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Farmers cutting food supplies as cost soars

Bingoman

Bingoman

Well-Known Member
Just seen this news item on the BBC news business page, looks like some might go under as it appears the Government are not helping?

www.bbc.co.uk

Farmers cut food production as costs soar

Soaring costs are forcing farmers to cut back on food and milk production.
www.bbc.co.uk

So come the autumn is the UK going have food such as veg and bread as the farmers cant meet the costs, so what will happen next to farmers if they cant supply shops?
 
platinumsage said:
They didn't even do that in WWII, instead the County War Agricultural Executive Committee just said "plant what we tell you or else we'll take the land and get someone else to do it".

I don't think we're quite there yet.
Click to expand...

TBF we fundamentally lack that sort of interventionist (in a good way) government nowadays - this crowd are instead mostly absent except for uttering statements, as they are on every issue.
 
Bingoman said:
Just seen this news item on the BBC news business page, looks like some might go under as it appears the Government are not helping?

www.bbc.co.uk

Farmers cut food production as costs soar

Soaring costs are forcing farmers to cut back on food and milk production.
www.bbc.co.uk

So come the autumn is the UK going have food such as veg and bread as the farmers cant meet the costs, so what will happen next to farmers if they cant supply shops?
Click to expand...

I hope it's just the farmers you have to worry about. A lot of countries are shutting down exports of food in anticipation of shortages at home. If the UK can't import food, you could have real hunger there.
 
Shortage of turkeys is a long way from famine.

Since there’s a war on, nut roast seems appropriate.
 
Britain's about 54% self sufficient atm. And thanks to bonkers development policies which encourage low-density high profit US-style development that's a falling number, even disregarding the shady agro policies of governments and corner cutting/price gouging happening across the industry.

So we're well placed to be hit particularly hard by food shortages, and I don't see food prices going anywhere but up at a fairly fast clip for the rest of my lifetime, even after the main readjustment which is on its way. The era of cheap food is over.
 
Loads of farmers coining it in subsidies despite not actually producing food.

Quite a few 'solar farms' being built around here because it's easy money with basically zero work for landowners. That's all land lost to food production.

Another big issue will be workers. Until rural communities are no longer treated as holiday destinations and retirement ghettos but as actual functional places with social housing, public transport and other basic services that's not gonna be resolved any time soon. That said many farms have enough accomodation for lots of people and if operated as social enterprises could be a lot more productive.

Landowners/farmers in this country are shit on the whole. Their main activities are murdering badgers, pouring slurry into rivers and leaving large amounts of rusty metal lying around.
 
For a long time, arable farming has been gambling on commodity prices. Prices go up and prices go down.
The huge increase in production cost is the new factor. But we're all feeling that
 
Farmers have got it in for Johsnons right now - seen a couple of those field billboards denouncing him as ecowarrior or god knows what it said on there. Will be interesting to see what happens once the subsidies stop
 
O dear, I am pretty much an unreconstructed townie but know enough to dismiss the urban stereotype of farmers. There is as much diversity in farming as in any other business sector....from hedgefund investment opportunists to small council farms. Spending time in Norfolk has been an eye-opener for me. My nearest farmer neighbour has 160 beef cows on grazing marsh while my friend keeps 250 sheep on various rented fields. There are a shitload of problems with intensive agriculture or pastoral farming, for sure (and I am also trying to avoid some bucolic romanticism of 'the countryside') but stereotypes are a wee bit lazy, given the complexity of the farming sector (and the alarming mental health issues and suicide data).
 
campanula said:
O dear, I am pretty much an unreconstructed townie but know enough to dismiss the urban stereotype of farmers. There is as much diversity in farming as in any other business sector....from hedgefund investment opportunists to small council farms. Spending time in Norfolk has been an eye-opener for me. My nearest farmer neighbour has 160 beef cows on grazing marsh while my friend keeps 250 sheep on various rented fields. There are a shitload of problems with intensive agriculture or pastoral farming, for sure (and I am also trying to avoid some bucolic romanticism of 'the countryside') but stereotypes are a wee bit lazy, given the complexity of the farming sector (and the alarming mental health issues and suicide data).
Click to expand...
that was a quote from alan partridge there campanula (as was the spinal bap thing)
 
Food in general is endangered,because our diet is narrower than ever-and it's not just our palates that will suffer,but the planet.It appears that we have an incredible choice and variety but the diversity of crops worldwide has gone down.The vast majority of those products you see in supermarkets will have been made with a limited number of ingredients,like wheat,maize,palm oil an soy.The diversity within these crops is also disappearing,as we rely on an ever smaller number of high yielding varieties.
 
poppy60 said:
Food in general is endangered,because our diet is narrower than ever-and it's not just our palates that will suffer,but the planet.It appears that we have an incredible choice and variety but the diversity of crops worldwide has gone down.The vast majority of those products you see in supermarkets will have been made with a limited number of ingredients,like wheat,maize,palm oil an soy.The diversity within these crops is also disappearing,as we rely on an ever smaller number of high yielding varieties.
Click to expand...

There's a farmer education program put on by a chemical manufacturer that airs on Sunday mornings here. For every problem, there's a chemical they'll sell you. Nearly all the weeds they are trying to kill have more nutrients than many of the crops they're trying to grow. Some of these weeds used to be viable food crops for humans such as amaranth, jerusalem artichoke, and purslane. I'd like to recommend stopping chemical farming, but we've reached a point where some crop yields are dependent on them, such as on being able to plant rows of corn just inches apart. You can't do that organically. If you went organic, you'd have to space them further apart to leave room to till between rows. That alone would lower your yield.
 
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