BY JIM WEBSTER I’ve been trying to get my head round what is happening with the beef and lamb trade at the moment. As far as I can make out ‘cock-up’ is more likely than conspiracy. With the sheep trade it’s obvious that the buyers just stopped buying yesterday. It wasn’t just that prices plummeted, they weren’t even interested in buying at low prices. Given … Continue reading View From the Farm
BY JIM WEBSTER Whatever humanity is up to, the seasons continue to roll forward. The contractor arrived to put on the nitrogen. He made far less mark than I thought he would, the last few days have dried out our higher land nicely. Sal supervised him from a safe distance. Mind you that is as close as I got to him because the foot-trimmer was … Continue reading Splendid Isolation
BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE How can one reconcile the two seemingly opposing ideologies of deindustrialisation and a want for endless housing? The answer: when the former is merely a means to bring about the latter. It’s no secret that climate change activism often acts as a front for hard-line socialism; indeed, the Extinction Rebellion protests held in London were marred by blood red demands to ‘bring … Continue reading Farmers, New Enemy of Loons
BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE ‘The world is waking up to an environmental crisis’, a disembodied voice warns with the kind of damming cynicism that only a guttural Scottish accent can truly deliver. The viewer is then assaulted with flashes of bush-fires spliced with frenzied jerky-cam closeups of caged swines. In case this bombardment of the senses has left us in any doubt as to the utter … Continue reading Love Meat
BY BEN EVERITT Don’t believe the doom-mongers. Our farmers and our environment can thrive after Brexit. Have a beer with a farmer. Like everyone else, farmers have got concerns about a no-deal Brexit. But after a pint or two you’ll learn just how much the EU has screwed agricultural economics. A clean break can’t come soon enough. The system is now so complex that the … Continue reading Fear Not, Farmers
BY JAMIE FOSTER BBC Countryfile has upset a boatload of viewers by its biased piece on Brexit and how it will affect farmers: Adam Henson was interviewing a family of beef farmers who said Brexit had cast a shadow over the industry. They said that halving the tariffs in place to protect EU beef from imports would make it unsustainable to produce UK beef. The … Continue reading Biased Countryfile Fails Again
BY CHARLES MACKIE The biggest threats to farming that a no-deal could bring are traditionally quoted as follows: Loss of a tariff-free market. The UK will by default revert to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules until Free Trade agreements are signed. This will require goods to be exported and imported under the Most Favoured Nation rules with a range of tariffs applied to those goods. … Continue reading No Deal Benefits for Farmers
BY BEN EAGLE It is looking increasingly likely that Britain will be crashing out of the EU without a deal. Whilst I don’t condone the recent words of Donald Tusk condemning leading Brexiteers, as somebody trying to look to the future in farming I cannot pretend that part of me wanted to thank him for saying it. Brexit has unleashed uncertainty in all sectors but … Continue reading Sheep Farming & No Deal
BY PAUL READ & NIGEL BEAN There was an article in The Guardian recently titled “Can Britain’s butchers survive the vegan boom?”. The headline was a little misleading, but they very often are. It did raise some interesting points though, one of which is the noticeable decline in butchers’ shops in recent times – something many people will have noticed. In the article some put … Continue reading Farms, Food & Fanatics
