Brexit watch, round 2

Slightly off-topic, but I'm doing a FutureLearn course on global food security. Week 2 has a bit about the way the CAP and subsidies have affected the market.

Many small family farms have also gone under, because British farming is inefficient and supermarkets have been screwing them for low prices for decades.

I quite like EU rules, such as not putting donkey meat in burgers. It's just a shame they're not more rigorously enforced.

Errmm, I agree. I read somewhere that the big landowners are raking it in (and I don't mean just raking soil), but they pay their workers a pittance and tenant farmers don't benefit from the subsidies. There's a site somewhere (part of the EU site), where you can read how much individual farmers are receiving. Some of the amounts are staggering.

I guess more farmers will end up doing what one local to me has done, which is register the company which owns the land offshore. Outline planning consent has just been given for 40,000 houses. It's a difficult one, because the area needs new houses, but this farmer is going to make millions, if not billions. If he grants leases rather than selling the land, his heirs could become the new Dukes of Westminster. I guess I'm a bit prejudiced, because he's written various books about supporting fox hunting.

I don't suppose many people care what happens to the farm workers, who could lose their jobs and be kicked out of tied cottages.

Not exactly Ana

I posted something about farming the other day ( not sure which thread) as the hotel manager where we were staying used to farm in Kent, a small family farm, which went under due to the EU diktats/ rules and regs,he was very bitter, it did well enough and had been in the family for hundreds of years, but was not big enough in the end to do well.

And your post was deleted for that?[confused

I put Leadsom in the wrong political party there for a while ( she wouldn't have been amused) that's what comes of answering the phone, making a shopping list, drinking coffee, trying to stop DH doing something he shouldn't, lifting a very heavy piece of furniture!

Just to prove I can see both sides of the debate DD

Actually large, rich farms, do very well out of subsidies. My little socialist heart would like to see the poorer, struggling farmer get a better deal, than those driving round in brand new top-of-the-range Range Rovers, in their hunter wellies and Burberries.

Just seen that you've posted something similar to the article I was reading, Anya.

To summarise, there are NO guarantees beyond short-term stopgap funding, farmers are likely to lose overall and some people (free marketeers) think it's not a bad thing that inefficient farms will go under. Isn't that what I said? (More or less)

Sorry, wrong link pasted. I'll find the post-Brexit one I was reading. They're still not happy. Up until the date of the article I was reading (a couple of weeks ago) there had been no promises to replace CAP funding and my understanding was it would probably be based on different criteria.

(Off to find correct link.)

Your link is out of date DD as it was written well before Brexit. This was written a week or two again and is a balanced view from the FT.

" For decades, the British farming community has been the recipient of generous subsidies under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. Last year CAP payments to the UK totalled about £3bn, making up 55 per cent of farmers’ incomes. Once the UK leaves the bloc, these payments will come to an end, potentially endangering businesses across the country.

Theresa May’s new government is aware of the challenge this poses. Earlier this month, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, announced that the Treasury would replace any shortfall in EU funding to farmers that might arise between now and the end of the decade as Britain redefines its relationship with the EU.
However, Mr Hammond is providing no more than a short term stopgap. Farmers remain highly uncertain about their prospects after 2020 and Mrs May and her ministers need to address how British farming support can be reconfigured in a post-CAP age.
Some free market thinkers believe Britain’s departure from the CAP is a golden opportunity to scale back — and even end — agricultural subsidies altogether. They believe the CAP has been hugely distortive because farmers are granted funds according to how much they produce. British farming businesses have therefore been unwilling to innovate, leaving agricultural productivity in the UK lagging well behind that of the US, for example."

It depends who said it, Tegan. I've also read that there are no guarantees. British farming is inefficient compared with some of the EU countries and has been subsidised for many years. Some people are saying it's not a bad thing if inefficient farms go bankrupt, but I don't suppose the farmers feel the same.

The NFU doesn't seem very optimistic.

www.nfuonline.com/news/eu-referendum/eu-referendum-news/brexit-may-not-be-beneficial-for-uk-farmers/

I thought I'd heard that the farmers have been promised they will still get the same subsidies in future [may have imagined it though].

Baffled! She was the person with the dodgy CV and children who wanted to be leader of the Conservatives, wasn't she?

Has this all been a nightmare after all?

Mystified too. She's the sec of state for DEFRA isn't she. The other brexiteer short-straw as it is the ministry most affected by leaving the EU methinks (farming plus lots of food and environment related legislation)
Here's an interesting article about what is happening with the Swiss and their vote to restrict free movement of people. A possible compromise maybe?

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/06/swiss-eu-standoff-striking-similarities-uk-predicament?CMP=twt_gu

rosesarered Tue 06-Sep-16 12:53:18
ww what on earth are you talking about? I made it quite clear in my deleted post that Leadsom is a Labour MP therefore not involved in any policy making to do with Brexit.

You did? Have I arrived on another planet? Did they all play musical chairs and change parties while I wasn't looking?

It depends who is on duty at HQ when the post is reported, POGS Some seem to delete anything that someone reports

Exactly Elegran

I think the Tory party should be told there is an infiltrator in their camp masquerading as an MP and standing for leader. I know many on here think Corbyn is cunning and devious, but that's going too far.

That's how it works Roses and methinks somebody protests too much!

A Labour MP?

ww what on earth are you talking about? I made it quite clear in my deleted post that Leadsom is a Labour MP therefore not involved in any policy making to do with Brexit.

Read an article ( can't remember where) which said " Brexit means Brexit"is like telling a child "bedtime means bedtime" ie is open to interpretation and means different things to different people. I thought that an amusing analogy.

I don't think GN have the time or the inclination to be trawling round all the threads looking for posts which break the guidelines.