UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
General Chat - anything Goes
>
The 'Take it Outside' thread This thread will no longer be moderated ***
Predicting the future is indeed a fraught business, which is why it's a bloody stupid idea to blindly jump over a fence just because a man in a suit told you there's unicorns on the other side.
Basically virtually all agriculture in Europe, done to EU standards of animal health and welfare, is economically nonviable without support.The two largest unsupported sectors are pigs and poultry, and they survive by working on an industrial scale and using practices that consumers largely dislike. But this dislike translates into perhaps 10% of the population doing something about it as in spending more money. (Occasionally it hits 15% in prosperous times, perhaps even 20% briefly, but it always falls back.)
So the EU (and UK) have a choice. They either provide support to the industry, but not through price support (because that's banned under WTO and so support is paid for environmental and animal health and welfare reasons) and keep the sort of agriculture they're happy with.
Or they cut support and have economic agriculture. This will either mean, for example, 5,000 cow dairy herds, housed indoors all year round, and with matching beef finishing units, because that's the scale needed, or it will mean not actually producing food at all. (the biggest US unit is apparently 30,000 cows, the Chinese are building one for 40,000)
Compared to what we produced twenty years ago, this farm produces barely a quarter of what it did. We've pulled out of high cost production and gone for a low cost, low output system.
The next switch would be to such things as 'horseiculture' 'wagon parks' and suchlike as we continue to just try to make a living.
Just producing food is no longer economically justifiable for small units, probably hasn't been for ten or fifteen years.
The irony of it is that, as the horsemeat fiasco showed, the UK population hedges its own agricultural industry around with expensive regulation and then imports any cheap crap it can find 'because food's too dear.'
It's a gut feeling I share. A local farmer used to be the NFU's representative in Brussels. Mention the EU to him and he goes purple with steam coming out of his ears. He campaigned vigorously for a 'leave' vote.
B J wrote: "It's a gut feeling I share. A local farmer used to be the NFU's representative in Brussels. Mention the EU to him and he goes purple with steam coming out of his ears. He campaigned vigorously for ..."the proportion of farmers who voted leave seems to have been a little higher than the proportion of the population generally
The Russian ambassador for Turkey has been assassinated.Not good.
I thought he had only been injured.Edit - Nope, confirmed dead.
It looks like the shooter had some kind of police ID.
"Jim wrote: Basically virtually all agriculture in Europe, done to EU standards of animal health and welfare, is economically nonviable without support"The enormous sums that are diverted to farmers, not just routinely, but during such self-inflicted disasters as foot-and-mouth outbreaks and the attempt to kill off the entire UK population of non-vegetarians with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, must be especially distasteful to all the former miners, shoe makers, bicycle makers, steel workers, car workers, garment makers, computer builders and mobile phone makers who have seen their jobs, and in some cases their whole industries, vanish from these shores in the last fifty years.
The Byzantine complexities of the arrangements for disbursing the largesse to farmers are entirely down to the make-work efforts of UK bureaucrats, who have hithertofore deflected criticism of their piss-poor efforts by blaming Brussels.
Actually the cost of dealing with the BSE outbreak was actually paid for by the agricultural industry. Ironically the arable sector. Basically the UK government took advantage of a weak pound at the time. The EU paid the money to the UK government for agricultural support, the government took it in Euros and paid farmers at the old conversion rate and pocketed the difference. It more than paid for BSEObviously agriculture could vanish from these shores, but at the moment we're, in crude terms, about 76% self sufficient in food
Not sure how our ports could cope with importing over 16 million extra tons of wheat, we'd almost certainly need new facilities as the ones we've got struggle to cope with the amount we export.
echoes of Princeps' assassination of Archduke Fredinand
Jim wrote: Actually the cost of dealing with the BSE outbreak was actually paid for by the agricultural industry...The EU paid the money to the UK governmentGiving those words their ordinary English meaning, what you're actually saying is that the cost of dealing with the BSE outbreak was met by EU tax payers, who are predominantly the Germans and the British.
You are also rather assuming that those of us who have not yet succumbed to vCJD will remain healthy indefinitely.
As our enormous balance of payments deficit demonstrates, the UK has no trouble organising port facilities to handle imports.
The incident at the Christmas market in Berlin is very distressing. Several of our friends went to Germany for the holiday. I don't think any are in Berlin at the moment, thank goodness.
Marc wrote: "echoes of Princeps' assassination of Archduke Fredinand"Let's hope not.
David wrote: "Giving those words their ordinary English meaning, what you're actually saying is that the cost of dealing with the BSE outbreak was met by EU tax payers, who are predominantly the Germans and the British...."
no because we get back less than we pay in. It was money that was earmarked by the EU for UK agriculture on the grounds that the EU earmarks money at the same rate for farmers regardless of country, so the UK government just casually diverted it. So actually it was money that had always been budgeted for agricultural support.
The reason that it was allocated for agricultural support was that the EU insists EU agriculture follows obsolete and outdated practices, pretty much on the lines of them expecting, for example, newspapers, to use hot metal type setting, and no electronic commications
David wrote: "You are also rather assuming that those of us who have not yet succumbed to vCJD will remain healthy indefinitely..."given that the number of deaths from vCJD is less than the number of farm suicides over the same period, I'd suggest that it's been massively overplayed
But a lot of people have had their mortgage paid who otherwise might have had to swap research fields
David wrote: "As our enormous balance of payments deficit demonstrates, the UK has no trouble organising port facilities to handle imports. .."
we have four ports that handle grain, they can just about cope with a million tons a year each. They could probably expand a bit but strangely enough nobody in their right mind puts in specialist grain handling facilities when they're not needed
BBC are saying the Russian Ambassador was assassinated by a member of the Turkish Riot Police angry at the Soviet involvement in Aleppo
not at all surprising. Given their past relationships, it's possible that about the only person in Turkey happy with the current Turkish/Russian rapport is the President
I'm sure I read another Russian ambassador to Latin America was also found shot at home.Edit. It was a diplomatic but he was shot in Moscow.
Yes... it was because he pinched a ferrero rocher from the bottom of the pile and made the tableau collapse.... the butler had spent ages building it up and was not pleased with the Ambassador!
Jim wrote: ... no because we get back less than we pay in.How is that relevant? The EU's dosh comes from the EU's taxpayers, and that's us. It doesn't matter how the budget is set.
Only if you regard the EU as a single entity. In reality there are half a dozen member states that make meaningful contributions who might well disagree with you in this
What those half-dozen member states pay in isn't really relevant.What matters is the return on investment.
that's relatively easy to quantify, the price of wheat rose from about £65 a ton in 2005 to over £179 in 2012 due to major shortages and there was widespread political instability throughout much of the world (The Arab spring being an example.) Within the EU the price of bread rose less (doubled rather than tripled) and we had no food riots or political instability because of it
Jim wrote: Within the EU the price of bread rose less (doubled rather than tripled) and we had no food riots or political instability because of itThat is a truly wacky notion. Paying money to farmers and forcing consumers to pay more than they would have to pay in the world market, ensures that those consumers won't notice when world prices rise, and thus won't riot!?
Divide the subsidies paid to agriculture in the UK (£2.7 billion per year) by the number of workers (476,000) you get a subsidy per week per worker of £109.Job Seekers Allowance is £73.10.
Furthermore, according to Farmers' Weekly, 65 % of the UK Agricultural Workforce are foreign.
Good luck selling that to the Brexit-voting majority post-Brexit.
David wrote: "That is a truly wacky notion. Paying money to farmers and forcing consumers to pay more than they would have to pay in the world market, ensures that those consumers won't notice when world prices rise, and thus won't riot!? ..."Simple economics
The price of food is inelastic. This means that if the output of food increases, you won't eat more. Even if the price drops you're not going to eat an extra meal a day.
If the output falls, then you're not going to say, 'fair enough, food's too dear, I'll only eat every other day, not a problem.
In times for famine people sell their children.
The problem is that over long experience (about four thousand years) it's been discovered that a 5% shortfall in production produces major food price rises as people scrabble to buy it and a 5% over production produces major food price crashes.
It's always been true, (get hold of The Grain Market in the Roman Empire especially as an example)
The basic rule in agriculture has been that farmers go bust in years of plenty and make money in famines.
The problem is, plant the same crop in the same field with the same fertiliser in two consecutive years and the yield can differ by 10% just due to ordinary weather conditions. That's without extremes
So the EU set up the CAP. The idea was that they'd aim to produce a built in surplus. Only a couple of percent, and in good years they'll stockpile a bit and in the bad years they'll draw from out of the stockpiles (hardly rocket science, see Genesis 41)
The problem is that because this always ensures a surplus, then the prices will stay low and agriculture will collapse after a few years of it.
So to guarantee production AND keep prices at a sensible average, they paid farmers to survive.
There is a second reason for this as well. When the EU was formed, there was a fear that the post war rural population in France and Italy were largely communist, because they had been the pillars of the resistance. Their grip was strengthened by the fact that agriculture was in total collapse due to the war and the peasantry had nothing to lose by supporting the communists. The CAP was also supposed to guarantee the rural population had a decent level of income.
Article 39b of the treaty of Rome states "thus to ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural community, in particular by increasing the individual earnings of persons engaged in agriculture"
David wrote: "Divide the subsidies paid to agriculture in the UK (£2.7 billion per year) by the number of workers (476,000) you get a subsidy per week per worker of £109.Job Seekers Allowance is £73.10.
..."
I suggest you check https://fullfact.org/economy/farming-...
“Last year the average farm made £2,100 from agriculture and £28,300 from subsidies. The typical cereal farmer actually lost £9,500 by farming cereals.”
When the system demands that food be sold at below the cost of production, you either subsidise production or production stops
David wrote: "Furthermore, according to Farmers' Weekly, 65 % of the UK Agricultural Workforce are foreign.Good luck selling that to the Brexit-voting majority post-Brexit. .."
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads...
Not the most uptodate statistic but close enough
The number of people working on United Kingdom farms increased by 1.2 per cent to 481,000
To quote the article, Number of non-UK born workers employed on UK farms (2014) 34,513
(So the dates of the two figures are not far adrift.)
So the number of migrant workers in the industry is about 7%, but because the vast majority of those working in the industry are self employed, the proportion of the employees who come from abroad is higher, but actually an irrelevant figure
Out of interest Jim, how much of the farming subsidy is designated purely for the replacement/improvement of capital equipment?There's bloke here in carmarthenshire who had enormous financial assistance for a new milking parlour (he had to hire a spare daughter to run it for him, as it is entirely computer controlled and as a working farmer, neither he nor his wife know one end of a computer from another)
Capital grants are paid for by various schemes and tend to come out of 'rural development funding'A lot of this money is creamed off the pool of money that the EU allocate to farmers as direct support (it's all 'pillar 1')
From memory and guessing I think it's about 15%
However whilst some is given as capital grants to farmers, some has been uses for such things as rural bus shelters as well
The other idea with this programme is to provide support for those industries that support agriculture, as in the example you gave.
As were sticking to the theme of farming post-Brexit, I thought I'd ask you your thoughts on the new settlement, Jim. Let's assume that Scotland stays with the UK, we've got new powers coming back including farming and fisheries.
London wants a national farming strategy, Edinburgh and Cardiff want farming devolved, on the reasonable basis that the needs of Scottish and Welsh farming, especially in the Highlands, are way different to England.
Up here, oats, potatoes and barley for the whisky industry, is the order of the day, plus we have tons of small crofting farms scattered across the highlands.
I can't see how the Tory strategy of one size fits all is going to work for Scotland and Wales, plus the thorny issue of replacing EU money will have to be addressed.
Jim wrote: Simple economicsNot really. Starting from an observation, 'inelastic demand' you argue for price controls, central intervention, supplier subsidies and protection. Approaches that have been rejected as counter-productive in every sphere of economic endeavour other than agriculture.
Jim wrote: So the number of migrant workers in the industry is about 7%, but because the vast majority of those working in the industry are self employed, the proportion of the employees who come from abroad is higher, but actually an irrelevant figure"481,000 workers.
£109 per week subsidy.
65 % of the UK Agricultural Employees are foreign!"
I should apply for a job working for the Brexit Campaign!
David wrote: "Jim wrote: Simple economicsNot really. Starting from an observation, 'inelastic demand' you argue for price controls, central intervention, supplier subsidies and protection. Approaches that have..."
Not every sector has the three factors of inelastic demand, basic necessity and strategic industry though, does it? I know farmers have always argued that they are a special case, but in that view I have some sympathy.
We cannot do without a domestic food production system, it would make our already disasterous trade with the EU into a crisis of state ending proportions with enormous civil unrest.
R.M.F wrote: "As were sticking to the theme of farming post-Brexit, I thought I'd ask you your thoughts on the new settlement, Jim. Let's assume that Scotland stays with the UK, we've got new powers coming bac..."
Scotland's problem isn't really difference from England, it's the extreme difference within Scotland. Some excellent land and excellent farms but also some land which is pretty grim.
In theory it's no more grim than big chunks of Wales or bits of the Lake District.
I suspect it's main problem is that there's so much of it all in one place and also so few people in it. The Lake District survives because of tourism numbers and a higher population density that often commutes out of the Park for work.
Because the UK was a net contributor, in theory the money is there, but the problem was, even when we were in the EU, other organisations kept trying to get a cut from the money.
As always its an entirely political issue and the three countries may solve it differently.
In reality the agricultural industries are very interlinked. For example an awful lot of English cattle go into Scotland for finishing, (I've seen the movement figures from BCMS) and a lot of Scots cattle move south. Same with Wales, there you have a regular movement of sheep into England for wintering.
So any system we introduce has to somehow ensure we don't screw up the system
David wrote: "Jim wrote: Simple economicsNot really. Starting from an observation, 'inelastic demand' you argue for price controls, ..."
Sorry, where did I mention price controls?
David wrote: "65 % of the UK Agricultural Employees are foreign!.."yes and 90% of those working in the industry are employees, the rest are self employed
Twist the numbers now you like,
R.M.F wrote: "As were sticking to the theme of farming post-Brexit, I thought I'd ask you your thoughts on the new settlement, Jim. Let's assume that Scotland stays with the UK, we've got new powers coming bac..
Up here, oats, potatoes and barley for the whisky industry, is the order of the day, plus we have tons of small crofting farms scattered across the highlands. ."
and salmon poaching...
Jim wrote:Sorry, where did I mention price controls?Isn't that what you're using the surplus for?
NoWe're setting the surplus aside so that people don't starve in the bad years
Jim wrote: "NoWe're setting the surplus aside so that people don't starve in the bad years"
Setting aside the surplus is a good thing, but price control is a side effect.
Roger wrote: "Jim wrote: "NoWe're setting the surplus aside so that people don't starve in the bad years"
Setting aside the surplus is a good thing, but price control is a side effect."
That was the idea of 'intervention buying' in that as prices fell the state would enter the market and buy, and as prices rose, the state would again enter the market and sell.
The entering the market to sell is only when there are no major shortages. If we hit a point where there is serious shortage the state will enter the market and impose rationing along with compulsory purchase of stocks held in private hands
Person with gun kills people in Fort Lauderdale airport.One of my very, very good friends flew through there yesterday on the way back to Baku.
When these mass shootings occur in the US, it's just another day.When a single armed drug dealer gets shot here, there's national anguish about police brutality.
It's all about the media spin, Mikey. As you're more than aware.
So. What I understand so far, the guy had a gun in his checked bags and opened fire in baggage reclaim.He flew out of Alaska, layover Toronto, through to Florida.
His bags would have been checked through to destination.
Shame they didn't go through screening in Canada.
We bought some American dollars today. Chirpy woman at the bank asked us where we were going on holiday in America or if I was going home.
I curtly said I'm Canadian and we have no intention of going to the USA.
Bless.
Drug dealer? He was an 'office clerk' said his mum :o)
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "Drug dealer? He was an 'office clerk' said his mum :o)"Well if his mum didn't stand up for him there'd be no hope at all for the lad
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
The Beiderbecke Affair (other topics)The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study (other topics)
The Peasants Are Revolting (other topics)
How to Lie with Statistics (other topics)
That Old Ace in the Hole (other topics)
More...
The difference in 1945 was that the second world war never ended, effectively we remained on a war footing ...
It's amazing how many things were discovered or invented on this island, and with that sort of legacy backing you up, you can't help but succeed.
"
Part 1 true, part 2, a legacy is no guarantee of future progress