General Chat

Not at all naive.....

The subsidies paid to farmers are not related to producing milk it began by paying farmers to leave fields fallow due to over production. This was evident during the EU milk lake, butter and cheese mountain fiasco when our local post office was allocated so much cheese and butter to distribute there were not enough recipients to give it away to and it had to be frozen and given out over months!

They were then paid compensation for the halting of stock movement from the Chernobyl fallout. Compensation from the devastating effects of bovine disease.

Exactly which subsidies are allocated for the production of milk and are benefiting dairy farmers? The RPA schemes aren't exactly beneficial to the average dairy farmer.

I don't buy the supermarket brand milk.

It doesn't last until the use-by date :-|

Plenty of dairy herds around here and plenty of whinging farmers.

I have some sympathy for small farmers but none whatsoever for those with huge dairy herds, which they expand on a yearly basis. John Humphreys (himself a farmer) questioned a NFU rep yesterday on the radio about the subsidies and the man said he preferred to call it support. As if the name matters.

As John said, we don't subsidise the mines, we don't subsidise manufacturing industry - what's so special about farmers?

Supply and demand applies in other industries and should apply to farming as well. They aren't that special.

We are glad to be out of it. It's the best thing we ever did but I'm still sad that the dairy industry will eventually disappear. We know of a farmer who invested a vast sum and they are going under.



Future generations will I believe regret the loss of small farms. We neighbour huge fields where hedges were ripped out in the past, I believe it isn't permitted nowadays? Our farm still maintains the beautiful patchwork that makes our countryside so attractive to wildlife and man alike.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/02/-sp-battle-soul-british-milk

That's an interesting article, Joy.

It was one of these robotic milking plants, along with cattle housing etc. that people we know invested in.

We were in the process of expanding from a herd of 80 to 120 when the quotas were introduced. The buildings were going up and a new milking parlour, literally as we were allotted quota. We were given quota on what we were producing at the time, not what we were about to. It then meant buying in quota and the figures didn't add up.

The supermarkets are only able to flog milk cheaply because of current over supply.

Farming is not an activity amenable to short term supply and demand economics. This is due to the very long business cycle and other public interest factors such as land use policy and food security. For that reason farming in Europe since ww2 has often been subsidised. Sheep farming in the uplands of Wales and the Lake District could not exist without subsidy and the loss of the farmers would also destroy the landscape and greatly harm wildlife.

The reasons for the current massive over supply of milk right across Europe are (a) decline in China for milk products mainly baby milk (b) the Russia sanctions imposed after their invasion of the Ukraine and destruction of flight MH371.

The farmers can hardly be held responsible for the blowback of political decisions made by NATO and the G7. It would be entirely reasonable for the state to pick up the tab - indeed that is what is happening elsewhere in Europe. The sanctions affect other areas as well as milk. Loss of the Russian market has caused the Danes to dump pork products elsewhere and especially the UK. The result is that farmers trying to produce quality pork using ethical methods are being crucified. Getting back to China New Zealand is dumping frozen lamb on the UK causing misery for hill farmers ...

My farming rellies got out of livestock farming 50 years ago and have joined the barley barons and growers of veg.-as-far-as-you-can-see in what was once Fenland. They neither need nor receive nay subsidy. Indeed life is so profitable that they have donated both land and money to various Wetland organisations. They don't agree with me that the Fens could make more money as wetland than growing barley though.

Don't apply simple supply and demand logic to farming it is a complex industry with many people having an interest.

If you want to see what a flat out neo liberal farming sector is like than go to the USA. Both the food produced and the methods used to produce it are ugly and unsustainable. Through the TIPP treaties US agro corps. are hoping to impose their model on Europe. They are already doing so in Hungary. There is not much difference in end effect between US style farming and fracking.

:-|

*and the loss of the farmers would also destroy the landscape and greatly harm wildlife.*

Farmers had to be bribed not to rip up hedges, they wanted to destroy the landscape. They have to be bribed to preserve hedgerows and wildlife habitats.

if we stopped importing milk there wouldn't be a surplus here

The farm next to our housing estate is the only thing stopping the council allowing yet more houses being built onto the village.....almost 1500 built in the last 2 years and 650 more to come!!

Being born and raised on a farm and living all my married life next to one I know how hard the owners of both these farms work. They have some good years and some poor, but their heart is in the land they work.

Because of these 2 farms we have some wonderful footpaths to walk, streams, trees, wildflowers, hedgerows and ponds to look at while we can see and hear a multitude of other flora and fauna.

Therefore *and the loss of the farmers would also destroy the landscape and greatly harm wildlife.* is a statement I agree with.

ALL supermarkets should just stop using milk as a loss leader.

At the moment we are rapidlyheading the way of most of Europe where only UHTis available.

I loathe UHT milk :-| :-|

Also loathe supermarkets :-|

Getting fresh milk in France is no problem. Moreover many supermarkets from large to small sell "raw" unpasteurised milk with all the butter fat in it. Goat's milk is also easy to find.

The main difference with the UK is that so much butterfat is taken out to make cheese that the "standard" milk is nowhere near as nice as in England. more like semi skimmed milk. Something like gold top does not exist - you just have to go for the raw milk option.

France is the main source of UK milk and dairy imports - it is a massive industry in France. When the farmers get mad they don't have polite little demos at Morrison HQ motorways get blocked by convoys of slow moving trucks, access to stores is blocked by piles of burning tyres, tons of product are dumped all over the place. The demonstrations include central Paris. Nobody is ever arrested and by and large the govt leans over backwards to ensure they get what they need single market EU rules or not.

How the devil the UK farmer is supposed to compete with what is nothing like a free market on the other side of the channel I haven't got a clue.

fwiw French farmers make very little effort to care for the countryside and care less. Most of the country's rivers are so polluted with farm products that the fishing clubs have to release fish into most of the the rivers every spring from hatcheries 'cos the rivers are no longer self sustaining.

Normandy is fairly free of such problems so that the Epte and remarkably the Seine are ok even in Paris. Brittany and the Loire are a disaster.

In case any wildlife is still out there every Sunday "huntsmen" trample all over farmland, private estates, anywhere exercising their Republican duty to hunt blasting away at anything from partridges pigeons and rabbits to hares, rare birds of prey and owls. Hunting deer and wild pig is more controlled.

Indeed the wild pigs (sangliers) have quite a few notches in their peg and must to be treated with caution. This wily and good looking creature makes brer fox look a bit slow on the uptake and is def. a match for most of the Johns. Its numbers have risen sharply (in England too). I guess it is tolerated 'cos it puts the fear of god into city types and is very good eating, v low cholesterol, tender. Wolves and bears are on the up to but nowhere near the wild pig pop.

Anyway Russians like good cheeses of which Russia produces none. Putin's very public destruction of seized EU cheese transiting through Minsk has gone down very badly indeed and may be the spark that ends a loony no war in the Ukraine. Then everybody could get back to normal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTdAIJsduSk
:-D

Ha ha, Rollo to the Youtube.

I was going to write something but think it may be RR'd! :-D

Go on lavendar.........I dare you :-D :-D

No way, I have so far an unblemished record with regard to being RR'd by another

but…

I am in enough trouble... ;-) ;-) ;-)


you need to catch me when I'm high ;-) :-0 ;-) I am sorry to disappoint, you will have to make your own entertainment this evening :-D :-D :-D ;-)

:-D :-D ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipciFdxyLB4

I'm speechless! definitely disturbing..