Over on The Times comment section, the gloriously named Camilla Cavendish kindly writes a piece in support of my suggestions for agriculture yesterday - well almost.
Most of us are confused. We bleat about animal welfare, but shun the pricey local butcher in favour of meat that may or may not have ever seen a daisy.
Bacon is a particular issue. Our pork production has halved in the past ten years, putting pig farmers out of business. This nation of animal lovers has pushed for higher welfare standards than any other EU country, but we are not prepared to pay the higher prices that result. Instead, we eat bacon and pork from Denmark and the Netherlands, where many sows apparently never escape from the kind of tiny, dark stalls that are banned here.
Being a product of her environment, Cavendish can't quite come to the conclusion that protectionism is the only solution - I guess she is one of those millions who have been brainwashed by the globalisation message over the years from this next statement.
I'm not arguing that we should rule on “British food for British workers” - that might be more than some can stomach, given our penchant for exotic foods and the very real travails of Kenyan farmers.
I don't know why she thinks that the travail of Kenyan farmers are any more real than those of Kent farmers - it's all relative. Yeah, they don't have the latest 4x4 tractor in Kenya, but they can hire an army of workers to do the job for less than a tankful of red diesel.
Cavendish also misses the point that all that food imported from Kenya means a whole lot less for native Kenyans and higher prices for what they can buy - but hey, that's globalisation for you. Who cares if a few Kenyan kids go hungry as long as we can feel good about helping a Kenyan farmer - and if you do feel guilty, just give a tenner to Comic Relief and you'll be able to forgive yourself.
I don't want to turn this into a Cavendish bash, though - mostly I agree with what she says. She makes some very good points about packaged food and food origins which I heartily agree with. A couple of weeks back I had a small argument with someone called "Anonymous" about a post that mentioned Tesco. Basically the upshot was that he/she felt I was a hypocrite who moaned about supermarkets and then rushes off to my local Tesco every Saturday.
Well, to be fair - I used to be just like that. Except it was Sainsbury's. I was like everybody else, packing the wife and kids into the car on Saturday morning to drive up to the local hypermarket where we'd spend the next 3-4 hours mooching around, buying two trolleys of stuff we don't really need and then spending ages waiting at the checkout queue to pay for the privilege.
Like everyone else we'd get home and pack our fridge, freezer and cupboards with our purchases for that week grateful that we'd got all the shopping done. Come the end of the week we'd have thrown a bunch of stuff out that had gone past it's "best before" date and we'd have made two or three other trips to the local shops for things we'd forgotten - a bag of sugar here, a pot of marmalade there and so on.
Then, one day, we had a revelation. Planning a family Sunday lunch with both sets of in-laws invited over, we needed a decent joint of meat and, our trip to the local supermarket done, the missus suddenly realised she'd forgotten to buy the joint. Fortunately, close to where we live is a local family butcher so we decided to pop in there.
We parked right outside the shop (which you can still do, today), popped in and less than 5 minutes later emerged with a fantastic joint of English lamb from a local farm. The butcher was friendly, knowledgeable and courteous. He knew where all his meat came from (mostly local) and how it is looked after. There was no queueing, no hassle and even the kids didn't mind as we were in and out so quickly.
The joint was delicious - the best piece of lamb I had tasted in ages. Even the mother-in-law was happy! Thanks to our pleasant experience with this butcher, Missus Stan and I sat down that evening and decided we'd try a different approach to our shopping. Like most families, we both work and time is critical - but we have lunch breaks and commutes so we decided we'd buy what we need when we needed it from local shops rather than supermarkets.
Seven years later we are still doing it. We have found a number of local shops and farm shops which supply our requirements and we do our shopping a little bit at a time when we can. We rarely buy for more than two days in advance, but when you add up the total time of each shopping trip we make we manage to do all our shopping in half the time we'd spend at Sainsbury's on a Saturday.
Because we only buy what we need when we need it, we don't end up with trolleys full of stuff we don't really want - no ready meals and very little processed food (just a few tins, really). As a result our weekly shopping bill is around half to a third less than my friends with similar sized families who still shop at Tesco.
We pay a little more for what we do buy, but as we don't buy so much we actually save money. We save time. We avoid all the stress and hassle of the big Saturday shop. The kids don't grumble about being dragged around the supermarket so they're happier. They're healthier too as we cook proper meals with proper locally sourced food and we have a good relationship with a variety of local shopkeepers rather than the indifference (at best) of some checkout girl who might say "have a good day", but doesn't really mean it.
Best of all, we don't waste half our Saturday in a bloody supermarket so our weekends are our own again.
Go on - try it yourselves. You'll be amazed.
Showing posts with label Farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Farming. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Protecting our agriculture
Over on the Telegraph's comment section, Mark Price, Managing Director of Waitrose and Chairman of the Prince of Wales' Rural Action programme, writes that we need to look after British farming, but fails to put forward any new suggestions as to how we do that beyond sentimentalist pap.
As the global recession deepens, we must ensure that British agriculture survives and thrives in an uncertain future, says Mark Price.
OK, I agree - but how do we do that? Price doesn't say, but he is quick to say what we mustn't do.
Protectionist policies do not hold the answers; nor can we realistically aim for total self-sufficiency in food production.
Of course we can not aim for total self-sufficiency, but if we don't use "protectionist policies" then what?
However, we can ensure that, as a nation, we refocus on the true value of farming as a well-rewarded career in a diverse and sustainable sector populated by a skilled, passionate workforce.
Hmmm - that sounds like government subsidy to me. That in itself is a form of "protectionism" - one which the EU both allows and encourages - but it is also the most inefficient form of protectionism. All it does is sort of preserve farming as a kind of "living museum" which, without the provision of huge amounts of taxpayers money, would otherwise be unable to sustain itself.
This is what annoys me about the "anti-protectionists". They are quite happy to have protectionism in the form of direct government aid at the lowest level possible level - i.e. to the individual farmer - but can't see that a far better way of doing that is to protect the industry at the national level through trade barriers and tariffs.
That way the farmer is no longer directly reliant on the government to protect his livelihood, but is now dependent on the internal market and his own efforts to ensure he maintains a living. If the internal market was protected then he would no longer be competing against foreign farmers - who may enjoy bigger government subsidies or lower production costs - and would be able to compete on a level playing field with similar farmers around the country producing similar goods.
Yes, we'd have to pay a little more for our food, but as we're already paying massive amounts indirectly to the farming industry (and mostly to the farming industry in other EU member states) we'd be able to reduce the level of taxation on consumers anyway.
It's not just the direct subsidies either - there is also the huge army of bureaucrats required to administer the protectionist policy of subsidy and grant which is a massive cost we could easily lose if, instead, we just had a small group of people deciding what foreign produce we allow in, how much they allow in and how much they pay to let it in.
As Price points out, we're using a far smaller proportion of our income for our food than ever before even though we are eating far more (and chucking far more away) than we ever have at any time in our history. The British people can afford to pay more for their food IF we stop wasting taxpayers money supporting our farmers and foreign farmers through subsidies and grants - and we'd waste a lot less than we currently do.
If our government were to dare to be protectionist at national and border level rather than at the personal, individual level we'd be far more self-sufficient and farming (and fishing) could look after itself rather than rely on the government to support it.
As the global recession deepens, we must ensure that British agriculture survives and thrives in an uncertain future, says Mark Price.
OK, I agree - but how do we do that? Price doesn't say, but he is quick to say what we mustn't do.
Protectionist policies do not hold the answers; nor can we realistically aim for total self-sufficiency in food production.
Of course we can not aim for total self-sufficiency, but if we don't use "protectionist policies" then what?
However, we can ensure that, as a nation, we refocus on the true value of farming as a well-rewarded career in a diverse and sustainable sector populated by a skilled, passionate workforce.
Hmmm - that sounds like government subsidy to me. That in itself is a form of "protectionism" - one which the EU both allows and encourages - but it is also the most inefficient form of protectionism. All it does is sort of preserve farming as a kind of "living museum" which, without the provision of huge amounts of taxpayers money, would otherwise be unable to sustain itself.
This is what annoys me about the "anti-protectionists". They are quite happy to have protectionism in the form of direct government aid at the lowest level possible level - i.e. to the individual farmer - but can't see that a far better way of doing that is to protect the industry at the national level through trade barriers and tariffs.
That way the farmer is no longer directly reliant on the government to protect his livelihood, but is now dependent on the internal market and his own efforts to ensure he maintains a living. If the internal market was protected then he would no longer be competing against foreign farmers - who may enjoy bigger government subsidies or lower production costs - and would be able to compete on a level playing field with similar farmers around the country producing similar goods.
Yes, we'd have to pay a little more for our food, but as we're already paying massive amounts indirectly to the farming industry (and mostly to the farming industry in other EU member states) we'd be able to reduce the level of taxation on consumers anyway.
It's not just the direct subsidies either - there is also the huge army of bureaucrats required to administer the protectionist policy of subsidy and grant which is a massive cost we could easily lose if, instead, we just had a small group of people deciding what foreign produce we allow in, how much they allow in and how much they pay to let it in.
As Price points out, we're using a far smaller proportion of our income for our food than ever before even though we are eating far more (and chucking far more away) than we ever have at any time in our history. The British people can afford to pay more for their food IF we stop wasting taxpayers money supporting our farmers and foreign farmers through subsidies and grants - and we'd waste a lot less than we currently do.
If our government were to dare to be protectionist at national and border level rather than at the personal, individual level we'd be far more self-sufficient and farming (and fishing) could look after itself rather than rely on the government to support it.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Cameron, Tesco and the price of carrots
Tough talking from Simon Heffer in today's Telegraph as he says that Cameron's "moral capitalism is no better then socialism".
Let us mark one thing: that a Conservative victory some time in the next 16 months will have nothing to do with the alternative that party offers to the electorate, other than the specific alternative of its not being the Labour Party.
I generally agree with Heffer's assessment of Cameron and the Tory party. Nor do I fundamentally disagree with Heffer's interpretation of capitalism already being moral, but I do have issues with what he writes. Particularly this.
I can only construe from his words that this is a world where, for example, there are more corner shops and fewer Tescos. But why is Tesco so powerful? Because its customers, exercising their free will, have made it so.
Well, not quite as it happens. Although it is true that Tesco customers are indeed exercising their free will, they are not doing so in a free and fair market.
Tesco has been around since 1919 - and for most of those 90 years was just another grocer. It's sudden leap in the last 20 years or so from being just another supermarket to the dominant force in high street consumerism is not due to buyers exercising their free will, but to the rise of globalisation, corporatism and international trade regulation.
Before we joined the EU and subjected our trade to the whims and ministrations of various unelected bureaucrats things worked more or less like this. Our farmers grew produce - lets say carrots - and grocers competed with each other to buy those carrots. Because Tesco were competing with other grocers to buy those carrots it ensured that our farmers got a fair price for what they grew. If Tesco couldn't get what they needed they'd have to buy elsewhere and pay import duties making their carrots slightly more expensive than home grown carrots - but the people they bought from still received a fair price for their carrots all the same.
Fast forward a few years and those restrictions have gone - and with it the internal competition for home grown produce. Now Tesco can force British farmers to sell at a much lower price or they will take their business elsewhere. Because British farmers are required to sell their goods at much lower prices than they otherwise could, this means that foreign suppliers who make up the shortfall have to reduce their prices as well - no one gets a fair price for their carrots anymore.
The other thing is that Tesco, being a large corporation can lobby internationally and skew the market in its favour - something independent grocers can not do. Tesco bypasses the instrument of democracy and goes straight to the real powers - the corporate bodies that dictate the regulations by which international trade happens; the EU, WTO, UN and so on.
There is no doubt that we have benefited from this in terms of lower food prices, but at what cost to our economic viability? Personally, I believe that we have done considerable damage to our long term future which will take a long time to put right - and the longer we put off doing something about it, the harder that will be.
The sooner we start moving back to being an independent and largely self-sufficient nation again the better our long term prospects will be. Neither Cameron nor any of the other mainstream political parties are offering that as an alternative so it may take some time yet.
Let us mark one thing: that a Conservative victory some time in the next 16 months will have nothing to do with the alternative that party offers to the electorate, other than the specific alternative of its not being the Labour Party.
I generally agree with Heffer's assessment of Cameron and the Tory party. Nor do I fundamentally disagree with Heffer's interpretation of capitalism already being moral, but I do have issues with what he writes. Particularly this.
I can only construe from his words that this is a world where, for example, there are more corner shops and fewer Tescos. But why is Tesco so powerful? Because its customers, exercising their free will, have made it so.
Well, not quite as it happens. Although it is true that Tesco customers are indeed exercising their free will, they are not doing so in a free and fair market.
Tesco has been around since 1919 - and for most of those 90 years was just another grocer. It's sudden leap in the last 20 years or so from being just another supermarket to the dominant force in high street consumerism is not due to buyers exercising their free will, but to the rise of globalisation, corporatism and international trade regulation.
Before we joined the EU and subjected our trade to the whims and ministrations of various unelected bureaucrats things worked more or less like this. Our farmers grew produce - lets say carrots - and grocers competed with each other to buy those carrots. Because Tesco were competing with other grocers to buy those carrots it ensured that our farmers got a fair price for what they grew. If Tesco couldn't get what they needed they'd have to buy elsewhere and pay import duties making their carrots slightly more expensive than home grown carrots - but the people they bought from still received a fair price for their carrots all the same.
Fast forward a few years and those restrictions have gone - and with it the internal competition for home grown produce. Now Tesco can force British farmers to sell at a much lower price or they will take their business elsewhere. Because British farmers are required to sell their goods at much lower prices than they otherwise could, this means that foreign suppliers who make up the shortfall have to reduce their prices as well - no one gets a fair price for their carrots anymore.
The other thing is that Tesco, being a large corporation can lobby internationally and skew the market in its favour - something independent grocers can not do. Tesco bypasses the instrument of democracy and goes straight to the real powers - the corporate bodies that dictate the regulations by which international trade happens; the EU, WTO, UN and so on.
There is no doubt that we have benefited from this in terms of lower food prices, but at what cost to our economic viability? Personally, I believe that we have done considerable damage to our long term future which will take a long time to put right - and the longer we put off doing something about it, the harder that will be.
The sooner we start moving back to being an independent and largely self-sufficient nation again the better our long term prospects will be. Neither Cameron nor any of the other mainstream political parties are offering that as an alternative so it may take some time yet.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Great telly, but rather them than me
I don't know if you've been watching the excellent "Victorian Farm" on BBC2 over the last few weeks, but it's become one of the few highlights on TV for me since it started. The programme follows a group of people living and working a farm as they would have done in Victorian times - using traditional methods combined with the "new technology" that was transforming farming in the late 19th century.
The programme makes frequent references to how the new technology of the time was replacing the intensive labour that had been needed before - although makes little judgement on why this was happening. I believe that the general opinion is that the advent of new machinery forced many people out of the country and into the cities, towns and factories - but I would argue that it was possibly the other way around.
People started flocking to the industrial centres from the country because the factories offered higher wages - and businessmen don't pay higher wages unless they have to! If it really had been a case that the new farming technology was putting farm workers out of work then the wages offered by the industrialist would have been lower - not higher. Add on the fact that working in factories offered predictable hours (though long) and less backbreaking (though still very hard) work and you can see why people moved to the cities and why farming had to change.
Despite all the advances in technology, farming actually remained quite labour intensive long after the Victorian era. One of my favourite books about the local area is called "The Spacious Days" by Michael Twist recounting his early life living and working on a farm not far from Slough in the 1930's. It's a charming and witty read, but it also reveals that farming was still a very labour intensive occupation even up to just before the start of WW2.
Watching Victorian Farm reveals just how hard life was back then - even if the participants in the programme seem to be enjoying themselves. I actually think they are enjoying the simplicity and honesty of that way of life more than anything - the work itself, particularly during the harsh winter months, was arduous although ultimately rewarding - and they know that they'll be back in the modern world soon enough. You also have to admire the sheer creativity and skill of the craftsmen back then.
Contrary to what many might think - although I believe we could do far worse than reacquaint ourselves with some of the Victorian morality, can do attitude and work ethic - I don't dream of us going back to those sort of times. What we forget, though, is that without the power provided by fuel such as coal and the freedom provided by the internal combustion engine we wouldn't be that much different today. For me, there is a certain irony that so-called "progressive" policy towards "man-made" global warming is likely to force a return to a Victorian style existence far more than any conservative policy would.
The programme makes frequent references to how the new technology of the time was replacing the intensive labour that had been needed before - although makes little judgement on why this was happening. I believe that the general opinion is that the advent of new machinery forced many people out of the country and into the cities, towns and factories - but I would argue that it was possibly the other way around.
People started flocking to the industrial centres from the country because the factories offered higher wages - and businessmen don't pay higher wages unless they have to! If it really had been a case that the new farming technology was putting farm workers out of work then the wages offered by the industrialist would have been lower - not higher. Add on the fact that working in factories offered predictable hours (though long) and less backbreaking (though still very hard) work and you can see why people moved to the cities and why farming had to change.
Despite all the advances in technology, farming actually remained quite labour intensive long after the Victorian era. One of my favourite books about the local area is called "The Spacious Days" by Michael Twist recounting his early life living and working on a farm not far from Slough in the 1930's. It's a charming and witty read, but it also reveals that farming was still a very labour intensive occupation even up to just before the start of WW2.
Watching Victorian Farm reveals just how hard life was back then - even if the participants in the programme seem to be enjoying themselves. I actually think they are enjoying the simplicity and honesty of that way of life more than anything - the work itself, particularly during the harsh winter months, was arduous although ultimately rewarding - and they know that they'll be back in the modern world soon enough. You also have to admire the sheer creativity and skill of the craftsmen back then.
Contrary to what many might think - although I believe we could do far worse than reacquaint ourselves with some of the Victorian morality, can do attitude and work ethic - I don't dream of us going back to those sort of times. What we forget, though, is that without the power provided by fuel such as coal and the freedom provided by the internal combustion engine we wouldn't be that much different today. For me, there is a certain irony that so-called "progressive" policy towards "man-made" global warming is likely to force a return to a Victorian style existence far more than any conservative policy would.
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