ireland Protocol to rubbishing the Astrazeneca vaccine, left few people interested in refighting old battles.
And yet. On the fringes of politics the unreconciled Remainers are regrouping."
And:
"Of course there is little chance of a serious “rejoin” campaign developing in the short term. Remainer Jacobitism in support of Ursula von der Leyen as the queen over the water is just too unpopular.
The leaders of the pro-EU cause recognise that themselves. Instead, their aim is to keep us aligned with the EU, often using the Northern Ireland Protocol as a weapon. They know that if the UK doesn’t diverge much from EU law, it will be much easier to take us back in later if events work in their favour.
To do this they have to get it established in the public mind that somehow Brexit is “already failing”, and thus destroy our nerve to do things our own way. Their picture of Britain is not the one the rest of us see: living with Covid successfully, leading on Ukraine, coming out of the economic downturn faster than Germany, and with PMI business confidence levels higher than the eurozone or the US. Instead, they try to suggest that, whatever problems the world has, we in Britain have them worse.
They use any argument that comes to hand. Last autumn it was HGV drivers and the threat to the Christmas turkey supply chain. This month the story is the latest trade figures and delays at Dover (the latter caused, in fact, by the withdrawal of P&O ships)."
And finally
"The economist Tim Worstall noted this week that “the EU had 1973 to 2020 to show that UK membership was a good idea. 47 years. Let’s measure Brexit by that same standard.”
See y'all in 2069...
Genuine question.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
We have lots of farmers (although fewer than we used to). Lets assume some of them are quite intelligent. Why aren't they doing this if it's so obvious?rick_chasey said:
Come on, I'm using Ned as an example of using investment, innovation and technology to improve the situation, right?briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.
I'm not saying "use Dutch tech" i'm saying, the Dutch approach to evolving and improving the industry is successful.
It doesn't need to be "grow tomatoes in the same way" but it probably does need to be "we need to be more efficient, technologically orientated".
My impression of the UK farming sector when reading the economist etc is that the big farms are pretty efficient but there is a long tail of inefficient small farms who are propped up by subsidies and lack sufficient investment.
https://ecochain.com/knowledge/david-attenborough-dutch-agriculture/But…there are some sustainability issues here.
Dutch emissions of ammonia, the surpluses of nitrogen and phosphorus, and the use of pesticides per hectare of agricultural land are among the highest in the European Union.
Despite all the successful European policies and farm measures to reduce the massive pollution, environmental pressure caused by agriculture is still the biggest threat to biodiversity in Europe and in the Netherlands.
Although Greenhouse horticulture is very efficient and definitely a solution- as mister Attenborough described- to ‘feed many with less’. Dutch agriculture, including horticulture, also contributes 14% (32 Mton CO2-eq in 2016) to their national emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG). And the thing is: they have hardly decreased since 2000.
Indeed, greenhouses are a very energy extensive sector in the Netherlands and take up almost 80% of all energy that is used for agriculture. Greenhouses still use mainly fossil fuels for lighting, heating, and fertilizers. Moreover, these large concentrations of greenhouses generate huge quantities of waste that need to be disposed of (which costs a lot of energy as well).
And then we haven’t even discussed the production of livestock yet. Which accounts for two-thirds (66%) of the total emission of GHG by agriculture in 2014–2016…
Doesn't seem quite so cut and dry.- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
rick_chasey said:
Come on, I'm using Ned as an example of using investment, innovation and technology to improve the situation, right?briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.
I'm not saying "use Dutch tech" i'm saying, the Dutch approach to evolving and improving the industry is successful.
It doesn't need to be "grow tomatoes in the same way" but it probably does need to be "we need to be more efficient, technologically orientated".
My impression of the UK farming sector when reading the economist etc is that the big farms are pretty efficient but there is a long tail of inefficient small farms who are propped up by subsidies and lack sufficient investment.
Now you're just starting to get it. Yes, there are small 'inefficient' family farms, which are really going to struggle post-Brexit (my guess is they won't, if world markets are the starting point), but your simplistic 'efficiency' mantra is a bit like saying that all retail businesses should model themselves on the supermarket chains.
I really would love it if you went into two or three farms of differing types & sizes to discover why the challenges for UK forming are so great. I think you'd find (as Clarkson did) that they are on multiple fronts, and inertia is low down on the list (though of course it plays a part in such a traditional industry), and that telling them they are backward an need to be more efficient will be met with the question "How, here?"
I refer you back to my 'biovallée' reference: the farmers are very efficient within the type of farming culture they've chosen, but they are way down the list in terms of 'world efficiency'. If your starting point is cheapness of output (if that's what you mean by 'efficiency'), you'll end up with the system you deserve. And it won't be pretty.0 -
Efficiency.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Sounds like a good place for some hydroponic greenhouses...morstar said:
We have large tracts of high quality land that are farmed and the rest is a bit rubbish. The backbone of the country is peaty sandstone moorland getting increasingly harsh from Derby northwards.We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
Also, highly energy intensive farming of non-native crops doesn't seem to be the best solution when there is a climate crisis. One of the biggest issues in farming is the change in middle-class tastes meaning a large chunk of the population is no longer happy eating the crops our climate and ground conditions are most suited to producing.morstar said:
I’ll not argue farming is necessarily dynamic but it’s not just about mountains.rick_chasey said:
Not all countryside is mountainous.Dorset_Boy said:
No. You can't stick a greenhouse on a Welsh mountainside, or in the Lake District on on millions of other acres of the UK countryside. So what can be done in large parts of the Netherlands simply cannot be done in large parts of the UK, as plenty have tried to explain.rick_chasey said:Fair enough. You get the point I'm making.
UK has plenty of arable land. You are being a defeatist whiner if you don’t see this Brexit as an opportunity to revamp a backwards agricultural settup
It is not set up well for this current post-Brexit environment.
It relies too much on cheap labour and it is not competitive internationally.
Farmers are being actively encouraged to re-wild land for environmental reasons.
Not just CO2 related but also flood resistance measures.
We have large tracts of high quality land that are farmed and the rest is a bit rubbish. The backbone of the country is peaty sandstone moorland getting increasingly harsh from Derby northwards.0 -
Pross said:
Also, highly energy intensive farming of non-native crops doesn't seem to be the best solution when there is a climate crisis. One of the biggest issues in farming is the change in middle-class tastes meaning a large chunk of the population is no longer happy eating the crops our climate and ground conditions are most suited to producing.morstar said:
I’ll not argue farming is necessarily dynamic but it’s not just about mountains.rick_chasey said:
Not all countryside is mountainous.Dorset_Boy said:
No. You can't stick a greenhouse on a Welsh mountainside, or in the Lake District on on millions of other acres of the UK countryside. So what can be done in large parts of the Netherlands simply cannot be done in large parts of the UK, as plenty have tried to explain.rick_chasey said:Fair enough. You get the point I'm making.
UK has plenty of arable land. You are being a defeatist whiner if you don’t see this Brexit as an opportunity to revamp a backwards agricultural settup
It is not set up well for this current post-Brexit environment.
It relies too much on cheap labour and it is not competitive internationally.
Farmers are being actively encouraged to re-wild land for environmental reasons.
Not just CO2 related but also flood resistance measures.
We have large tracts of high quality land that are farmed and the rest is a bit rubbish. The backbone of the country is peaty sandstone moorland getting increasingly harsh from Derby northwards.
That's what I've been alluding to, and RC's been ignoring. His 'efficiency' is taking the short-term financial efficiency as the most important/only metric. Food production needs a much more nuanced approach, and whilst, of course, financial efficiency is not to be ignored, it's only part (albeit an important part) of the picture.
As I've said before, every single square mile of any country outside of conurbations is the way it is *because of farming* (be it good or bad), and to leave that all to the current financial structures (which still rely on shedloads of fossil fuels, including Russian gas) would be a rash choice.0 -
The government are literally encouraging them not to farm and re-wild.rick_chasey said:
Come on, I'm using Ned as an example of using investment, innovation and technology to improve the situation, right?briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.
I'm not saying "use Dutch tech" i'm saying, the Dutch approach to evolving and improving the industry is successful.
It doesn't need to be "grow tomatoes in the same way" but it probably does need to be "we need to be more efficient, technologically orientated".
My impression of the UK farming sector when reading the economist etc is that the big farms are pretty efficient but there is a long tail of inefficient small farms who are propped up by subsidies and lack sufficient investment.
The government choice is to focus on importing food.
I’m not sure why you’re at odds with this? If I was arguing British farming should be more productive, I’d have heard the word autarky by now.
The farmland up here is 50% horse grazing as a rough estimate and increasing gradually. Any farmland that is sold gets a stable block and horses on it.0 -
What's autarky got to do with making an industry more internationally competitive? It's in the doldrums and needs sorting out.morstar said:
The government are literally encouraging them not to farm and re-wild.rick_chasey said:
Come on, I'm using Ned as an example of using investment, innovation and technology to improve the situation, right?briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.
I'm not saying "use Dutch tech" i'm saying, the Dutch approach to evolving and improving the industry is successful.
It doesn't need to be "grow tomatoes in the same way" but it probably does need to be "we need to be more efficient, technologically orientated".
My impression of the UK farming sector when reading the economist etc is that the big farms are pretty efficient but there is a long tail of inefficient small farms who are propped up by subsidies and lack sufficient investment.
The government choice is to focus on importing food.
I’m not sure why you’re at odds with this? If I was arguing British farming should be more productive, I’d have heard the word autarky by now.
The farmland up here is 50% horse grazing as a rough estimate and increasing gradually. Any farmland that is sold gets a stable block and horses on it.
If it doesn't make money it goes under. The more money it makes, the more investment it can make (in things like sustainability?)
Money makes the world go round. If it's not making money it doesn't matter about the rest - it'll go under.0 -
rick_chasey said:
What's autarky got to do with making an industry more internationally competitive? It's in the doldrums and needs sorting out.morstar said:
The government are literally encouraging them not to farm and re-wild.rick_chasey said:
Come on, I'm using Ned as an example of using investment, innovation and technology to improve the situation, right?briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.
I'm not saying "use Dutch tech" i'm saying, the Dutch approach to evolving and improving the industry is successful.
It doesn't need to be "grow tomatoes in the same way" but it probably does need to be "we need to be more efficient, technologically orientated".
My impression of the UK farming sector when reading the economist etc is that the big farms are pretty efficient but there is a long tail of inefficient small farms who are propped up by subsidies and lack sufficient investment.
The government choice is to focus on importing food.
I’m not sure why you’re at odds with this? If I was arguing British farming should be more productive, I’d have heard the word autarky by now.
The farmland up here is 50% horse grazing as a rough estimate and increasing gradually. Any farmland that is sold gets a stable block and horses on it.
If it doesn't make money it goes under. The more money it makes, the more investment it can make (in things like sustainability?)
Money makes the world go round. If it's not making money it doesn't matter about the rest - it'll go under.
At the risk of going all Stevo on you now, I'm assuming you're not willing to engage on any of my other points. Repeatedly saying "efficiency is the answer" gets us nowhere.
Of course making money is what all farmers are trying to do. You're offering no solutions to how to do it in the UK, and making no recognition of the multiple challenges. If reading Economist articles is the closest you've come to farming, it's no wonder you're in the dark.0 -
I don’t know what autarky has to do with it. That’s why I get peeved whenever it gets mentioned in response to arguing for making a diverse UK industry base productive.rick_chasey said:
What's autarky got to do with making an industry more internationally competitive? It's in the doldrums and needs sorting out.morstar said:
The government are literally encouraging them not to farm and re-wild.rick_chasey said:
Come on, I'm using Ned as an example of using investment, innovation and technology to improve the situation, right?briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
Look at those charts drawn up by the NFU and tell me that they're doing it all right versus their international peers.webboo said:Self confessed townie tells farmers they don’t know what they are doing. Rick must be related to Tim nice but dim from Harry Enfield.
Yes, Brexit will be an existential crisis for British farming, no doubt. No, the answer is not to try to copy Holland's energy-intensive or Brazil's/US's 'efficient' models, for a pile of reasons which you want to ignore, blinded by the blanket use of the term 'efficiency'. As MattF might say, if he had an interest in farming, put your boots on, and go into a good British farm and tell them how to do it better, given your expertise.
I'm not saying "use Dutch tech" i'm saying, the Dutch approach to evolving and improving the industry is successful.
It doesn't need to be "grow tomatoes in the same way" but it probably does need to be "we need to be more efficient, technologically orientated".
My impression of the UK farming sector when reading the economist etc is that the big farms are pretty efficient but there is a long tail of inefficient small farms who are propped up by subsidies and lack sufficient investment.
The government choice is to focus on importing food.
I’m not sure why you’re at odds with this? If I was arguing British farming should be more productive, I’d have heard the word autarky by now.
The farmland up here is 50% horse grazing as a rough estimate and increasing gradually. Any farmland that is sold gets a stable block and horses on it.
If it doesn't make money it goes under. The more money it makes, the more investment it can make (in things like sustainability?)
Money makes the world go round. If it's not making money it doesn't matter about the rest - it'll go under.
You have consistently argued, meh, just get stuff where it’s cheapest. You now have a totally new perspective that British farming must modernise.
This is not new territory for discussion. The only thing different is the trigger for the discussion being food security rather than a balanced economy and the fact you are on the other side of the argument.0 -
How many farmers do you know Rick or people connected to it. Have you ever met any estate owners. These people generally seem to views at odds with yours.0
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I don’t understand why this line of argument is brought out when I’m involved. It has nothing to do with it -( I had a wheat farm that my garden backed out on and he’d climb into our gardens and bang on the windows and shout for reasons I never understood as a kid. So no)webboo said:How many farmers do you know Rick or people connected to it. Have you ever met any estate owners. These people generally seem to views at odds with yours.
I’d suspect the estate owners are not in favour of losing subsidies, that would make sense.
No one here can explain the flat lining of productivity in the Uk versus the rest of the western world so let’s not pretend that the people disagreeing with me are all over the issue either.
If I were king for a day I’d cut out subsidies for subsidies sake. If you can’t make money doing what you’re doing without government hand outs, cya later.
I’d heavily subsidies farm investments in agri tech - doubly so if it’s sustainable.
More money for research too - UK has some world leading unis who are chomping at the bit for money. That’s certainly a big factor in the Dutch success.
What would your solutions be? Prop it up as it gets more and more uncompetitive?
And whoever mentioned autarky - this is about saving an industry and have it be competitive. It’s not about self reliance. It needs to be able to compete with the rest of the world on its own two feet or it will die off.0 -
I imagine he was shouting “ Do you actually know anything about anything”rick_chasey said:
I don’t understand why this line of argument is brought out when I’m involved. It has nothing to do with it -( I had a wheat farm that my garden backed out on and he’d climb into our gardens and bang on the windows and shout for reasons I never understood as a kid. So no)webboo said:How many farmers do you know Rick or people connected to it. Have you ever met any estate owners. These people generally seem to views at odds with yours.
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So if all farmers are brassic and there is no money to be made why has the price of agricultural land outstripped house prices?
Maybe, just maybe the presence of massive subsidies has resulted in inefficient producers.
And yes I know farmers and the grants and subsidies they get would make your eyes bleed. They do such bizarre things that I have to sit down with pencil and paper and have a serious think about why they do it.0 -
surrey_commuter said:
So if all farmers are brassic and there is no money to be made why has the price of agricultural land outstripped house prices?
Maybe, just maybe the presence of massive subsidies has resulted in inefficient producers.
And yes I know farmers and the grants and subsidies they get would make your eyes bleed. They do such bizarre things that I have to sit down with pencil and paper and have a serious think about why they do it.
The way subsidies are divvied up is nuts, but that's the hang-over from a CAP that got hijacked by the big producers to benefit themselves: it would be like supermarkets getting the lion's share of support that had been intended to help small community businesses.
We subsidise education, transport and health to an eye-watering level (and thereby all the industries that serve them). They aren't left to the free market for very good reason.0 -
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rick_chasey said:
Compared to their international rivals they are and that’s the market they’re in !!
Look at Oz & US. How do their yields compare?0 -
And since you've got the hots for Dutch agriculture... OK, we might be largely locked out of that market now, but how does UK farming compare, for comparison's sake?0
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They’re growing every year while the Uk is stagnating.briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:Compared to their international rivals they are and that’s the market they’re in !!
Look at Oz & US. How do their yields compare?0 -
In other words, how are you measuring inefficiency? It doesn't look like UK producers are technically inefficient. In fact, they seem to be doing a rather good job at producing food, despite the challenges.0
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In terms of exports? Dutch export over 4x as much by value than the Uk for a country 1/4 of the population and substantially smaller size of country.briantrumpet said:And since you've got the hots for Dutch agriculture... OK, we might be largely locked out of that market now, but how does UK farming compare, for comparison's sake?
It is one of the world’s leading food exporters (competing with nations orders of magnitude bigger) and is the world leader for agriculture goods exports.0 -
rick_chasey said:
In terms of exports? Dutch export over 4x as much by value than the Uk for a country 1/4 of the population and substantially smaller size of country.briantrumpet said:And since you've got the hots for Dutch agriculture... OK, we might be largely locked out of that market now, but how does UK farming compare, for comparison's sake?
It is one of the world’s leading food exporters (competing with nations orders of magnitude bigger) and is the world leader for agriculture goods exports.
OK, so Holland has high inputs and high outputs (as suggested upthread, if that's dependent on nitrogen and gas, that's not a sustainable model), but since you trashed the UK's farmers for being inefficient, I'm struggling to see what metric you're using, given the graphs. (I must admit I was surprised by how closely UK outputs per hectare match Holland's.)
The above graphs suggest that UK farmers are actually quite good at producing food, especially on world terms. If it's still not a profitable sector because costs are too high, why are those costs so high?
That's not inefficiency, that's something else.1 -
All having high food exports means is that the Netherlands produces lots that it's domestic consumers don't buy. Certainly isn't a measure of efficiency.rick_chasey said:
In terms of exports? Dutch export over 4x as much by value than the Uk for a country 1/4 of the population and substantially smaller size of country.briantrumpet said:And since you've got the hots for Dutch agriculture... OK, we might be largely locked out of that market now, but how does UK farming compare, for comparison's sake?
It is one of the world’s leading food exporters (competing with nations orders of magnitude bigger) and is the world leader for agriculture goods exports.
Brian's graphs suggest the UK farmers are pretty efficient at producing crops.0
