Are you expendable ?

 Its been a sobering week. After a visit from a consultant who was offering several hours of free advice we were basically told that within 5 years our farm income would be basically zero or less due to the phasing out of subsidies. To put that in perspective this current year which has seen the best profit for at least 15 years is all due to subsidy. Our profit is the subsidy we receive basically, and thats on a good year. There is no shame in saying this, and any other small farmer though they will never tell you are in the same boat.

Food has been produced for years for " not for profit " prices. This has enable the sellers such as supermarkets to obtain the food at the lowest possible price. I wont go into the politics of this but rather want to say that there is a tribulation ahead in food production in which many like myself are going to be in the situation of only doing what pays and pride is going to go out of the window. Its going to be a culture shock for this area that is very traditional. The figures say it cannot be avoided.

People often say farmers are " feather bedded " but farm profits are not even at 80's levels today. How is that possible ? With the recent inflation figures at 7% any food price increase or supply problem is going to cause people even more hardship. It may not come to this though as apparently 10% of farms are not viable after the phase out of support and are expected to be bought up by bigger farms. Everything gets bigger and bigger. Its not nice being told you are expendable.

The only hope this area has is that we are in a National Park and the landscape needs farming to keep it from becoming scrub and of the appearance that tourists expect.There maybe new help ahead though, but no one knows. No one can plan ahead because of this. Its a volatile time. All I can say is that whatever is offered to us it will not equal what we have received in the past and that figure was essential. Everyone including the public are going to pay, big time.

Now here is a fact that makes my blood boil. The figure the finacial support for UK farmers is nearly £4 billion, but we have just wasted £38 billion on " track and trace " covid contacting. Nothing like getting our priorities right, eh ?