MPs realising in real time how broken the economics of farming is - you can have a big paper asset and earn less than minimum wage from it and still somehow your children want to do this job - has definitely been something
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And why do they want to do the job? Because you get money given to you by the Government (subsidies), tax breaks (inheritance tax, tax averaging over 5 years) AND you have a paper asset which you can sell bits off at any time to release money. All other businesses would jump at those benefits.
Quite obviously people do it because they love the way of life, because they have a personal connection to a few hundred acres that is very unusual these days. But the point is that the government says it doesn't want to reconfigure farming. And if it did, this would be an odd way to do it.
Oh and small farms which as you say are a few hundred acres were a few tens of acres a generation ago and we have heard very little about that. This is because the true small farms had very little power/voice and were swallowed up by their larger neighbours.
I’m sorry I don’t agree - some maybe but for many it is the easiest option and a very attractive one at that. Interestingly here in the Borders when the big forestry companies turn up with a fat chequebook it is amazing how the personal connection to the land quickly vanishes and the land is sold.
You can absolutely make the case that farmers should all sell up and do something else, but this is a case that, when you put it to ministers, is explicitly rejected.
As part of the farming debate, would be great to see something, anything, about the farm workers pay and conditions. They are the people actually producing the food.
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