Cheap Food

[neil cooney 10,416]

The supermarkets can even afford to sell some produce at a loss. They just counter balance it by putting up the price of some other essentials ie. tea or bread.

My daughter worked in Tescos for a few weeks. There was a problem with her wages one day so she asked a manager to sort it out.

The manager rang the wages dept...........IN CALCUTTA, INDIA.

These big supermarkets don't give a shit about the economies of where they're based. Here in Ireland you'll often see an Irish flag on the package. But when you look closer you'll see it says "Packaged in Eire". But not produced in Ireland.

Farmers often get portrayed as a bunch of moaners but IMO they're well entitled to be complaining.

[moxy 617]

A lot depends on where you are in the growing and supply chain. Livestock especially. If you Soley breed. Rear and supply then your stuffed. You are at the mercy of the supermarkets. Held firmly by the short and curlys and reliant on subsidies. Unless it's nieche market.

I know a lot of beef growers who just buy and fatten. They make good money and have no involvement with the supermarkets.

The supermarkets are fookers and have a massive influence on how food is produced. That includes everything from sandwiches to cheesecakes.

[Truther 1,579]

 

I work in the consumer food industry and its the Supermarkets buying power that puts the squeeze on the prices for all foodstuffs, the margins have been declining for years as the Supermarkets take a bigger slice of the cake each year.

Its great to be able to use your local butcher, fishmonger (remember them?), greengrocer etc but peoples lifestyles have changed massively, time is at a premium for most people so its a "one stop shop", chemists, clothes, cafes etc in most supermarkets.

Alternative is to lug your weekly shopping to a car park that you've paid for so that you could have the priveledge of spending money in the town.

Sad but true, I myself am guilty in some respects, sorry to say.

Cheers, D.

Ah, but is buying power by the supermarkets all part of some type of social engineering?.........see, without subsidy there would be no option but for farmers to charge the real price.......and if the big chains didn't pay then production and supply would stop which would put the supermarkets business in jeopardy ?

 

 

If you're going to squeeze wages you need to squeeze food prices mate, simple as that, even then some end up using food banks. They'd sooner you paid your extortionate utility bills than spend on essentials like food, power companies are multi nationals owned by the elite, farmers are private businesses, and subsidies originate from tax, not from multinationals profits

[Blackdog92 2,047]

I run/work a fell farm with my dad and work on a lot of other fell farms and without the subs we would all be fecked. The price of lamb hasnt shifted mich in the last 15 years but the price of feed housing medcines and living costs have all gone up.

 

When you sign up to the agreement for the subs your not farming your land anymore your just a caretaker and you cant do anything esspecially on a higher level scheme. I asked my dad why dont you not sign up to these and we will just farm our land to the fullist and he told me if we did that they would make us do what they want and we wouldnt get any money so as bad as it sounds were better of taking it. Theres a very fine line between your bottom line and profit.

 

and the stuff about growth/fattning drugs or medcine is a load of rubbish they dont use them in the uk they were banned a long time ago. Its the states that use a lot of them and to be honest they would help farmers a lot as with there help you could potentially get a bull away to kill 5 months earlier than when they are not used. I dont belive in using them and i wouldnt but i can see the benifits and downside to them.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Blackdog92

[secretagentmole 1,701]

As an aside, the label "Organic" is a bit of a crock of shit......as many of you know they are simply independent organisation set up to relieve the farmer of some money in order for them to get a label that says organic.

They have some set rules for doing this but it's not as clear cut as that, I did a FITAC course on organic and I binned it off as it was pure bollocks.

See, I can get a certificate that says I am an organic farmer.......but I can then set up a box scheme and fly in produce from all over the planet using tons of jet fuel.

So tell me, who is certifing the grower of Chinese walnuts?........of South American cherrys?

But I can sell all these as organic as long as they too have a little badge that says organic!!!

 

Free range would be a much better thing to look out for, it's really about low input systems and where things come from.

Seasonality too plays a large part......we just shouldn't be eating strawberrys in January when you think about it!

I don't they taste like crap anyway!

English or British strawberries taste so much better!

 

Edited December 11, 2015 by secretagentmole

[fordson 33]

not all farmers but i would say most are are just a mess,they are not the hard working countryside experts alot of you think they are,the only time alot of these bumbling inbred idiots had to work was when the war started, and the land was in such a mess due to them not being bright enough to maintain it a goverment department called warag had to supply them with instructions on how and when to grow things.this was due to 60 percent of our food being imported and we couldnt get it due to the war,and due to them not being cappable of much more than feeding themselves they were given women and children to do the work,known as the landarmy,and latter helped by prisioners of war, since then its been handouts,they call it subsidy,it used o be paid on the annimal , so when they sold a lamb the price was made up by the goverment which led to them keepin more annimals than they could manage and of poor quality,which didnt matter as the price was fixed,this method did provide employment due to the large number of annimals,now that subs are paid on land they dont farm much and recieve enomous amounts of money, the only hard work a lot of farmers have is convincing people they work,

[secretagentmole 1,701]

and the stuff about growth/fattning drugs or medcine is a load of rubbish they dont use them in the uk they were banned a long time ago. Its the states that use a lot of them and to be honest they would help farmers a lot as with there help you could potentially get a bull away to kill 5 months earlier than when they are not used. I dont belive in using them and i wouldnt but i can see the benifits and downside to them.

It is not a lot of rubbish, it still happens in the UK, routinely, studies are still ongoing by the BPC (British Poultry Council), also read this...

 

[2] In the report, the use of antibiotics was measured in weight of active ingredient and are given for 2012. For the UK, the report shows that 447 tonnes of active ingredient (ie. 52% of all use) were used in food animals, including horses, and 415 tonnes in human medicine (48%). However, the UK total did not include hospital use, which is believed to account for approximately 20% of human use in the UK. The proportion used in farm animals in the UK was lower than the EU average mainly because the UK has proportionally significantly fewer pigs, the highest consuming species, than nearly all other European countries.

 

http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/7755/new-eu-report-reveals-scale-of-antibiotic-overuse-in-farming-and-links-it-to-resistance-in-human-inf

 

It still happens routinely in large scale commercial porcine, bovine and ovine production in the UK as well as large scale poultry raising!

[Blackdog92 2,047]

That might be true mole but i can tell you exactly what i put into my ewes & lambs i dont even use concentrate/feed i finnish all of mine of grass and for my own frezzer i only butch weather shearlings that live on heather on the fell they taste the best ?

 

I only farm sheep and beef so i cant really make an educated statment about the pig and poultry farms.

[fordson 33]

the farmer gets extra handouts for going organic,no fertilizer on the land no worming ect wont produce a finished annimal,they then get sold as stores,which means someone buys them cheap worms them puts them on fertilizer forced land and fattens them, not organic at the end and suffered a meagure existence for the first few month of thier life

[fordson 33]

That might be true mole but i can tell you exactly what i put into my ewes & lambs i dont even use concentrate/feed i finnish all of mine of grass and for my own frezzer i only butch weather shearlings that live on heather on the fell they taste the best

 

I only farm sheep and beef so i cant really make an educated statment about the pig and poultry farms.

the only thing to get fat on heather is a bee

[Blackdog92 2,047]

the farmer gets extra handouts for going organic,no fertilizer on the land no worming ect wont produce a finished annimal,they then get sold as stores,which means someone buys them cheap worms them puts them on fertilizer forced land and fattens them, not organic at the end and suffered a meagure existence for the first few month of thier life

The organic route only works if your farm has good enough land to handle it. My relatives tried it a few years ago and we said that it was a bad idea even though there farm is a lowland dairy farm it wasnt good enough to go organic and it whent down hill until they changed back. People dont seem to like fertilizer but the ground does get tired after a while you cant just keep taking from it without putting something back into it.

[Blackdog92 2,047]

 

 

That might be true mole but i can tell you exactly what i put into my ewes & lambs i dont even use concentrate/feed i finnish all of mine of grass and for my own frezzer i only butch weather shearlings that live on heather on the fell they taste the best

 

I only farm sheep and beef so i cant really make an educated statment about the pig and poultry farms.

the only thing to get fat on heather is a bee

I didnt say fat thats why i butch shearlings not hoggs.

[Accip74 7,112]

As an aside, the label "Organic" is a bit of a crock of shit......as many of you know they are simply independent organisation set up to relieve the farmer of some money in order for them to get a label that says organic.

They have some set rules for doing this but it's not as clear cut as that, I did a FITAC course on organic and I binned it off as it was pure bollocks.

See, I can get a certificate that says I am an organic farmer.......but I can then set up a box scheme and fly in produce from all over the planet using tons of jet fuel.

So tell me, who is certifing the grower of Chinese walnuts?........of South American cherrys?

But I can sell all these as organic as long as they too have a little badge that says organic!!!

Free range would be a much better thing to look out for, it's really about low input systems and where things come from.

Seasonality too plays a large part......we just shouldn't be eating strawberrys in January when you think about it!

The main place I shop is seasonal & a lot of it is free range.....I don't need a sticker to be able to see & taste when produce is better......know what you're saying about the bureaucratic side of things.......had it explained to me about ten years ago, but the proof is In the eating!

 

Infact none of this is news......we've all known for years what the supermarkets are doing, my first conversation with a small producer that was getting fcuked by tesco was 10 years ago.......but will we change? Will we fcuk!

Look around the high streets, full of e cig shops, pound shops etc.......a lot of people ain't got the option anymore....

It's the consumer that turned their backs on local shops, so they could drive out of town, so they didn't have to have a conversation with a butcher about a pound of sausages! We allowed the supermarkets to flourish to put them in the position they are today, being able to make or break producers...

Edited December 11, 2015 by Accip74

[Zilverhaze 1,627]

Watch the tesco documentary mate ther savages

[Blackdog92 2,047]

 

As an aside, the label "Organic" is a bit of a crock of shit......as many of you know they are simply independent organisation set up to relieve the farmer of some money in order for them to get a label that says organic.

They have some set rules for doing this but it's not as clear cut as that, I did a FITAC course on organic and I binned it off as it was pure bollocks.

See, I can get a certificate that says I am an organic farmer.......but I can then set up a box scheme and fly in produce from all over the planet using tons of jet fuel.

So tell me, who is certifing the grower of Chinese walnuts?........of South American cherrys?

But I can sell all these as organic as long as they too have a little badge that says organic!!!

Free range would be a much better thing to look out for, it's really about low input systems and where things come from.

Seasonality too plays a large part......we just shouldn't be eating strawberrys in January when you think about it!

The main place I shop is seasonal & a lot of it is free range.....I don't need a sticker to be able to see & taste when produce is better......know what you're saying about the bureaucratic side of things.......had it explained to me about ten years ago, but the proof is In the eating!

 

Infact none of this is news......we've all known for years what the supermarkets are doing, my first conversation with a small producer that was getting fcuked by tesco was 10 years ago.......but will we change? Will we fcuk!

Look around the high streets, full of e cig shops, pound shops etc.......a lot of people ain't got the option anymore....

It's the consumer that turned their backs on local shops, so they could drive out of town, so they didn't have to have a conversation with a butcher about a pound of sausages! We allowed the supermarkets to flourish to put them in the position they are today, being able to make or break producers...

Along with what your saying it has a bit to do with how we sell our produce also some farmers like to sell there animals dead weight were you are taking your produce straight to the supermarkets and you dont get paid till its hanging and at that point you cant say no were as some will like me prefer to take them to market were the dealers from various supermarkets and butchers have to go and bid on stock to get them. I prefer this way as they have to fight for them if you take them dead weight they can dock you for bruised meat and other things and how do you know there not ripping you off well you dont and cant