just wondered if anyone else saw the programme on channel 4 last night called lie of the land? i thought it was quite interesting and hopefully showed the urban dwelling ignorant people that life in the country is not as easy as they think and people involved in fox hunting and farming are not all toffs!
i agreed with most of what the farmers said that the way farming is going we have had to change the way we do things and for cows etc it is terrible that cows have to be killed if they are deemed non profit making from the day they are born. it is not the way farmers want to do things but due to the way the government run things for farmers it has become a way of life.
the government does nothing to help the farmers and one thing pointed out in this programme was that they have wasted hours of parlimentary hours debating fox hunting-and all the debate focuses on is how to kill the fox as they are rodents and a pest so have to be controlled , and who really cares?
i dont care either way about fox hunting-for me i think it was an easy vote winner for labour if they abolished this as they dont care about the countryside. and people in the towns hardly know any of the real truths about fox hunting but still get on their soap boxes about it.
what about all the people and the dogs that live by means of the hunting?

It was a good programme Kate. Molly Dineen is a good documentry maker. I have researched this and the farmer is indeed and assett to Great Britain yet not efficient. I think its down to very poor marketing of product. Farmers are struggling also because basically they have been left to struggle and not supported by the government. Here are some figures
Farming subsidies help an industry that employs a mere 1.8% of the UK population and contributes less than 9% to its GDP. basically it's bleeding to death. The only people who can stop this downslide are the consumers by buying british products( I wish we were like the french they buy only French products), and convince the supermarkets to raise their prices realistically to help the industry, even milk is being imported now on a large scale. I really think farmers have been taken for a long slow tractor ride here and its very upsetting. Finally I dont think the farmer have done themselves any favours in public relations. They are still depicted as wealthy somewhat grumpy land owners and I'm sure people coceive this as the truth when it is exactly the opposite.

Finally the countryside itself and its management will suffer in the future, the look will change and its general appearance, in turn affecting wildlife To end on a positive, there are people I have met who are very passionate about this subject and hopefully through campaigningv will get their point through to a somewhat ignorant british public

France also has twice as much agricultural land as the UK with the same population so they produce enough to not have to import much and have plenty spare to export, we only produce enough for 60% of our needs so we have to import.

To be fair to the 'townies', they may be pretty unaware of farming issues but then i doubt that many farmers know much about working in the City finance markets or building aeroplanes either.

The only way that farmers can boost their industry I think is by making higher value-added products and marketing them well.

KateHarris, what measures would you like to see the government take to help the industry more?

I'd disagree and clearly you have a stereotype of a farmer there Jonesey, do all 'townies' know much about working in the City finance markets or building aeroplanes also? I dont think so! At the end of the day I think its a case of 'who cares' here !

A. No one!

No, that's my point, most people don't have great in depth knowledge about industries they have no direct personal connection with, it's a bit unreasonable therefore to expect the entire population to be experts on CAP payments or animal health regulations.

yes but the point about the general public being ignorant is that they THINK they know about it as was pointed out earlier. they have an idea of what they think happens in the country which is very different from the reality. i dont think farmers pretend to know about these other industries you talk of jonesy55 whereas people all think they know about farming!
the government cound do alot more to help the farmers rather than crippling them with paperwork. farming now has become just about doing paperwork and this really makes farmers dissillusioned. for instance last month my dad spent lots of evenings preparing a new pack that the eu have brought in. he had to get photocopies of maps of the farm, fill all the relevent info information which takes a long time. The whole pack had to be copied 6 times, cost £50 in photocopying in total AND worst of all he had to pay £6500 for the privilege of completing this all to get assured for selling his chickens.
The eu brought this in and all other countries pay just £250 for the same thing!! Whereas our government gave the tender for this to surprise , defra who set their own cost for it.
This is the sort of thing which is crippling the farming industry and their will not be a farming industry to talk of in a few years as more and more are diversifying. The offspring are also getting wise (like myself) and leaving well alone!! Whereas farms were handed down from generation to generation. My father is one of 3 boys who all farmed, and each of these has had 2 or 3 children and none of my siblings or my cousins will carry on farming.
i also believe the government like to be able to import food products so that they can use this as a basis for exporting other british products.
farmers have never actually wanted subsidies as we would prefer to get a fair price for a fair product. but we are not able to set our own prices due to supermarkets and the cheaper imports. imports are able to be cheaper as they do not have to adhere to the same regulations our farmers do, which all costs money. i am glad our food is produced in this way and we are not cruel to our animals but the same cannot be said for other countries food. for example i actually always look for the red tractor on any food i buy as i know it produced to the highest standard(although it often takes me a long time to find any bacon with this on) but i didnt know until i read the times or which ever paper it was that all the takeaway curries etc, which i do buy if i want a night off cooking are all made using thai or chinese chicken as it is so much cheaper. it is cheaper as they dont look after the animals the same -which i think is an important destinction

Very good points Kate, not all foreign food is produced using poor standards though and at least through the EU we have a say in setting and enforcing those standards in Europe although some countries need a lo more pressure to make sure they adhere to the rules. Certainly when it comes to pork, I try to by British, chicken too. The quality of meat in takeaways and cheap restaurants is certainly dubious, but like you say, there is no incentive for anybody in that industry to use better quality because the customer never knows what they are getting.

If DEFRA is charging £6,500 for something that other countries charge £250 for then that is a scandal and there is nobody to blame but our government, why hasn't the NFU publicised this more??

I think that the EU should be strictly enforcing standards within Europe and imports from outside Europe should be taxed to make up for the cost advantage the producers get from not having such strict standards of welfare. Our government shouldn't though be imposing extra standards over and above the EU agreed ones though.

The NFU and trade bodies could do a lot more i'm sure to advertise the higher standards of animal welfare we have here, i'm sure if many people knew, they would be more likely to buy good quality British produce.

joneys55 you have made some very good points and i do agree with everything you say!
the nfu should do more but they seem to be one of those bodies which even when it tries to get its point across obviously doesnt shout loud enough!
i think i will ask my father more about this report he sent in as i think it should be highlighted more as well.
the nfu has tried in a way to highlight our better produce by using the red tractor on all uk produced food(as they can call it british just because it has been packaged here) and i personally only ever buy red tractor produce but i agree they should advertise this more, probably in stores actually as that is when peopl might then remember and think about it.
the supermarkets could help too but they only really consider their own profits although advertising this could also help them.
the problem is that the eu are trying to bring in higher standards but it seems to be taking time.
my parents went on a farming trip years ago to amsterdam and you would expect the animal welfare to be fairly high there but they visited a market and were appalled by the conditions there-although as i say not recently