I try and steer a middle ground as far as possible but it's not always easy. I know some 'poor' farmers. I also agree with Verd re migrants while also feeling enormous sympathy for them, and why is Europe bailing out the Greeks again when they'll never repay it?
I moan about stuff like everyone else, but, did anyone watch the programme Nature's Greatest Wonders? Breathtaking, moving and totally humbling. We don't have to walk fifteen miles across croc infested rivers and sit on the arse edge of the biggest waterfall in the world to catch fish for our families.
After watching it I felt I should be grateful for everything I have.
I'll go and polish my halo now
doc - cows and cats - you've lit the blue touchpaper now!
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I buy organic milk. Yeo valley if I can get it. It used to be 10 p dearer than ordinary milk. Now the price of ordinary milk is a loss leader by the supermarkets, except its the farmer who makes the loss. You can't blame someone struggling on a low income for buying the cheapest.
Australia used to put all the illegal migrants in detention camps offshore to process. We witnessed boat people landing on Christmas Island. The navy intercepted the boats, took them ashore, took the boats out and used them for target practice. More and more boats came. Then the government announced that they would never give a visa to anyone landing illegally. They all embarked from a safe country, usually Malaysia. They have to claim asylum in the first safe country, then apply for an entry permit under the usual immigration criteria. The boats stopped coming. The detention camp on Christmas Island is about to be closed. All the people in calais are in a safe country and could claim asylum there.
And most of you are gardeners I think, so you should know what you sow you don't always reap, so a bit of sympathy for people who try to make their living from the land!
But the solution could be in their own hands, pick on one supermarket at a time and refuse to sell them any British milk for a period, then move onto another SCROOGE and give them the treatment!
No doubt they would try to replace local with imports, but me for one would try to only buy local milk!
The problem is, it's not market forces that are determining the price of milk at the moment - it's the supermarkets using milk as a loss leader. Everyone buys milk, most buy it from a supermarket. Have you ever wondered why milk is always in an area furthest from the supermarket entrance? It's because it's the one thing that people 'just pop in' to get, but by making their customers walk past everything else in the supermarket to reach it, no one ever leaves with just the milk they went in to buy.
Also a problem totally unrelated to 'market forces' is the sudden drop in demand for British cheese due to the tit for tat trade sanctions going on between Russia and the EU. Russians love Cheddar cheese - simply love it. The British farmer had upped production to meet this demand but now, because of a political decision the demand has disappeared. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-has-just-flattened-10-tonnes-of-cheese-10443704.html
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the political situation, Putin understands the importance of making his country as self-reliant as possible in food (that's one element of the strategic importance of the Ukraine, for long known as the breadbasket of Europe - the other element of course is that Sevastapol is the Russian fleet's only winter access to western waters). Britain used to understand the importance of being as self-reliant as possible in food - but this is no longer true - again, a political decision and nothing to do with 'market forces'.
The Europe-wide drop in demand for milk due to the loss of the Russian market for cheese has flooded the market with cheap milk. There has also been an unexpected drop in demand for milk products from China due to the economic situation there.
The production of milk involves long term investment and farmers cannot just stop or reduce the amount they produce - this puts them at the mercy of the supermarkets - the farmers have no choice but to accept whatever the supermarkets will pay them. Even if they decide enough is enough and they'll go out of milk production, who is going to give them a fair price for their cattle, equipment and land when dairy farmers can't make money. If they sell up they'll not make enough to pay back their mortgages/bank loans etc. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The only way that dairy farmers can hope to make money at the moment is to produce more and more milk from the cows, land and equipment they've got - this is what leads to the practices described here
Several very good lettersin the papers today but this one addresses the subject from a slightly different angle
• I am appalled at the recent string of protests over falling dairy prices, ........................................despite pushing cows to the limit of their productive capacity and receiving huge public subsidies, it seems that farmers are still unable to turn a profit on milk. This clearly demonstrates what an unsustainable industry dairy farming is. Ben Martin Animal Aid
Ben Martin's piece is simplistic and disingenuous in the extreme.
He should be arguing for higher prices for milk to enable farmers to return to traditional and less intensive methods of milk production - but he's jumped on the bandwagon of 'let's slag off the wicked
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hmm, my last sentence got the chop, but you probably got my drift - it should have finished "......... but he's jumped on the bandwagon of 'let's slag off the wicked greedy farmers' again.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Posts
I shop at supermarkets
Pdoc I might need that option tomorrow I've de-frosted a take away curry that say Killer on the lid ..OH away so might cry for aid
I try and steer a middle ground as far as possible but it's not always easy. I know some 'poor' farmers. I also agree with Verd re migrants while also feeling enormous sympathy for them, and why is Europe bailing out the Greeks again when they'll never repay it?
I moan about stuff like everyone else, but, did anyone watch the programme Nature's Greatest Wonders? Breathtaking, moving and totally humbling. We don't have to walk fifteen miles across croc infested rivers and sit on the arse edge of the biggest waterfall in the world to catch fish for our families.
After watching it I felt I should be grateful for everything I have.
I'll go and polish my halo now
doc - cows and cats - you've lit the blue touchpaper now!
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I buy organic milk. Yeo valley if I can get it. It used to be 10 p dearer than ordinary milk. Now the price of ordinary milk is a loss leader by the supermarkets, except its the farmer who makes the loss. You can't blame someone struggling on a low income for buying the cheapest.
Australia used to put all the illegal migrants in detention camps offshore to process. We witnessed boat people landing on Christmas Island. The navy intercepted the boats, took them ashore, took the boats out and used them for target practice. More and more boats came. Then the government announced that they would never give a visa to anyone landing illegally. They all embarked from a safe country, usually Malaysia. They have to claim asylum in the first safe country, then apply for an entry permit under the usual immigration criteria. The boats stopped coming. The detention camp on Christmas Island is about to be closed. All the people in calais are in a safe country and could claim asylum there.
I will definitely pay extra to keep our dairy farmers
Thats all this countries got left 
I'm with the "Dairy" farmers on this one!
And most of you are gardeners I think, so you should know what you sow you don't always reap, so a bit of sympathy for people who try to make their living from the land!
But the solution could be in their own hands, pick on one supermarket at a time and refuse to sell them any British milk for a period, then move onto another SCROOGE and give them the treatment!
No doubt they would try to replace local with imports, but me for one would try to only buy local milk!
But it will never happen!
The problem is, it's not market forces that are determining the price of milk at the moment - it's the supermarkets using milk as a loss leader. Everyone buys milk, most buy it from a supermarket. Have you ever wondered why milk is always in an area furthest from the supermarket entrance? It's because it's the one thing that people 'just pop in' to get, but by making their customers walk past everything else in the supermarket to reach it, no one ever leaves with just the milk they went in to buy.
Also a problem totally unrelated to 'market forces' is the sudden drop in demand for British cheese due to the tit for tat trade sanctions going on between Russia and the EU. Russians love Cheddar cheese - simply love it. The British farmer had upped production to meet this demand but now, because of a political decision the demand has disappeared. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-has-just-flattened-10-tonnes-of-cheese-10443704.html
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the political situation, Putin understands the importance of making his country as self-reliant as possible in food (that's one element of the strategic importance of the Ukraine, for long known as the breadbasket of Europe - the other element of course is that Sevastapol is the Russian fleet's only winter access to western waters). Britain used to understand the importance of being as self-reliant as possible in food - but this is no longer true - again, a political decision and nothing to do with 'market forces'.
The Europe-wide drop in demand for milk due to the loss of the Russian market for cheese has flooded the market with cheap milk. There has also been an unexpected drop in demand for milk products from China due to the economic situation there.
The production of milk involves long term investment and farmers cannot just stop or reduce the amount they produce - this puts them at the mercy of the supermarkets - the farmers have no choice but to accept whatever the supermarkets will pay them. Even if they decide enough is enough and they'll go out of milk production, who is going to give them a fair price for their cattle, equipment and land when dairy farmers can't make money. If they sell up they'll not make enough to pay back their mortgages/bank loans etc. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The only way that dairy farmers can hope to make money at the moment is to produce more and more milk from the cows, land and equipment they've got - this is what leads to the practices described here
Ben Martin's piece is simplistic and disingenuous in the extreme.
He should be arguing for higher prices for milk to enable farmers to return to traditional and less intensive methods of milk production - but he's jumped on the bandwagon of 'let's slag off the wicked
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hmm, my last sentence got the chop, but you probably got my drift - it should have finished "......... but he's jumped on the bandwagon of 'let's slag off the wicked greedy farmers' again.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.