Story here. For too long the population of Britain, the EU and the US have had the luxury of cheap food. Subsidies have created the belief that food is cheap and 'grows on trees'. Well it doesn't. Tha average farm size in England is 57 hectares (140 acres) and the average farm income in 2006 was £20,600. The supermarkets must be made to pay the producers more for their produce. If the population want to continue to eat they had better get used to paying a fair price for their food. Everyone is complaining about price increases but they forget that last years grain harvest was poor due to a dry April and a very wet summer. This has nothing to do with global warming but just natural cycles in the weather.
This is a John Deere 6430 which is a general utility tractor which retails at £35,000 ex vat, and these days it is a 'little' tractor. If you want a combine harvester a half decent one starts at £150,000 and it only gets used for a couple of weeks a year at most. I am not even going to start on the cost of animal feeds, vet's bills and machinery.
I buy my veg from a neighbour for considerably less that supermarket prices and it tastes far better (albeit the produce isn't all uniformly the same size a'la Tesco) and my butcher Sergeants in Stowbridge has probably the best meat in Norfolk and he is cheaper than Tescos. I know that many people do not have these local resources but when possible please try to use your local supplier. Except the butcher in Wandsworth Bridge Road who charges for a Lamb Chop what I would pay for a whole leg.
Monday, 7 April 2008
Soaring price of food 'leads to riots'
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7 comments:
Good grief, how does ANYONE make a living off of 140 acres?? Average farm size in the US is 450 acres (182 hectares) I personally don't know any farmers (sole income from farming) working less than 1000 acres.
I think we're in trouble in the UK.
Massively over populated and under resourced in terms of farming and fisheries. People think I'm mad when I suggest that we could see famine here - they haven't a bloody clue.
140 acres?
Kinda puts living in the Midwest US in perspective.
Wandsworth Bridge Road? Never go shopping for anything there! It's stuffed full of Hoorays, now. And I was first brought up in Battersea - an awful long time ago. We still have the house (which is nicely accruing value all the time, what with the Hoorays and the Russians). Our meat is shipped in from a very fine butcher Gloucestershire, properly aged and hung. You could do worse than shop for vegetables in the nearby street market. Sadly all the greengrocers have gone.
"they had better get used to paying a fair price"
The term "fair price" really sets my teeth on edge.
Seller sets a price, Buyer either agrees or tells the Seller to go pound sand.
When I hear "fair price" I think "government interference".
How long until a days wages for a loaf of bread?
Why is it so difficult for people to see the correlation between the increase in biofuel production and the commensurate rise in food prices?
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