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HAVE YOUR SAY

DO FARMERS HAVE THE WORST DEAL OF ALL?

Monday May 21,2007

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(5)

THE shocking scale of the crisis gripping farming is revealed today.

Figures show that one in three farmers are living in poverty – a higher ratio than in any other business.

Since Tony Blair came to power, average farm incomes have halved while almost 80,000 have quit the industry.

More than one dairy farm is closing every day, with 2,125 lost in England since 2002.

The figures were obtained by Conservatives in Parliamentary answers.

Farmers say they are in the “worst crisis ever to hit the farming industry”.

The nightmare has been compounded by a fiasco at the Rural Payments Agency which sends out EU grants worth £1.5billion.

*But what do YOU think?

Do farmers have the worst deal of all?

Should they receive more help from the government?

Should the government do more to encourage us to buy home-grown produce?

Have YOUR say.

DO FARMERS HAVE THE WORST DEAL OF ALL

23.05.07, 6:54pm

Yes they do.. Not helped by the merciless employees of DEFRAwho pound the famers to death fo the pleasure of flexing their muscles.
I have more contact with farmers wives. Its really really sad at times like Christmas some have telephoned weeping that they can't afford anything more than coloured pencils for their children.
They are in such a situation and every time I#ve tried to find out the inner core truth of it the Benefits Office have asked " Are you a journalist? and then disappeared even when I have said I am not.
I was told that if you have any land whatsoever...bony and full of stones or not you cannot claim benefits until you put your farm on the market or at least some of the land.
The farmers that I know are up at about five in bitter and wet weather. One wife so cripples with arthritis that her husband has to put her socks on. This same farmer had a calf fall in the cess pit and but for his dangerous rescue it would have died horribly. One patient of my husband's also fell in a cess pit and the noxious bacteria ate his lungs away so it would have been dreadful..
Someone mentioned that calves are killed because they're the wrong sex....AND why is that d'you think because those who don;t farm demand every scrap of meat off the farmers' bones at a minimum price.
Now perhaps you're buying packaged meat note with the stamp PL I think that means Poland (Seen in Netto) why are the super markets buying for as far away as Poland when we hear the conditions for animals are horendous.. Vide the case of pigs dropped in boiling water to debristling them.
Can you think of eating a pig been subjected to such cruelty

• Posted by: Miriam • Report Comment

FARMERS WORST DEAL.

21.05.07, 8:26pm

Farmers are worse of today under the despotic uncaring Bliar regime of killing off anything English whilst kowtowing to Brussels in the hope that he and the Charming Cherie will be made president and presidentess of their beloved EU.
The money that farmers get from government is always late coming in and has been for several years making it impossible to balance their books to survive.
The odious frogs do not and would not stand for this messing about. they would block the channel ports, if only they would.
The big supermarkets are making untold profits off the backs of these hardworking necessary farmers.
They charge very excessive prices to us public but give our farmers very little.
Whatever happened to the Garden of Kent, Kenilworth tomatoes, Scottish potatoes, Worcester Apples and so on, they have virtually died out because of the greed of the big supermarkets.
There should be government intervention on behalf of farmers and the public to ensure fair deals for home grown produce.
The big supermarkets are paying pittance abroad for things which we have always grown here hence their £millions profit.
In the foreseeable future supermarkets may well not be able to purchase from around the world when
they realize how much they are being ripped off.
There will be a world shortage of food.

• Posted by: Robertz • Report Comment

FARMERS

21.05.07, 6:34pm

I do not feel sorry for farmers,I feel sorry for the animals who have a worthless life only to be desroyed when it is suitable.The conditions some are kept in and the ill treatment is deplorable,and there is something tragically wrong when new born calves are slaughtered just because they are the wrong sex or breed.All that matters to farmers is money.

• Posted by: JimH • Report Comment

FARMING IN ENGLAND

21.05.07, 4:56pm

I have very little sympathy for farmers for they were once the riches in the country but cared little about people, Farming is however the mainstay of any country but it has no power or say anymore and its decline is the main reason why there is very little left of the English culture which is why everyone should look to the English white dragon flag and no other, but the Saint George flag will do for the time being. Again the decline of English culture falls solely on the government and the rich who failed to plough the wealth back in again to increase and improve conditions and production for this country and its people, preferring instead to buy from abroad and putting its own people out of work and now eventually themselves and this is why we find ourselves involved in the European market because this is where they are all at. It’s all falling into place as specified in the Bible Genesis projection involving Energy, water, minerals, agriculture, animals, food and people etc are all becoming subject to a rich core elite with a leader as the head trying to control and domineer the whole earth. We have just witnessed that kind of idealism/materialism MONISM in George Bush and Tony Blair who think that they are in some way Devine with unlimited power at their disposal, this is not as far fetched as people might because someday in the near future one man will have enough power and wealth to think just that and apply things as he thinks fit. I therefore ask people to vote only far an England party for English people like the EDP while there is still some England and freedom left then maybe we can prevent this world MONISM from happening.

• Posted by: Derk • Report Comment

YOU NEED A LARGER FARM NOW.

21.05.07, 11:57am

THE GOVERMENT SHOULD DO MORE TO HELP THE SMALL FARMER. WHAT WE WANT IS MORE HOME GROWN FOOD. I USED TO HAVE MY OWN COWS AND IT WAS HARD WORK AND I HAD TO GET UP EARLY. I WASNT GETTING ENOUGH MONEY FOR MY MILK, SO I DECIDED TO START A BOARDING KENNELS AND CATTERY INSTEAD. IT CERTAINLY PAID OFF BETTER THAN THE FARM. SO FARMERS CHANGE TO SOMETHING ELSE ON YOUR FARM, AND BE INDEPENDANT, GOOD LUCK TO YOU.... HAL

• Posted by: chilvers12 • Report Comment