Neither do I. My problem is our farm products having compete with those products on price. That is not fair on our farmers. I'm happy to keep on importing from EU, especially if they're subsidising their produce. We might impose an import tariff to protect British farmers, if that is what we are seeking to do, and use the funds so raised, together the subsidy saved, to help pay for the NHS. I think the public would prefer GM food, once they get used to it. All this irrational fear is a bit silly.
Subsidies actually encourage farms to replant hedgerows. It would be a pretty draconian law which forced farmers to do that without compensation. Why change a system of subsidies which already protects farmers and the countryside? Unless you want us to import all our food there is no good reason to stop subsidising farms. I really hope our cuts happy governments understand this and continue the policy indefinitely post Brexit.
We already have a suite of operating regulations that are not compensated, such as animal welfare. We don't generally regard those as draconian. Why change a system of subsidies? Because it is poor value for the taxpayer and we need to fund the NHS. I hope our government makes sound fiscal choices that benefit the people of the entire country. Applying tariffs to EU agricultural imports is a great way to raise money, especially as the EU can't complain about it as that is what they are currently forcing us to charge against imports from our Commonwealth friends.
I live in the countryside of France, amongst fields of wheat dotted with "chateaux" that are five- or six-hundred years old. My local church is 1000 years old and was built by monks. Subsidies in France are for protecting what France calls its "patrimony". And why? Because that rich patrimony (like the Mona Lisa on view in Paris) brings in the tourists from abroad, beyond Europe, that want to see it. Often, it is the "intangibles" within a market-economy that produce the value we think (too often) that is only supplied by "manufacturing" ...
Indeed, I said earlier that there are two economic justifications for subsidy: Tourism: where the subsidy is effectively re-distributing tourism profits to those generating them by maintaining the landscape, and Food Security: which is like insurance against global trade going t*ts up. These are contradictory, as food security should be seeking the most efficient production landscape, whilst tourism requires the most picturesque. Tourism may be enhanced by re-wilding, or preserved by isolating particular regions for photos and landscapes and using the rest for intense agriculture. It would be sad, in my view, to lose any of that landscape. But its not as if we are losing virgin forest with threatened species, like what happens in the rest of the world in order to fill the production gap here.
I'm British. I don't kid myself that I am a citizen in anything. I am ruled. I am born into a system and it rules me. But this is the land of the free and I ignore rules most of time. Stick to my own business. The government has rules, but I'm not in the government. So they don't apply. I am beyond their writ. Living free. I don't believe my having a vote in choosing a representative translates in any meaningful way into my ruling the country. Into my making any decisions in govt at all. However I can get up off my arse in the morning and make my dreams come true every day. And I do. I don't need to be represented in any palaces thank you.
EU promotes bad farming. Take a load of people worse at farming than you and ask them to set your standards. You will get worse standards. You will also get bugger loads of counter productive stuff. GM outrage and whatever. My farm was one of this little French type farms. Had all the right wildlife and looked very twee. But it didn't make much in the way of food or money. And I much prefer the big arsed industrial sized farms. Terraformed land. This land used to be the sea. Now it is the most productive place to grow food in the world. Resevoirs. Drainage. Infrastructure. If like me you want to live on a little pleasure farm. Then do. But big boy farming is where the big boys are at. I like baked beans. A great many of us do. Let's grow them here, GM FTW. I've eaten GM all my life. Most people have. Big deal. But I do have 3 ears. On no wait a minute, I don't.
Applying tariffs to food imports or anything else for that matter just means everyone has less money in their pockets. If you want to save the NHS then pay more taxes and don't get rid of EU doctors and nurses.
No it does not. If you apply tariffs to champagne, every one is not worse off. Only the people who buy champagne are and only if... they choose not to buy something else instead. Like a Californian fizzy white wine that is now 30% cheaper. So if they want they can be richer too. No one is forcing you into making bad economic choices. If unsubsidised champers goes up to a global market normal price, try a different brand of wine. No need to blame Brexit and keep on paying more for worse on and on in a cycle of self destructive misery......until you are out on the street. The EU isn't the only place to buy stuff. They sell at market rates to us now, or they don't sell at all. If the shop next door sells the same stuff for less, just go next door and pay less. No worries.
I'm guessing you are in Lincolnshire then, I'm in Suffolk. Suffolk is still very pretty but you want to see it turn into the featureless wasteland that is Lincs. Screw that, how does that make Britain great again. This farm earns much of it's money from growing old fashioned long corn wheat to make thatching straw to keep all those little England thatched cottages looking nice. Do you really want this farm to go out of business to grow your GM baked beans. I thought you Brexit guys were all about preserving Britain's traditions and heritage. Sure the farm struggles to make much money but if the farmer just wanted money he would sell the 100 acres and the house and make himself a millionaire. Instead he walks around in clothes that have patches on the patches and concentrates on preserving his little part of the countryside and his way of life. You would just like him and thousands of others like him to get swallowed up by big agriculture conglomerates and have them spoil the countryside. And you complain about foreigners ruining our culture?
Lincs looks nice from where I am. The fens in Cambridgeshire. But I'd give example of industrial farming not just as one of these Beckham palaces surrounded by sod. But my mate in Norfolk has a whooping great palace and pleasure beach and forests. And he makes money on camp sites. And renting out houses and all the rest. But he does massive terraforming on his farmland. It's awesome. I want baked beans. I don't have a thatched roof. It's good that you make money and thatching is fine tradition. But I want baked beans. What's the problem? No one is forcing you to grow them for me. I want those who wish to, to be able to. That is all. This country is at the very cutting edge of agricultural technology. Let us remain so. Big conglomerates haven't ruined my little farm. It's still there. If you want to protect something, you still can. Many people do. I'm British and I know that beanz meanz Heinz. Born and raised on GM food. What's the problem? You don't have to eat them or grow them. What have you got against my culture and my traditions? Ok So I fart.
We already have the choice to buy food from anywhere in the world, we buy most of it from Europe because we like European food. Cheeses from France, fruit and veg from Spain, greenhouse peppers from Holland. All of that and more goes up once we pay tariffs. You think we buy German cars because they are cheaper than American ones? We want BMWs and Audis because they are better. You think they charge us inflated prices because we can't buy things anywhere else?
Not me I just live here. Trouble is that EU subsidies and policies are what keeps this farm liquid. You can go intensive, nothing is stopping you but don't force all the little guys out of business or you will spoil a lot of countryside.
And before EU subsidies we had UK subsidies. Which fit better because they are tailor made for the UK. Did you think farm subsidies began wit the EU. Did you think every other country doesn't have them too? We pay many many thousands of people to work in the dept of agriculture and do the subsidies. They have been slacking off. They let us pay the EU to do it for them. Doubled the cost of bureaucracy for UK farming. Diluted it's effectiveness. Compromised it. Spoil the countryside for who?
I'm not part of your "we" in this though. I don't buy much from Europe at all. I used to buy German cars, now I buy Japanese. I buy American computer chips. They rock. I still buy the odd Stella, but I don't care of it's brewed in Northampton or Leuven. Luxury food from Europe is going to go up. I'm crying for you, I really I am. Buy you favourite fruit and veg grown in Africa instead. Or learn to cut your tastes to your budget, instead of trying to get others to subsidise your taste for luxuries. It's nice that you can afford imported luxuries. Just pay for them without bargaining something from me into the deal. On a personal note, I hope your worries are put to rest by some replacement subsidy; but I recognise that this is going to be at the very least a major arse ache for you, that I feel no one wants or thinks you have done any thing to deserve. I have a friend who runs a campsite. Again he feels he will be hit by this.
Yes I appreciate that and agree. We already have import tariffs against agri imports from non EU countries that I don't agree with. To my mind a tariff should apply as a "equalisation" measure to account for the cost of regulatory differences, such as animal welfare or indeed hedgerow protection, for the domestic producer. The income from the tariff would ideally be rebated to the taxpayers, so overall standard of living remains the same. Its just I never would expect such a rebate from any government so suggested spending on the NHS instead. We will likely need an additional revenue source to pay for the NHS.
That's an interesting assumption. I guess its true for the "nationalist" side of Brexit, the type of person that was complaining about foreign accents over a traditional ale wearing their brouges and red trousers. I think the working class Brexit people are far more concerned with jobs and housing than twee cottages in the countryside.
I think I put earlier that EU subsidies are 55% of farmers income, compared to 18% average across the OECD. Non-OECD usually have none which is why its so unfair to them. New Zealand dropped subsidies altogether and apparently haven't looked back since - apparently that was spurned by the UK joining the EU and cutting off their main export market overnight. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1703/S00508/speech-to-the-forum-for-the-future-of-agriculture.htm
So do I his farm is beautiful. The reason I know him well enough to park my live in truck on his farm is the camps he hosts in the wildflower meadow. I came here first over 20 years ago as a chef to the Greenpeace festival he used to have. I then started a small juggling convention which has been going since 1999. He has about 6 or 7 of these types of camps from Quaker and Buddhist retreats to drum and dance camps. He's no hippy, he doesn't even drink but he has had to diversify to keep this place going to hand it over to his son. If it weren't for the high price of thatching straw he wouldn't have lasted this long. I think it is important to keep these types of places going and to call them hobby farms is unfair.
Important to who? him? you? the people who get their thatch from him? What about the people that are paying for his farm, so he can hand over a nice little place in the country to his son? If the thatch is good and there is a market for it, he can charge appropriately and the market will pay. I have no interest in subsidising the costs of thatching some toff's country house roof.
If you think it's important enough to pay him enough to keep it going then all is well and good for both of you. Me I struggle to buy food. So I'm not really too worried about subsidising other people. Don't have a lot of interest in it.
There's a fixed price nationwide agreed between the thatchers and the producers of thatch. It hasn't gone up for 8 years. Thatchers can buy cheaper thatch from Eastern Europe but most don't because they want to support the local industry and the producers don't increase the price because if they did they could lose the business. If the farming subsidy disappears this delicate balance could disappear and it's game over for British thatch.
As long as we take your assumption that no farm subsidies are possible outside of the EU. Which is an enormously dumb proposition. Leaving the EU doesn't mean we are now going to act in the most self destructive way you can imagine for us to do. And you claim the world is all doomed now that we have forsaken your ideology, but it isn't. And here's the thing no matter what doom gloom and disaster you predict for us, no one believes you and indeed most of us prefer it to your way. Bring me your disaster. Any disaster is better than this current "win". What's the worst that can happen, I can get poorer and poorer until I go bust and can't buy food? Already happened. My EU success story. It's over. I'm sorry your friend isn't going to be so rich as he once was. Or that he is going to have to put your prices up to reflect the actual costs of the service he is providing you. But I'm not willing to foot your bill. Buy local food. Unaffected by drops in the pound. You wanted to support local British businesses and farms, here is your chance.
