Re: Culling by suffocation

In message <4cqmb1F1672i6U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jim Webster <Jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

No, but maybe we could manage, at least for a while, without UK
agriculture.

We couldn't get the necessary grain in through the ports! You'd have to
close the channel tunnel to other traffic and fetch it in by rail. Anyway I
did point out we were an international industry working at world prices

Can you justify that numerically ?


>UK policy is that we can manage without UK food production, there is no
>strategic reason for keeping food production 'on shore'

Seems like a crap argument to me - similarly re energy.

people obviously aren't worried enough about it to vote against them

And how can they if the parties don't differentiate their policies ?


People saying they care about an issue says nothing about where it is in
their priorities, it certainly isn't a commitment, covenant, or contract
!

no, but lobby groups use this to support their argument, focus groups add to
the pressure

OK then, so your argument isn't based on what people think or even say, but on how it is represented and spun, yet still you blame the people !


I would be more willing to believe there was hypocrisy if I could see
any
evidence which showed that the people who campaigned for improvements to
welfare switched away from more extensive / expensive food.

But then again, I wouldn't be surprised if the most vociferous welfare
protesters were vegy / vegan activists... They won't be switching for
obvious reasons, and even if they don't consume your products, it's hard
to argue that they should have no say.

I said elsewhere, education and counter terrorism

In what context ?


>> >If they don't actually care all that much then have the courage of
their
>> >lack of conviction and say so
>>
>> Agreed, but I doubt that people who are polled in the street but have
no
>> real interest have much effect on policy anyway ?
>
>in an election year? We have government who would burn tomorrow for two
more
>votes today

Yes and no. For all the bluster that goes on, all the electorate can do
is ask the government to go 'left a bit' or 'right a bit' on the basis
of a basket of issues, and once elected, manifestos are hardly followed
to the letter !

No, when in power watch how swiftly things can be changed if a by-election
is coming up

Still elected on a basket of issues. A by-election puts a certain amount of statistical weight into the hands of a small locale, but it hardly puts the hands of the broader populous on the levers of power !


>> It is the people that actively campaign that I would have thought would
>> be your problem. Are these people even meat eaters ? Are you in
effect
>> being driven out of working with animals by the work of animal rights
>> activists who have a long term strategy of raising your production
costs
>> and thereby costs of meat / milk / eggs etc to end users ?
>
>that remains a possibility, and only education and counter terrorism can
>deal with that and given the standards of education....

OK, well, if that remains a possibility, but you aren't sure, your
market intelligence can't be that good. In short, you don't know who
your enemy is, and lash out at whoever comes to hand with allegations I
don't see being substantiated about what you think and / or fear some
[significant] proportion of the population might think.

Sorry but we aren't allowed to lash out, in fact when we merely point out
the possibility of hypocrisy we get slated

Feel free to go back and check, but I don't recall seeing the word "possibility" when hypocrisy was first raised. If I had, I doubt I would have taken issue...


>> >Go onto farms in this country and ask what community support they see.
>Once
>> >you explain you don't mean EEC as the community most of them will
regard
>> >community support as a sad jest
>>
>> Not sure that's true around here, but maybe I just happen to know of
one
>> supportive community and a few bad apples who really are a thorn in the
>> side of some farmers.
>
>I'm struggling to think of any way we have had 'community' support

Fair enough. We've done a few freebies for farmers, QSing the odd
build, and a lot of free advice. QSing one job in particular meant in
turn that having a properly costed project, they could apply for grants
to cover some of their build costs. We've also put fabrication work
their way when times were particularly rough, and celebrated with them
when they won planning disputes with their horrible neighbours.

Note that it was blasted community that caused these problems in the first
place. All you have done is reduced the damage the community was causing. In
Cumbria the building costs are because the planning office demands bizarre
standards. The horrible neighbours are also community

Yes - but not the same community. By lumping them all together and refusing to differentiate you are effective adopting the stance that

'all non farmers are bastards',

and they also happen to be the vast bulk of your market place.


I guess
we've also done a certain amount to promote their produce, and use their
accommodation when we have people to stay. Not that the traffic is all
one way. We wouldn't do it if they were arses !

But we pointed out, the majority of the population buy on price anyway, you
said you do if you have other priorities at the time, you merely support
them when it is convenient

Or to put it another way, I don't support them when it's really inconvenient. Is that so unreasonable ?

Is there anybody you support when it's really inconvenient ??


>> Yet... But it may be coming. And you can certainly get software
>> engineers, designers, hardware produced, manufacturing done off shore
>> etc, so I don't think that you can really argue that farmers are alone
>> in having it tough, or indeed that they are having it much tougher than
>> manufacturing industry etc.
>
>We are so much further down the road. The rest of you have a lot of
catching
>up to do.

Tell it to the South Wales colliers...

they were on seriously good money,
money people in agriculture didn't even
dare to dream of.

For a couple of decades. Roll back over a couple of hundred years and I think you'll see a different story.


How much did they reinvest in their business?

Don't think it was generally part of the culture. Most mines are not SMEs run by owner managers.


>When you are paid in 1985 wages then you can say you have caught up ;-(

In 85 I was earning plenty, but there is more to life than that which is
probably why we each choose to do what we do.


I'm talking actual money, not inflation linked. We get paid the same for
milk as we did then, pretty much the same for beef.

And I get 'paid' massively less now than I did then numerically, never mind taking inflation into account, but I'm not quite sure what this proves. As I said, this shouldn't be a pissing contest along the lines of 'my poverty is deeper / more profound / more distressing than yours'. At the end of the day, people got into, or stay in, less lucrative positions because either they are trapped, or motivated so to do.

If you're not trapped or motivated where you are, you look for the optimal exit strategy and move on.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore
.