Ha-ha. it actually tastes of something and if you know what you are doing doesn't cost much more. It certainly aint rip of, the diffrent in quality, taste and texture is huge..
support our farmers
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Ha-ha. it actually tastes of something and if you know what you are doing doesn't cost much more. It certainly aint rip of, the diffrent in quality, taste and texture is huge..
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so? i am a net importer from my local kebab shop. but i have other sources of income...
what are you on about..
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Good sense shown there although rather sad that you won't have the same chance to farm as they did. It has always been a rather physically demanding job, particularly in terms of hours worked but quite satisfying for all that. The farm closest to my parents started diversifying a lot about 10-15 years ago to create more income streams so while there is still some farming going on it is very very little in comparison and the new ventures provide a much easier and more stable source of income after the initial large investment.
He buys kebab meat off the special kebab meat farmers.. who farm kebab cows, quite a rare breed the kebab cow
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No it absolutely is net import, it is net import of food. The point isn't about the overall trade balance of Britain - it is simply that the country is a net importer of food i.e. we import more than we export so if with some unimaginable catastrophe were to occur and trade routes stopped we would not be able to supply enough food for the population based on what Britain produces currently.
If you want to argue that directing capital/funding to other areas which are overall more profitable makes sense then that is a different argument.
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Ah right, I slightly misread your intention although we are a net importer of food.
We've also got a trade deficit of approx £4.2 billion according to the National Office of Statistics(pdf file) which would put us as a net importer overall, not top in the World, I believe America is significantly higher from memory but far from ideal.
Yeah we aren't the worse, but it's not good being a overall net importer.
Why can't we go nuclear and the goverment actually set up a scheme to replace petrol for another fuel.
As well as helping farmers., giving tax incentives for manufacturing industries to stay here.
And about 1001 other things.
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damn so we have just spent 250k on new farm equipment for nothing
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If i had meant net import of food i would have said net import of food. Trading 100 million quids worth of insurance for 100m quids worth of food is not net import. Its called trade, its what our standard of living is based on. Agricultural policy interfering with this is why food in Europe is expensive and why most British farmers can earn an income.
Yes paranoia is the ususal reason for wanting autarky in food production.
thats what i said in my original comment to acidhell.
re: net importer of oil and food.
so what, economies must specialise it is how rich countries create wealth. britian imports oil and exports services such as insurance.
re: the trade deficit.
this is paid for by a surplusson the capital account. it will balance out eventually as i said in the long run trade in goods and capital flows must balance.
Surly it doesn't have to balance and simply means increase in country debt.
and your point is?
At the end of the day, if a company goes bust and you lose your job it's tough, why should farmers be any different?
Because it's a core sector. Like fuel. Do you want to be dependent on foreign countrys for something the country has to have. They could increase prices when ever they want.
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all other things being equal.
debt eventually has to be paid, then there is economic growth which can prolong the "long term" for a very long time.
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it was an analogy. there is nothign wrong with not producing food if you produce something else of equal value.
Well then you go back to uk produce, we are not going to starve.
Plenty of food producers around.
Food should be more expensive though.
Huge corporations take over the land (if it's worth it) and intensively farm the hell out of it, while getting massive subsidies.
Also why is he having a go at supermarkets most of the meat, milk, eggs etc all comes from British farms.
But there wouldn't be if farmers didn't get support. If you don't have the infrastructure, you can't suddenly start producing it.
And no national debt doesn't have to be repaid. Can you ever see UK, us repaying our debt. Or even countrys like Africa.
But that's the point, we aren't, we are a net importer. Of some £4.2 billion a year.
Except if you do not support British Farmers there will be none left to produce any food !
Food secuirty should be much higher up on the Political Agenda in this county.
I go to the local farm shop as often as I can, better tasting food and cheaper than Tesco's. The shop I go to is rated in the top twenty food outlets, in the UKTV Food Hero's 2008 competition, at the moment.