Article for Future Countryside

A few other points on the state of UK Food & Farming....

In 1973 Agricultural income was £8 Billion, in 2007 it was £2.5 Billion. This year TESCO plc made £2 Billion in UK Profits.....

There has been a huge transfer of wealth through monopoly buying from farmers to supermarket and intermediary shareholders. (only offset by the other huge transfers through the CAP from taxpayers to landowners in proportion to acres owned - currently £100ish per acre - meaning the poorest pay a 1000 acre farmer a 6 figure cheque. EVERY YEAR!!)

While some farmers buy Ferrari's with their subsidies many go out of business and are forced off the land.

The big are kept drunk on subsidies whilst the small, medium and family farms have been driven out of business. But now event the big are tumbling.....0nce you were a big farmer with 200 acres - now 2000 are not enough in the commodity trap....

Meanwhile supermarkets argue they should be able to retrospectively change contracts in order to "keep food cheap" they routinely ride roughshod over contract law and fighting even a "voluntary ombudsman" of some sort. These organisations are only acting according to law - the maximisation of shareholder wealth. This has NOTHING to do with the public interest.

Over half of farmers have been squeezed out of farm, house and land by monopoly buying and the structure of the industry over the past 30 years.

Our agriculture is now completely reliant on oil and gas to make nitrates and pesticides. We are literally eating fossil fuels . We have destroyed great swathes of the countryside, impoverished the soil, and destroyed much of what was England's Green and PLEASANT land.... through SUBSIDY AND DELIBERATE POLICY.

We have now have a population suffering from obesity, people totally disconnected from land and food with even people in the countryside are generally totally divorced from food and farming, let alone in the towns... and only 10% of London children even visiting the countryside last year.....

But it can change.

The average age of British farmers is 60 now, those that are left are getting old ...... many are sick from chemicals they have handled..... most are sick of the marketing lies, half truths and perverted science SOLD to them by companies, politicians, and so called experts.

But there is still time to rebuild and regain our culture, our agri-culture, there is a groundswell of people who realise this, now estimated as 8-10% of the population who are actively seeking our sustainable and fair trade produce.

The country needs great farmers to face the twin challenges of Climate Change and Peak Oil.

People on the ground, policy makers and independent scientists have answers and solutions but all depend on farmers to do it. Currently there are 10 people talking for everyone doing. Soon there will be 1000 doing.....

We need to transition to sustainable, ecological and complex food systems, relocalised and this means disintermediarating the current food chain.

We can do this ..... it means moving to free and fair trade with negative externalities properly costed into the system as well as public goods that farmers produce (from biodiversity to beautiful countryside).

It means moving from the mono-culture and chemical paradigm to complex systems harnessing nature not fighting it, it means moving to biological and ecological farming... from

This is resisted at every turn by the most powerful entrenched interests, including successful companies and individuals that profit from the existing situation.
There are customers by the million that want local food of great provenance. Lets connect these people with farmers and growers, re-invigorate existing farms and develop new enterprises.

This has to be done by ourselves, farmers and people.

"The Campaign for Real Farming" written by Colin Tudge describes how to proceed.....

"...... the way to go about this is neither to have a fight -- which is
revolution -- nor to persuade the powers-that-be to change their ways step by step -- which is reform. Revolutions are too messy and dangerous.

Reform cannot succeed because it is too slow ..... Besides, the powers-that-be are not listening. .........

....Instead we need Renaissance – the principle of which was beautifully
encapsulated by the American architect and visionary polymath
Buckminster Fuller:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To
change something, build a new model that makes the existing
model obsolete."

SEE http://campaignforrealfarming.blogspot.com/