Farming Subsidies

[gf3]

As we are on a anti EU theme I thought we could bring farm subsidies into the mix.

Here is an article to get us started.

Farming subsidies: this is the most blatant transfer of cash to the rich

As the British government cut benefits for the poor at home, in Europe it fought to keep millions in subsidies for wealthy farmers

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/farm-subsidies-blatant-transfer-of-cash-to-rich

[acer]

Yet, all farmers do is moan.

[brunobald]

Yet, all farmers do is moan.

Not as much as hpc's

[alexw]

Not as much as hpc's

For us it's an art form, we don't get paid.

[long time lurking]

Yet, all farmers do is moan.

Normally about how hard up they are whilst driving a £40k+ plus range rover

[long time lurking]

As we are on a anti EU theme I thought we could bring farm subsidies into the mix.

Here is an article to get us started.

We can all be farmers now http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17250106 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17252035 the jurnolist made a great documentary on this

Edited May 24, 2014 by long time lurking

[shindigger]

We can all be farmers now http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17250106 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17252035 the jurnolist made a great documentary on this

Interesting stuff.

[long time lurking]

Interesting stuff.

This was the documentary (no longer available) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01d94rm had the auction site bookmarked but be fecked if i can find it looked in to it but the talk of closing the loop hole put me off ,its looking like i was more than a tad naive

[tinker]

Not as much as hpc's

The term is hpcer.

[byron78]

Oddly the Daily Mail don't run double page spreads on farmer scroungers.

[Steppenpig]

The term is hpcer.

How about "hpcrashers" pronounced "Xrashers" (the first consonant being an extra gutteral geman ch.

[wonderpup]

Any moment now that fearless campaigner against scroungers Ian Duncan Smith will leap into action to put a stop to all this. Just as soon as his own family remove their snouts from the trough.

(Nice farming analogy there I thought with the snouts thing )

[gf3]

I surprised this thread didn't get any more reaction. I find it totally amazing that we still live in a country where the rich land owners can get tax payer money given to them for just owning land and that the land isn't subject to inheritance tax so they can hand this down to their kids. What sort of country do we live in.

Am I right in saying that these rich land owners could have an inherited title so can get paid an extra £300 a day just to sit in the house of lord and make laws that effect every bodies life's.

[rentbug]

As we are on a anti EU theme I thought we could bring farm subsidies into the mix.

My family background is farming. In my experience some of the most ardent anti-EU people are farmers.

Rational thought is not a very prominent feature of human life.

[gf3]

My family background is farming. In my experience some of the most ardent anti-EU people are farmers.

Rational thought is not a very prominent feature of human life.

Who gets the money the tenant farmer or the land owner?

In the end I don't think it matters the land owner will extract the money in rent.

[Neverwhere]

Who gets the money the tenant farmer or the land owner?

In the end I don't think it matters the land owner will extract the money in rent.

Rents are super low in farming compared to land prices, somewhere around £100 per acre per year, so surely the landowner can claim them directly otherwise what is the incentive to buy land at current prices for such a pittance in rental income?

Oh wait, sorry, I forgot we were in a speculative bubble and they might just be investing in LPI

[crashmonitor]

Rents are super low in farming compared to land prices, somewhere around £100 per acre per year, so surely the landowner can claim them directly otherwise what is the incentive to buy land at current prices for such a pittance in rental income?

Oh wait, sorry, I forgot we were in a speculative bubble and they might just be investing in LPI

Indeed the whole farming economy is artificial, it's a store of wealth game not an income game for both the farmer and the landlord. Furthermore many of the rents are supressed by long standing rent agreements, a farmer I know rents the land for £6,000 pa and the farmhouse for £1,000 pa from the lord of the manor. Many of these long standing tenants will also have land they have acquired elsewhere from generations of inheritance tax free transfers and wealth accumulation and they may well be land millionaires even as tenant farmers from parcels of land close by. Other farmers may well have made killings from development permissions and will be multi-millionaires from these land transfers.

But on the income side there would be no profit without the subsidy, and even then we are talking working tax credit profits. They do put in the hours, may be 70 hours a week plus, they are generally wealthy on paper but income poor.

Subsidies of course mean we get to buy the food for less than production cost, we just have to pay taxes for the priviledge. As food is essential I think that is right and redistributes from the rich tax payer to the poor who get their food put on the table from Tesco for diddly squat. It used to be 50% of disposable income spent on food a hundred years ago now it is less than 10%. Only the US spends less on food than Brits as a proportion of disposable income....we have the second cheapest food in the world in proportion to our incomes,.

The reason that good farmland is now at £15,000 per acre is it is inheritance tax free. Again generous inheritance tax rules (as with houses £650,000 tax free inheritance transfer to undeserving kids) f88king up the whole economy. We have now entered a Victorian style society where inheritance matters not what you earn.

Edited May 27, 2014 by crashmonitor

[Neverwhere]

But on the income side there would be no profit without the subsidy, and even then we are talking working tax credit profits. They do put in the hours, may be 70 hours a week plus, they are generally wealthy on paper but income poor.

Subsidies of course mean we get to buy the food for less than production cost, we just have to pay taxes for the priviledge. As food is essential I think that is right and redistributes from the rich tax payer to the poor who get their food put on the table from Tesco for diddly squat. It used to be 50% of disposable income spent on food a hundred years ago now it is less than 10%. Only the US spends less on food than Brits as a proportion of disposable income....we have the second cheapest food in the world in proportion to our incomes,.

I can see the argument for keeping food cheap for the general populace (although would we need to do this if so much personal income wasn't being siphoned off into housing?), and even for encouraging good practice in relation to wildlife, but the current subsidy system doesn't seem to encourage efficient land use. Our agricultural land seems to be a series of monocultures and undermanaged pastures, with little multi-story cropping (as in the sort of tree crop with underplanted grain crop you often see in southern Europe or the undergrazed orchards that used to be common in the UK) or rational grazing (essentially pasture that is intensively managed for maximum productivity of grass and forbes and therefore maximum livestock fodder). I don't think farmers (actual farmers, not those who are speculating on land prices or seeking to avoid inheritance tax) are cash rich by any means but it does seem like they could increase their net profits by better utilising the land and increasing the overall yield of crops for human consumption/reducing the amount of purchased livestock fodder (especially where feed is imported); and that if we're going to have a subsidisation system it should be actively encouraging these kinds of increases in the productivity of the land.

I'm totally lay though so maybe I've just been reading too much J.Russell Smith/Andre Voisin.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Lo-fi