The kulaks are revolting - does Urban back big farmer?

[Funky_monks]

The problem here is that people are looking at the issue through the lense of fairness or morality. I couldn't give a damn even if every farmer was an obnoxious, top-hat wearing toff. The fact is that the country's food supply is an issue of national security. Absolutely every benefit and privilege should be granted to those that keep that supply up and running. To hell with fairness.

From the earlier Guardian article - this seems reasonable:

What are the alternatives?​

In France, the only country in Europe with full food self-sufficiency meaning they do not have to rely on imports, farmers can access tax relief if they jump through administrative hoops to prove they work the land themselves.

Guy Singh-Watson, an organic farmer and founder of Riverford Organic vegetable boxes, who broadly supports the government’s plan, said: “Land in the French Vendée – where I have owned a 120-hectare (300-acre) farm for the past 15 years – is less than a 10th of the price of equivalent land in Devon, where I also farm. To be a farmer there, you have to be deemed fit to farm by the local administration. I doubt whether many landowners simply buying up farmland would pass that test.” He suggested a similar policy could be put in place in the UK, with true farmers given tax benefits.

 

[Funky_monks]

The butter mountain and the wine lake occurred under the Common Agricultural Policy.

Which was reformed in 2003 to give us decoupled payments, still under the CAP.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The wine lake was great. Loads of cheap wine to swim around in. Butter mountain was a bit too slippery. Kept sliding down. Crampons wouldn't hold.

 

[PTK]

Now I'm just hungry and thirsty

It was the mountains of butter and the lakes of wine that were crucial in convincing the electorate to vote in favour of remaining in the EEC in 1975. We thought that we could climb them and swim un them.
Basically, the lakes and mountains were there to keep up the price of foodstuffs. I think that the CAP was changed so that farmers were instead paid to not produce crops, in order to keep the prices up.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

From the earlier Guardian article - this seems reasonable:

What are the alternatives?​

In France, the only country in Europe with full food self-sufficiency meaning they do not have to rely on imports, farmers can access tax relief if they jump through administrative hoops to prove they work the land themselves.

Guy Singh-Watson, an organic farmer and founder of Riverford Organic vegetable boxes, who broadly supports the government’s plan, said: “Land in the French Vendée – where I have owned a 120-hectare (300-acre) farm for the past 15 years – is less than a 10th of the price of equivalent land in Devon, where I also farm. To be a farmer there, you have to be deemed fit to farm by the local administration. I doubt whether many landowners simply buying up farmland would pass that test.” He suggested a similar policy could be put in place in the UK, with true farmers given tax benefits.

That sounds extremely sensible. So it will never happen.

France is an exceedingly bureaucratic country, though. It lends itself to this kind of thing.

 

[brogdale]

Which was reformed in 2003 to give us decoupled payments, still under the CAP.

OK, so from the UK accession in 1973 to 2003, the CAP was related to productivity and led to intensification of existing farmland and expansion into marginal lands at the expense of natural habitats.

Are you saying post 2003 the payments were just related to land area?

 

[Funky_monks]

OK, so from the UK accession in 1973 to 2003, the CAP was related to productivity and led to intensification of existing farmland and expansion into marginal lands at the expense of natural habitats.

Are you saying post 2003 the payments were just related to land area?

Most of them, yes - there were still tier 2 payments - The environmental schemes. Also unrelated to food production.

 

[PTK]

Which was reformed in 2003 to give us decoupled payments, still under the CAP.

I remember farmers being paid to not grow food long before 2003.

 

[brogdale]

It was the mountains of butter and the lakes of wine that were crucial in convincing the electorate to vote in favour of remaining in the EEC in 1975. We thought that we could climb them and swim un them.
Basically, the lakes and mountains were there to keep up the price of foodstuffs. I think that the CAP was changed so that farmers were instead paid to not produce crops, in order to keep the prices up.

There was a little more nuance to the threshold price limits set by the cap; the upper limit was supposed to protect the population from unaffordable prices in low yield harvests and the lower to offer producers a 'floor' below which prices would fall in periods of glut. In a word, the market intervention objective was stability, within parameters. The problem, of course, was that farmers quickly twigged that the lower floor price would hold however much they produced; there was no disincentive not to continually intensify production...hence the lakes and mountains.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

OK, so from the UK accession in 1973 to 2003, the CAP was related to productivity and led to intensification of existing farmland and expansion into marginal lands at the expense of natural habitats.

Are you saying post 2003 the payments were just related to land area?

tbf, food security was a huge issue in Europe and across the world post-war. There were Malthusian types predicting mass starvation. Mistakes were made, plenty of them, but the 'Green Revolution' did work.

There are more well-nourished people in the world now than there have ever been. Absolute numbers of malnourished people have started to creep up again after a long period of falling.

Point now is that we need a second Green Revolution. And we need leadership to get us there. I don't see it.

 

[brogdale]

Most of them, yes - there were still tier 2 payments - The environmental schemes. Also unrelated to food production.

I see, so there were still incentives to extend productive land.

 

[Funky_monks]

I see, so there were still incentives to extend productive land.

No, the opposite. The environmental schemes were to take land out of production for the environment, or farm it in less productive, more environmentally friendly way.

 

[brogdale]

That is not at all what CAP did -

Not sure what motivated you to write that, then.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I see, so there were still incentives to extend productive land.

It's a big question, isn't it, How should we farm? FWIW my idea for that is that we need more hyper-intensive systems, such as salad crops grown in vertical farms, combined with extremely extensive farming systems in which, for example, livestock roam through semi-wooded areas. So that term 'productive land' hides a huge range of possibilities.

 

[Funky_monks]

I remember farmers being paid to not grow food long before 2003.

Yes, set aside. But some production subs existed - milk quotas etc

 

[Funky_monks]

Not sure what motivated you to write that, then.

I was taking the CAP in the context it was being talked about, ie BREXIT and currently. Not a 20 year old odd iteration of it.

 

[brogdale]

I was taking the CAP in the context it was being talked about, ie BREXIT and currently. Not a 20 year old odd iteration of it.

The context in which we were discussing CAP was burtabraham 's claims that UK food security was endangered by the IHT reforms. I suggested that if the UK govt. did feel the need to become more self-sufficient then incentives to intensify (like CAP) would be needed.

As you have pointed out I should have said CAP (1962 - 2003) until decoupling occurred.

 

[newme]

It was the mountains of butter and the lakes of wine that were crucial in convincing the electorate to vote in favour of remaining in the EEC in 1975. We thought that we could climb them and swim un them.
Basically, the lakes and mountains were there to keep up the price of foodstuffs. I think that the CAP was changed so that farmers were instead paid to not produce crops, in order to keep the prices up.

Ah before my birth tho I did hear the stories, I'm not even a fan of wine but if its free booze then its going down my neck, as multiple ski reps can attest.

 

[PTK]

The problem here is that people are looking at the issue through the lense of fairness or morality. I couldn't give a damn even if every farmer was an obnoxious, top-hat wearing toff. The fact is that the country's food supply is an issue of national security. Absolutely every benefit and privilege should be granted to those that keep that supply up and running. To hell with fairness.

Well, if food is such an issue of national security, then perhaps agricultural land should be owned by the state.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Ah before my birth tho I did hear the stories, I'm not even a fan of wine but if its free booze then its going down my neck, as multiple ski reps can attest.

Back in the early 90s during a period when I was signing on, we were randomly given tins of steak from the EU on top of the dole. Little bits of meat in lots of gravy.

A few years later, I did a taste test of my cat's tin of beef catfood because it smelled the same. It also tasted about the same.

 

[tim]

According to James O'Brien, he's a regular in there. Here he is there last week...
View attachment 451958

I've just been reading that Ellen DeGeneres has fled Trump and has also been drinking there with James Blunt and Natalia Imbruglia: not the sort of thing I normally read. Fleeing Orangeman and end up propping up the bar alongside One-eyed Nazi Nick with Clarkson serving up his best Lancashire hotpot to keep everyone happy.

Ellen DeGeneres & Portia de Rossi Spotted at UK Pub Before News of Move

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi's big move news may've just surfaced, but it seems the couple has been settling down in the UK for some time.

www.google.com

 

[tim]

Or more professionally

 

[Sasaferrato]

I think Reeves is so far out of her depth that you cannot even see the bubbles.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Back in the early 90s during a period when I was signing on, we were randomly given tins of steak from the EU on top of the dole. Little bits of meat in lots of gravy.

A few years later, I did a taste test of my cat's tin of beef catfood because it smelled the same. It also tasted about the same.

I know someone who arrived home drunk and demanded to be fed. He ate the cat food sandwiches and pronounced them to be delicious.

 

[burtabraham]

Well, if food is such an issue of national security, then perhaps agricultural land should be owned by the state.

I'm not opposed to the idea in principle, so long as the politicians stay out of the way of the actual job of farming. Last thing we need is another Lysenko.

 

[ouirdeaux]

It was the mountains of butter and the lakes of wine that were crucial in convincing the electorate to vote in favour of remaining in the EEC in 1975.

Was it really?

 

[burtabraham]

I know someone who arrived home drunk and demanded to be fed. He ate the cat food sandwiches and pronounced them to be delicious.

I like to think this is you talking about yourself in the third person

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I like to think this is you talking about yourself in the third person

Absolutely. Me too now.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I like to think this is you talking about yourself in the third person

You don't know my other half, do you? If I arrived home drunk demanding to be fed they probably wouldn't even find my body.

 

[tim]

I know someone who arrived home drunk and demanded to be fed. He ate the cat food sandwiches and pronounced them to be delicious.

I've always found refering to yourself in the third person a very strange affectation.

As to the UK becoming self-sufficient in food, the problem is that I don't like turnips but I do like olives. The country seemed to adapt fairly well in the 1940s, but the silent generation went to their graves constantly moaning amongst many other things, about how awful rationing was. It was all downhill from the joys of Woolton Pie.



Even during that period we kept on importing a huge volume of tea leaves, hardly a dietary essential but crucial for keeping up morale on the home front. People have been trading food across political boundaries for millennia, because they couldn't grow the nice stuff they liked in their own fields.