SDP would be getting my vote if I still lived in England. Hopefully Reform and the Greens can take large chunks off the established parties and force them into finally abandoning FPTP
ChilblainEdwardOlmos
1 month ago
“And now, to top it off, they are facing organised gangs roaming the countryside and stealing their equipment, something to which they have no response; the police likewise.”
This is the first I have heard of that. Link? Not sceptical, just curious.
It has always been thus. I have a smallholding in a very rural area. Metal farm gates were regularly taken if not secured, and I wouldn’t dream of leaving my outbuildings unlocked. The police do nothing if a crime is reported.
An increase in tourism has been an increase of petty theft, it seems some holidaymakers see nothing wrong in taking a memento of their stay in the countryside.
My brother farmed and regularly had red diesel stolen. Padlocks on the tank would just be smashed. The worst theft of all was his water. He turned off his water for a major construction, only to have a neighbour complain. It turned out that that a previous occupant of the neighbouring farm had tapped into his water supply and my brother had been paying through his meter for some years.
Walkers showed no respect for rights of way and would wander through the farm yard and anything not tied down would be stolen. It was not uncommon to find “ sportsmen “ in some of the more distant fields carrying shotguns. It was also a problem with marauding dogs. I have seen up to half a dozen ewes with their throats ripped open.
He was fortunate that he was also a Chartered Surveyor, he sold the farm and had a much easier life.
Police are not interested they will just shrug and say , “Too difficult to to find evidence and anyway we are snowed under with complaints from people who have been offended by some trivial thing on social media.
Robbie K
1 month ago
A very reasonable article, and very reasonable suggestions from the SDP. I’m uncertain that protests will achieve the aims however, since it will be difficult for many to grasp the complexities of the decline and indeed the solutions.
Jake Raven
1 month ago
“Cheap food is very expensive.” We may welcome it in the supermarket, but we pay for it in other ways: through suffering farm animals and poor public health, through degraded fields, rivers and wildlife.
We also pay through taxpayer funded subsidies, an indirect cost rarely considered.
While I try to buy British produce, I dislike the lack of competition and protectionism afforded to agriculture.
I’m more concerned with the creeping coverage of farmland with solar panels and wind turbines and the growing of food crops for biofuel.
Net zero policies are having a big impact on farming in many different ways, I’d like to see net zero 2050 legislation repealed (I know it won’t happen) and let’s start growing the economy and food.
This article and the SDP paper calls for more state intervention, more regulations, less choice and more expense for consumers.
No thanks.
Uhh yes? We have access to a wider range of foods at prices more accessible than at any other time in human history.
I’m totally in favour of domestic protectionism and making Brits pay British prices for British food (and labour!) but we have to be honest about the costs.
We also need to be honest about who will benefit. We have this image of the everyman farmer rising at 4am every day to do the cows and corn and deliver for the blood and soil british public. But in reality if we erect protectionist barriers the overwhelming beneficiaries will be wealthy landowners who still own most of england’s land.
Actually it has, food in real terms and as a percentage of household budget has never been cheaper. There is a greater variety of food and choice for consumers.
I’ll be interested to hear your counterargument.
The counter argument is that it’s putting many domestic farms out of business. A nation that can’t feed itself is always in danger and at the mercy of world events.
At least during the war we had one of the worlds strongest navies and an empire to keep the food coming in, if a similar conflict ever kicked off now there’d be no hope of something similar happening.
The pandemic taught is that being totally reliant on global supply chains is a fools errand.
Cheap food also isn’t much use if we put thousands on the dole to get it, it ends up costing the country more in the long run
You won against the Corn Laws but you won’t win this time around.
Adam M
1 month ago
Very good article that reaches beyond the scope of it’s premise. The commodification of land in the UK is one of the greatest (largely unreported) crimes that’s being committed against our poor country atm. The self justifying loop of importing more people, building more houses and forcing up the cost of everything else in the process for ordinary people is horrendous, and slowly ruining all of our lives.
The area I currently live in was once a rural community but over the last decade has become a perpetual building site. As broke farmers sell up their land to make way for more dystopianly uniform, soulless blocks of bright orange, supposedly affordable housing. All of which are about a half a days walk from any kind of shop or public service.
The Free Market has always worked well. Avoids all those costs of silly central planning & the need for long term strategy.
Certainly a game changer in healthcare, as I see at work everyday.
And in every copy of Private Eye that I pick up.
Gotta go- Michelle Mone’s at the door…
Charles Levett-Scrivener
1 month ago
Across the world, over the last 30 years, the ratio of the costs of purchased inputs (sprays, fertilizers, seeds, machinery etc.) compared to output prices ( crop prices, milk, finished live animals) (and not offset by rising yields except in former communist countries) has risen greatly cutting gross margins severely.
This is why protests have occurred globally e.g. India.
However, in the UK and in the EU farmers are also hit by non-scientific bans of sprays and GMO crops and now are being hit with “anti-climate change” actions e.g. higher taxes on fuels, more set aside and enforced lower stocking levels e.g. Ireland and the Netherlands.
I can’t speak for the UK, but the Indian situation is completely different. The ” protests” were confined to the Punjab and were entirely of rich billionaire farmers who wanted more subsidies and pampering by a continuation of an outdated socialist agricultural marketing system.
Farming in India is not subject to income tax. Farmers get free electricity and water. They don’t pay any taxes. They hardly have any input costs other than paying farm labour where too the Government picks up most of the tabs.
It is based on archaic Socialist legislation similar to the Soviet Union and Maoist China- fixed subsidies, inflated guaranteed prices, monopolistic markets etc
Read Ashok Gulati the renowned agricultural economist to know more if interested.
Matt M
1 month ago
As always I recommend Harry’s Farm on this issue of farming regulation. Here is his latest video from yesterday. As far as I can tell, the farmers in Wales are revolting because of the daft regulations that the Welsh government is trying to impose in the name of environmentalism. English farmers are not revolting and are reasonably happy with the new post-Brexit Countryside Stewardship payment scheme.
I agree but to say Welsh farmers are more revolting than English farmers is a bit racist.
David Collier
1 month ago
I think we can treat this article as an SDP promotional leaflet. ‘Now, British farmers’ anger is starting to boil over’ Is it? Who says? What evidence have we for that? ‘ joining their counterparts from within the EU who have been in open revolt for months over low prices, cheap imports and environmental regulations. ‘. In Britain it’s different, the gripe framers have that has been manifested in protests at Dover is lower, or less controlled, food standards from overseas and vastly increased bureaucracy costs as a result of Brexit and the highly disadvantageous trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand signed by politicians desperate to prove Brexit was worthwhile at whatever cost. Some unkind souls say it serves the farmers right, they were the ones so keen to put Vote Leave posters up in their fields, but be that as it may, they shot themselves seriously in the foot and gloating isn’t going to do any good. And quite what the current-day SDP plans doing about all this? Like so much they propound, all rather a mystery.
David Walters
1 month ago
The UK is rapidly becoming a country that I no longer recognise. I get the feeling that whichever of the two main parties get in at the next election there will be no change in direction either for our countryside or towns/cities. Nongovernmental organisations with their own agendas determine what is going to happen and our elected representatives just fall into line. It’s probably the same in most countries now. Quite scary really.
SDP would be getting my vote if I still lived in England. Hopefully Reform and the Greens can take large chunks off the established parties and force them into finally abandoning FPTP
“And now, to top it off, they are facing organised gangs roaming the countryside and stealing their equipment, something to which they have no response; the police likewise.”
This is the first I have heard of that. Link? Not sceptical, just curious.
It’s common knowledge out in the sticks. The Albanians act with impunity, threatening extreme violence if anybody tries to stop them
twas ever this, farming friends were telling me about travelers doing this 25+ years ago. Nothing is safe from being stolen on a farm
https://policeprofessional.com/news/rural-crime-soaring-as-organised-gangs-target-farm-machinery/#:~:text=The%20cost%20of%20rural%20theft,figures%20released%20by%20NFU%20Mutual.
It has always been thus. I have a smallholding in a very rural area. Metal farm gates were regularly taken if not secured, and I wouldn’t dream of leaving my outbuildings unlocked. The police do nothing if a crime is reported.
An increase in tourism has been an increase of petty theft, it seems some holidaymakers see nothing wrong in taking a memento of their stay in the countryside.
My brother farmed and regularly had red diesel stolen. Padlocks on the tank would just be smashed. The worst theft of all was his water. He turned off his water for a major construction, only to have a neighbour complain. It turned out that that a previous occupant of the neighbouring farm had tapped into his water supply and my brother had been paying through his meter for some years.
Walkers showed no respect for rights of way and would wander through the farm yard and anything not tied down would be stolen. It was not uncommon to find “ sportsmen “ in some of the more distant fields carrying shotguns. It was also a problem with marauding dogs. I have seen up to half a dozen ewes with their throats ripped open.
He was fortunate that he was also a Chartered Surveyor, he sold the farm and had a much easier life.
Regularly reported in local media.
Police are not interested they will just shrug and say , “Too difficult to to find evidence and anyway we are snowed under with complaints from people who have been offended by some trivial thing on social media.
A very reasonable article, and very reasonable suggestions from the SDP. I’m uncertain that protests will achieve the aims however, since it will be difficult for many to grasp the complexities of the decline and indeed the solutions.
We also pay through taxpayer funded subsidies, an indirect cost rarely considered.
While I try to buy British produce, I dislike the lack of competition and protectionism afforded to agriculture.
I’m more concerned with the creeping coverage of farmland with solar panels and wind turbines and the growing of food crops for biofuel.
Net zero policies are having a big impact on farming in many different ways, I’d like to see net zero 2050 legislation repealed (I know it won’t happen) and let’s start growing the economy and food.
This article and the SDP paper calls for more state intervention, more regulations, less choice and more expense for consumers.
No thanks.
Because leaving it to the market has worked wonders hasn’t it!
Uhh yes? We have access to a wider range of foods at prices more accessible than at any other time in human history.
I’m totally in favour of domestic protectionism and making Brits pay British prices for British food (and labour!) but we have to be honest about the costs.
We also need to be honest about who will benefit. We have this image of the everyman farmer rising at 4am every day to do the cows and corn and deliver for the blood and soil british public. But in reality if we erect protectionist barriers the overwhelming beneficiaries will be wealthy landowners who still own most of england’s land.
Actually it has, food in real terms and as a percentage of household budget has never been cheaper. There is a greater variety of food and choice for consumers.
I’ll be interested to hear your counterargument.
The counter argument is that it’s putting many domestic farms out of business. A nation that can’t feed itself is always in danger and at the mercy of world events.
At least during the war we had one of the worlds strongest navies and an empire to keep the food coming in, if a similar conflict ever kicked off now there’d be no hope of something similar happening.
The pandemic taught is that being totally reliant on global supply chains is a fools errand.
Cheap food also isn’t much use if we put thousands on the dole to get it, it ends up costing the country more in the long run
You won against the Corn Laws but you won’t win this time around.
Very good article that reaches beyond the scope of it’s premise. The commodification of land in the UK is one of the greatest (largely unreported) crimes that’s being committed against our poor country atm. The self justifying loop of importing more people, building more houses and forcing up the cost of everything else in the process for ordinary people is horrendous, and slowly ruining all of our lives.
The area I currently live in was once a rural community but over the last decade has become a perpetual building site. As broke farmers sell up their land to make way for more dystopianly uniform, soulless blocks of bright orange, supposedly affordable housing. All of which are about a half a days walk from any kind of shop or public service.
Well said!
The Free Market has always worked well. Avoids all those costs of silly central planning & the need for long term strategy.
Certainly a game changer in healthcare, as I see at work everyday.
And in every copy of Private Eye that I pick up.
Gotta go- Michelle Mone’s at the door…
Across the world, over the last 30 years, the ratio of the costs of purchased inputs (sprays, fertilizers, seeds, machinery etc.) compared to output prices ( crop prices, milk, finished live animals) (and not offset by rising yields except in former communist countries) has risen greatly cutting gross margins severely.
This is why protests have occurred globally e.g. India.
However, in the UK and in the EU farmers are also hit by non-scientific bans of sprays and GMO crops and now are being hit with “anti-climate change” actions e.g. higher taxes on fuels, more set aside and enforced lower stocking levels e.g. Ireland and the Netherlands.
I can’t speak for the UK, but the Indian situation is completely different. The ” protests” were confined to the Punjab and were entirely of rich billionaire farmers who wanted more subsidies and pampering by a continuation of an outdated socialist agricultural marketing system.
Farming in India is not subject to income tax. Farmers get free electricity and water. They don’t pay any taxes. They hardly have any input costs other than paying farm labour where too the Government picks up most of the tabs.
It is based on archaic Socialist legislation similar to the Soviet Union and Maoist China- fixed subsidies, inflated guaranteed prices, monopolistic markets etc
Read Ashok Gulati the renowned agricultural economist to know more if interested.
As always I recommend Harry’s Farm on this issue of farming regulation. Here is his latest video from yesterday. As far as I can tell, the farmers in Wales are revolting because of the daft regulations that the Welsh government is trying to impose in the name of environmentalism. English farmers are not revolting and are reasonably happy with the new post-Brexit Countryside Stewardship payment scheme.
I agree but to say Welsh farmers are more revolting than English farmers is a bit racist.
I think we can treat this article as an SDP promotional leaflet. ‘Now, British farmers’ anger is starting to boil over’ Is it? Who says? What evidence have we for that? ‘ joining their counterparts from within the EU who have been in open revolt for months over low prices, cheap imports and environmental regulations. ‘. In Britain it’s different, the gripe framers have that has been manifested in protests at Dover is lower, or less controlled, food standards from overseas and vastly increased bureaucracy costs as a result of Brexit and the highly disadvantageous trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand signed by politicians desperate to prove Brexit was worthwhile at whatever cost. Some unkind souls say it serves the farmers right, they were the ones so keen to put Vote Leave posters up in their fields, but be that as it may, they shot themselves seriously in the foot and gloating isn’t going to do any good. And quite what the current-day SDP plans doing about all this? Like so much they propound, all rather a mystery.
The UK is rapidly becoming a country that I no longer recognise. I get the feeling that whichever of the two main parties get in at the next election there will be no change in direction either for our countryside or towns/cities. Nongovernmental organisations with their own agendas determine what is going to happen and our elected representatives just fall into line. It’s probably the same in most countries now. Quite scary really.
My suggestion is to abandon the thought that humanity will fix these problems. We need Jesus for a reason.