Why is nobody talking about the farmer's protests here?
Why is nobody talking about the farmer's protests here?
Aren't you all surprised by them blocking public rights of way and trying to intimidate anyone who says they should live by the same rules as the rest of us?
Agree with everything you said. I find the hostillity towards farmers strange. I'm convinved a lot of the negativity comes from more urban folk who are still bitter that farmers generally voted for Brexit (although they voted inline with the rest of the population) and imagine that they're all loaded. Farmers literally produce our food and essentially work 24/7, no matter the weather, work in dangerous conditions (heavy machinery) and like you said, have crazy high suicide rates.
It's a tough one. I'm pretty pro-farmer and think that this policy seems to be burning a lot of bridges for very little gain.
The farming community really struggle with optics. You're absolutely bang on about the Brexit thing, that didn't help them. A lot of people point to farmers being very wealthy people - and on paper it's true. The land, the seeded fields and infrastructure, and the colossal machinery means even a small farm is usually a multi-million pound enterprise... but the liquid assets available to farmers are generally next to fuck all, and my anecdotal experience of living rurally is that most farms are one bad crop away from having to cut back and choosing to heat or eat; and two bad crops from bankruptcy.
I don't think the general public quite realise the tiny margins the farmers are on - between the cost of living and doing business, and the absolute pittance that supermarkets and the retail industry have been squeezing them at the point of sale. I've never seen so many Samaritans banners on major routes through the countryside.
Unfortunately, all the general public see are farmers blocking the roads in their £750,000 behemoth trucks waving Tory flags, complaining about 20% inheritance tax rate when everyone else paid double - when that's just a surface level view of the problem.
I should imagine that if you took the takings of a farm per year, and divided it by the number of folk working it and divided it by an 80 hour working week (for generalisations sake), then it would be quite clear that farming isn't the business to be in if you want to be rich.
e: I'm sorry, I used the "you" there, I'm not arguing against the person I'm replying to, I'm largely arguing alongside.
I actually support the farmers in this tbf. I just wanted to make a shit joke about them blocking green lanes and footpaths.
I try to avoid conspiracybrain but this policy seems so badly designed it seems as if the point is to force farmers into reverse mortgages.
If the real point is to make money for the treasury, discourage land banking and encourage more productive use of land, then a very modest land value tax would be more suitable and much fairer.
As it is, it's going to dispossess farmers of land and make a tiny amount of revenue from a tax that big business is immune from.