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Brexit and the UK food industry.
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Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
986 posts

Edited Jul 26, 2017, 09:39
Re: Brexit and the UK food industry.
Jul 26, 2017, 09:37
Captain Starlet wrote:
Howburn Digger wrote:
thesweetcheat wrote:


"But god knows he (Gove) needs advice, because our whole food supply chain has been imperilled by the Brexit vote."

The whole of the UK needs some advice. If our supply chain for milk and cheese stretches to Poland and Rumania and we have hundreds of miles of empty UK fields producing nothing.

What is that?



Well that's complete rubbish! Our milk and dairy are produced in this country, not imported from overseas. The only thing farmers get from the EU are financial subsidies which they will no longer receive if we leave the EU. I used to work for DEFRA working with these same farmers who will likely lose their livelihoods without these subsidies. The EU isn't harming our farming industry the airheads who voted leave and govt are doing that! Try actually speaking to farmers who are going to be affected by this like I did!


I'm afraid it is not rubbish. I lived on a working farm from 2002 until 2016 and saw for myself.

Dairy Producers across the UK fell from 35,741 to 13,815 between 1995 and 2015. That is a 61% reduction.
Milk/ Cream Imports 2005 = 158,000 tonnes
Milk/ Cream Imports 2014 = 221,000 tonnes

Cheese Imports 2005 = 419,000 tonnes
Cheese Imports 2014 = 467,000 tonnes

Dairy Producers (Scotland) 1995 - 2015 = 2,239 down to 886
Dairy Producers (England) 1995 - 2015 = 28,093 down to 10,274

Cow Milk Prodduction has fallen in the UK by 6% since 1992. In that time Germany's has increased by 9%. Turkey's has increased by 83%.

UK Beef and Veal Imports are now at 250,000 tonnes per year.

British Farmers subsidies are paid to be "custodians of the land" and not per cow or gallon of milk. The majority of EU subsidies are paid through "the single farm payment" to massive landowners (some are oligarchs, oil and mining magnates etc) many of whom do not pay taxes in the UK. The more land you have = the more subsidiy you get, regardless of whether you grow anything. For example Iain Duncan Smith has a huge estate his wife inherited and they scooped £1.5 Million in subsidies for growing nothing between 2003 and 2013. IDS cut Income Support for the poorest in the UK and sucked up this kinda Income Support.
I am not having any kind of dig at hard working small farmers, they have seldom had anything except minimum wage (actually much less) from the "single farm payment" subsidy anyway. All that has happened is that it has made small farmers raising crops and livestock have a hard time and fat wealthy land-owning tax avoiders have an easy life scooping benefits and subsidies for not farming but "guarding the land".
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