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Thread: The lie of the land

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    The lie of the land

    On More 4 there's a documentary starting at 10pm called The lie of the land about the realities of life as a farmer. I thought it might be worth a watch, as a farmers son i know it's not easy at all being a farmer hence why i took the sensible option and went to university I'm hoping this documentary gives a fair portrayal of what it's like to be a farmer, so people can see that when farmers moan they have good reason

    Anyway hope this is useful to someone

    Andy

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    Re: The lie of the land

    Not my cup of tea, but given people's attitudes to hard work, seems like the outlook isn't good. Supposed to be very lonely, exhaustingly hard, and when things go wrong, they really go wrong.

    Wouldn't fancy it myself.
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    Re: The lie of the land

    Was it any good? I missed it. As a farmer's son myself I know it's a damn hard grind and am glad I'm not carrying on the family tradition. Townies unfortunately mix up landowners with farmers and think that farmers are loaded when in fact they're usually getting screwed by the supermarkets and struggle to make a profit!
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    Senior Member kasavien's Avatar
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    Re: The lie of the land

    To be honest the program was a bit depressing and provided a very bleak outlook for farming, so the people who decided to follow Stewart's advice and watch Robocop probably made the correct decision.

    For those that didn't watch the program and are interested in what it was looking at i'll try and write a bit about the state of farming as i understand it, the problem is where to start.

    At the moment Arable farming (growing crops) isn't in such a bad way. Due to the overproduction of crops grown to produce biofuels there is a shortage of crops such as wheat which can be used to make flour for bread and animal food etc. Other reasons for wheat shortages include the heavy rain and floods last year destroying a lot of crops and the severe droughts in Australia where a lot of wheat is grown. This means that wheat prices have risen and hence a lot of farmers have chosen to grow wheat this year to try and make some money out of the situation. I think the situation in agriculture is similar for a lot of crops and i think arable farming is able to make reasonable margins.

    So moving onto the state of the livestock industry in this country. As a lot of people will realise last year the livestock industry was hit hard firstly by a new outbreak of foot and mouth, and secondly by the arrival of the bluetongue virus in the UK which as far as i understand is fatal for some but not all ruminants, i think cows generally survive but sheep fair less well, there is certainly no effective treatment yet.

    Looking at foot and mouth first, this originated at the government run Pirbright laboratory. All livestock movement was halted, which basically prevents farmers from making money until they are allowed to move livestock again. In my parents situation this caused particular problems because the ban on movement came at a time when we were supposed to be selling our animals for breeding which is our main yearly income. Fortunately we were able to sell some animals before the outbreak, but other sheep Breeds such as Texels, hadn't had their main sale and the effect was much worse for them.

    Bluetongue isn't quite as serious a problem in this country yet because the movement restrictions only apply to certain areas of the country within a radius of where the outbreak was found. Furthermore a vaccine is in development which should be ready for use later in the year, so at least bluetongue can be fought.

    Incidentally the inquiries into the foot and mouth outbreak at Pirbright were attributed to poor maintenance of drainage systems, but no compensation will be paid out to farmers for their loss of income even though it was essentially the governments fault. I can't see that the same would be true if something similar affected another industry or part of the population.

    Both of these disease outbreaks have left livestock prices very low because when the movement restrictions were lifted there was more livestock than the market could handle, this is particularly the case with sheep. But interestingly enough the price of lamb or any other meat in the supermarkets hasn't dropped to reflect this. Looking in more detail at the sheep market, a scheme had to be brought into effect in wales paying a flat rate of around £15 per animal where lambs are slaughtered and incinerated because there was no economic gain to be made from rearing the lambs to a level where they would be suitable to enter the food chain. Furthermore linking this back to the rising food prices the margins that farmers make on their animals is decreasing due to the costs of the food needed to rear them to a good standard, hence why lambs had to be slaughtered.

    Even without disease outbreaks many young and otherwise healthy calves are slaughtered annually because it makes no economic sense to rear them because food prices are too high and due to cheap imports lowering the price that farmers can expect to receive for their animals. Another reason which was raised in the program last night is that only the female calves are valuable because of the milk that they potentially produce, the male calves are valueless because due to the cross of breeds they won't grow into good beef animals, and are worthless therefore they are slaughtered. These days livestock farmers make decisions on rearing animals based on what is economically viable rather than rearing anything regardless.

    This goes against many of the values that farmers have been brought up with, using my parents as an example they care about their animals a lot and you could give them the number of nearly any sheep on the farm and they would be able to tell you something about it, such as what it's parents were. Which in my opinion is just an example of the level of interest and care that farmers have in their livestock. Fortunately my parents are sheep farmers so they aren't faced with the decision of slaughtering calves.

    The animal welfare in this country is exemplary compared to much of the rest of the world, yet people are fine eating imported meat from countries where animal welfare is much less than ours. Looking at Brazil for example where foot and mouth is rife, pasture land is created by chopping down the rain forest, and much of the labour used to rear the animals is extremely poorly paid bordering on slave labour in some instances. Yet a lot of beef is imported from there, when this country is more than capable of being self sufficient.

    This is one thing that interests me actually, as an example the general population are interested in the welfare of foxes which led to the ban on fox hunting, but they are prepared to remain ignorant of the animal welfare of the meat they eat that is imported from other countries.

    One other thing that arose from the program last night is all the legislation that farmers are required to comply to in order to receive subsidies, it's much more favourable towards landowners (different to farmers) it's almost as if the government doesn't see a future for farming in this country, but the countryside would be vastly different without it. As a point of interest you could ask almost any farmer and i'm sure that they would like to be able to farm without subsidies, but this would require them to get a fair price for what they produce and as long as the supermarkets control the market this isn't likely.

    So hopefully that gives a fairly objective view of the state of farming in this country, i can't give as much information on Arable farming because i don't have the knowledge, but if anyone has questions i'd be glad to try and answer them and clear things up.

    Andy

    Edit: i think that's the longest post i've made here, hopefully people read it and whooo 1000th post!

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    Re: The lie of the land

    That is a very good post Andy.

    I take a lot of interest in this kind of thing, but really don't know enough about it all to pass comment and certailally not to write that

    My Grandad was a butcher and although he retired about 10 years ago, he didn't like the way things were going then. I think he would be appauled at the industry as it is now. He was very good at his job in his day.

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    Re: The lie of the land

    That's a great summary

    I missed the programme as Dak was watching channel 4 + 1 to catch the Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall Chicken Run repeat.

    I hope the showing of programmes such as these will encourage more people to question the provenance of the food they are consuming.

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    Re: The lie of the land

    Quote Originally Posted by kasavien View Post
    The animal welfare in this country is exemplary compared to much of the rest of the world, yet people are fine eating imported meat from countries where animal welfare is much less than ours. Looking at Brazil for example where foot and mouth is rife, pasture land is created by chopping down the rain forest, and much of the labour used to rear the animals is extremely poorly paid bordering on slave labour in some instances. Yet a lot of beef is imported from there, when this country is more than capable of being self sufficient.

    This is one thing that interests me actually, as an example the general population are interested in the welfare of foxes which led to the ban on fox hunting, but they are prepared to remain ignorant of the animal welfare of the meat they eat that is imported from other countries.
    This is because people are too far detatched from it, and instead concerned with the colour of the meat and the price (when on the supermarket shelf). Its that simple.

    Same goes with foxy woxy hwunting. Those poor little huggable loverable little fellows where been unfairly used for the gratification of the Toffs. Fact is fox hunting ban was an astonishingly un-democratic move, as emergency powers where used to force it.

    Its a simple indication that people don't give a whoot about the suffering their food may go through, often because they don't know, and the cutsie wootsie little foxy is a far better vote winner.

    (also its rather un-fair to say that people shouldnt be buying the cheaper meat because its foreign, such protectionist attitudes are really pathetic, but also harming in the long term)

    But no british group will ever launch an add campagin of look how much better our cows are as they're dying, to many people are too removed from it all, and will simply look the other way.
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    Re: The lie of the land

    Very true - I guess all you can do if try and by locally slaughtered / butchered meat wherever possible. A) its supporting local business B ) a happy animal is a tasty animal

    I think its part of being a responsible omnivore.
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    Re: The lie of the land

    Let's be realistic here, few people will put effort into caring about what happens to their meat before it becomes dinner because they can justify it because it's food. People were more against fox hunting because in their mind, it was <i>unnessercary</i> suffering because the animal carcases were discarded.

    It's a thin justification but at least it's understandable.


    That said, the farmers lot is definately a tough one, and I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 30 years, we find ourselves without any farmers, unless some large corporation steps in to run them. Even then, finding people with the knowledge or dedication to run a farm will be really tricky.

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    Re: The lie of the land

    I concede TheAnimus and Lucio's point that people are detached from the food they eat so it is irrelevant to them where it comes from. This maybe only seems odd to me because i know exactly what is involved in the production of pretty much all the food i eat and i'm aware of the double standards that exist.

    also its rather un-fair to say that people shouldnt be buying the cheaper meat because its foreign, such protectionist attitudes are really pathetic, but also harming in the long term
    It is unfair to say people shouldn't buy imported products, choice is one of the good things about this country, but i'm worried that farming will go the way of the mining and clothing industries because there are a lot of farmers that no of nothing else although this isn't so much the case with the younger generation. But i also think it is hypocritical of the consumer to expect animal welfare standards in this country to be high, when the welfare standards of the countries we import from aren't of the same standard and at the end of the day it's double standards. As long as it doesn't happen in our country it's apparently ok.

    Looking at fox hunting for a moment, the program last night took a look at the issue also. The argument is that hunting a fox is really no different from shooting, snaring and gassing which are the legal alternatives. Shooting relies on the person being a good shot, there were pictures on the program of a fox that had had a leg taken off by a rifle but was still running around and certainly didn't die quickly. Snaring isn't much better, the fox can be snared for many hours in which time it will often half strangle itself and inflict other injuries trying to escape. I'm not sure of gassing, it perhaps seems the preferable method but it isn't the most practical. But the point is (as it seems to me)that none of them are any better than hunting with dogs and at the end of the day the fox population needs to be controlled.

    In this country farming isn't something you do because it's a good career, people do it because they love it, it's their way of life.

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    Re: The lie of the land

    You only have to read the 'Down on the farm' column in Private Eye every week to realise what an utter, utter ****up the government have made of agriculture in this country. Sorry about evading the swear filter, but there's really no non-profane word that's adequate.

    Possibly the worst example in amongst an absolute litany of failures was the government failing to make payments to farmers under the 'Single Farm Payment' scheme.

    BBC NEWS | UK | Farm payment fiasco fine expected

    So while British farmers went broke because they hadn't received their payments, the European Comission were bending the UK taxpayer over and rogering them with a &#163;300m fine, all because DEFRA couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. &#163;300m of our money- enough for, say, ten new hospitals? 20 new schools?- stolen by the Eurothieves. The whole episode makes me indescribably angry. I don't know how anyone who's actually heard about the whole sorry mess could possibly think that it's a good idea for us to still be in the EU, or for New Labour to still be in power. ****s the lot of them.

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    Re: The lie of the land

    Quote Originally Posted by kasavien View Post
    It is unfair to say people shouldn't buy imported products, choice is one of the good things about this country, but i'm worried that farming will go the way of the mining and clothing industries because there are a lot of farmers that no of nothing else although this isn't so much the case with the younger generation. But i also think it is hypocritical of the consumer to expect animal welfare standards in this country to be high, when the welfare standards of the countries we import from aren't of the same standard and at the end of the day it's double standards. As long as it doesn't happen in our country it's apparently ok.
    Using the mining and cloathing industries as an example is very poor imo, as cloathing has hudge import duty assigned, and mining is a trickey kettle of fish.

    Most will conceed that its easyer to mine, be it poor grade or not, coal from the open pit methods found outside these islses. Now, why should we create jobs, needlessly, when its much more efficent to mine it elsewhere? if it was in the same country no one would have a voice to complain with. One shouldn't rob peter to pay paul, simply because paul lives closer to you.

    And ignoring that its more efficent for others to provide the produce that a 'local' might is really counter productive.

    The sad fact of the matter is, there are currently people starving/dieing of easily curable ailments, why care about a chicken who's delta is &#163;2, when assuming 1 a week, that could actually stop people from dieing, why improve the life of an animal that knew no better.

    I generally buy free range pork, but thats because for me more than any point in my life, i've got a disposible and like to think i can taste the difference as a means for justifying my 'kind streak'. I'd not condem someone for buying foriegn battery farmed produce, glass houses and all.
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    Re: The lie of the land

    I'm sorry but i don't fully follow what you are saying, i chose clothing and mining to use as examples because i thought they were in essence, examples of where it was cheaper to import than produce at home. I didn't realise this was an incorrect assumption.

    The problem of famine in other countries could be alleviated if more Arable production was focused on food production rather than on using crops to produce biofuels, but this isn't in line with what is economically viable at the moment. Furthermore the situation is made worse by the rising demand for cereals in emerging economies such as china where more and more meat is being consumed and therefore there is a greater demand for cereals for animal fodder.

    I'll try to clarify my point on the economics of livestock production and what the supermarkets are charging using lamb as the example. On tesco.com lamb ranges from £2.95/Kg to £13.04/Kg. Lambs this week were sold at around £0.98/KG at York livestock market so assuming a well finished lamb weighs around 40-50Kg farmers are making around £40-£50 per lamb. When these lambs are slaughtered this leaves a carcass of around 19-23Kg that can be butchered and sold. It's difficult to say how much a company like tesco will sell this for due to the pricing on the different cuts but using the median of their prices (£7.99/Kg) they are selling the lamb for ~£151 (19*7.99), although the actual figure will probably be less due to some of the larger cuts being less expensive. So as you can see somewhere in between the lamb being sold at market and then at tesco as meat a hefty profit is being made, the majority of which is by the supermarket. The point of this is that the price of the lamb sold in the market is the same or in some cases less than it was 10-20 years ago. How farming is supposed to survive in this country when the cost of production increases but the value at sale stays the same or decreases is the point i was trying to make. I presume if this happened in the industry that you worked in TheAnimus then you would be a bit worried too. You were saying that you enjoy free range pork because it tastes better, i would be surprised if more than a small fraction of the price premium you pay for it is passed on to the producer.

    why improve the life of an animal that knew no better
    Some people in this country are concerned with the level of welfare that animals receive (obviously more than they care about people in third world countries, to some people if it isn't in their country it's apparently not an issue like i said before :/) otherwise we wouldn't have the standards we have at present. Moreover there is a growing demand for home grown produce as more people become concerned by the distance that their food is traveling and the impact this is having on the environment. If this is the case then there needs to be a fairer system of remuneration for farming or it simply won't survive and the country[side] won't be the same without it.

    Finally, i agree with rave on the single farm payment, it's a complete and utter farce and it seems to be a lottery for when defra decide to finally pay the farmers. I hadn't realised that we had been fined though.

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    Re: The lie of the land

    Quote Originally Posted by kasavien View Post
    I'm sorry but i don't fully follow what you are saying, i chose clothing and mining to use as examples because i thought they were in essence, examples of where it was cheaper to import than produce at home. I didn't realise this was an incorrect assumption.
    Your spot on that its cheaper to import, the problem is that like many things it gets very political and irrational. The import on cottons is around 40% i belive. This means someone has to be able to produce something 40% more efficently to compete. In my mind this is very wrong.

    The problem becomes where do you draw the line. I was up north when Dyson where shutting down some operation in newcastle, a friend of my grandfarthers been a fellow engineer was upset by this, by the work going out to china, and the loss of jobs for the northerners. Yet at the same time he was celebrating the fact some digital electronics firm was moving its operations from London because its cheaper. He couldn't see the hypocrosy, apparently its ok to descrimiate against people, as long as they are poorer than you.

    With pork, lots of what i see here (london) comes from Poland. Now Polish pork generally i've found to be of a low grade, thanks to (what i belive to be, was served in a bad eastern europian cusian restraunt) polish pork i've had worms, and not the video game. Its this level of animal abuse that will almost certainly create customer uproar, and make people demand food they can trust.

    But the question is why will they trust british? Mad cow still resinates with many consumers.

    So why buy the more expensive british produce? I had some truely fantastic argentian beef the other day, loverly flavour, no hassel to roast, far cheaper.

    As for tesco having a 70% markup on their lamb, this is normal profit margins i'm affriad.
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    Re: The lie of the land

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    With pork, lots of what i see here (london) comes from Poland. Now Polish pork generally i've found to be of a low grade, thanks to (what i belive to be, was served in a bad eastern europian cusian restraunt) polish pork i've had worms, and not the video game. Its this level of animal abuse that will almost certainly create customer uproar, and make people demand food they can trust.

    But the question is why will they trust british? Mad cow still resinates with many consumers.

    So why buy the more expensive british produce? I had some truely fantastic argentian beef the other day, loverly flavour, no hassel to roast, far cheaper.

    As for tesco having a 70&#37; markup on their lamb, this is normal profit margins i'm affriad.
    Well if it's any consolation you shouldn't worry about getting worms from British pork because they're all treated for worms as far as i'm aware, although i'm not sure what the situation with organic pork would be i'm not sure what treatments and vaccines etc they're allowed to use.

    Trust is an interesting issue in British farming, i agree the BSE epidemic was very damaging, but should no longer be an issue in this country at least, because as far as i'm aware Meat & Bone Meal isn't allowed to be fed to ruminants and any animals over 30 months old aren't allowed to enter the food chain. But one of the points i've been trying to make all along is that to gain the publics trust and acceptance a lot of legislation has been brought in, in this country telling farmers how they should rear their animals to raise welfare standards and prevent things like BSE. It seems hypocritical to me that people don't apply the same standards to imported food, how can they put any more trust in it than British produce, when BSE, Foot & Mouth, Scrapie, Bluetongue, Bird Flu etc have all occurred on the continent in the same time period as they have in Britain.

    At least the EU appear to have got something wide by introducing a compulsory ban on battery farming hens by 2012 BBC NEWS | UK | Campaign against chicken cruelty Now if they would bring the rest of Europe up to our standards then i'll be happy and shut up, at least then we'd be able to compete on a level playing field.

    Last point, going back to tesco i wouldn't mind their profit margins if it reflected more accurately the rise and fall of the price of livestock at market. I certainly didn't notice a sharp drop in lamb prices at the supermarket when they were making &#163;10 - &#163;15 a head at market when movement restrictions were lifted after foot & mouth.

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    Re: The lie of the land

    Quote Originally Posted by kasavien View Post
    Trust is an interesting issue in British farming

    .......

    Last point, going back to tesco i wouldn't mind their profit margins if it reflected more accurately the rise and fall of the price of livestock at market. I certainly didn't notice a sharp drop in lamb prices at the supermarket when they were making &#163;10 - &#163;15 a head at market when movement restrictions were lifted after foot & mouth.
    As trust isn't going to be won back overnight (without some kind of flashy PR campaign, which who will pay for? Why would people choose the british option if its more expensive.

    Tesco are not alone in 'normalising' their retail price, look at the power companies as a great example, gas is a good one too look at as the price has been so volatile of late (thanks to political games) at one point last year, they where paying people to TAKE the gas, remeber gas is sold in forwards. but i belive nPower have just upped their prices by 23&#37; or something. In some ways normalising is better for the consumer thou, as it makes it easyer to budget.
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