Uk farmers are losing money on every egg they produce
(media.conspiracies.win)
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Fuck that price control bullshit, I’d sell my eggs on the black market before I lost money...
Is 30p (55¢) per dozen really breaking them? Profit margins are super thin if so...
In the UK the vast majority of people shop at a handful of supermarkets (Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Waitrose) and they are pretty ruthless when it comes to prices. We have had numerous instances of this where supermarkets pay producers less than it costs to produce a given product. Honestly your options for where else to sell aren't great. A handful of wholesalers and large customers in the food industry.
I live in a rural area and I get my eggs from a local farm who sell theirs directly and to numerous market traders and farm shops locally. They'll be OK.
The vast majority of farms are in trouble though.
Wow, that sucks. I forget how ruthless British Robber Barons are, and what a dystopian socialist nightmare the economy of Britain is.
It's a shit show all round. The vast majority of the food supply in this country is controlled probably by about 2 dozen companies. Tesco which is our main supermarket has something like 27% of the business. It uses 1% of the total electricity output of the country in a given year. There are a handful of companies which buy up most of the milk output. These days there are a handful of massive abattoirs.
Farming in most European countries is governed under a policy called the CAP which comes from the EU - the UK has left the EU but I believe the CAP is still in effect pending the introduction of our new national farming strategy. It's basically supply management. Farms are heavily dependent on subsidies and have various methods which manage what they produce and what they're paid. In many cases the subsidies are the only things holding the industry up.
One of the only countries I know of which abolished farm subsides is New Zealand when they had a severe economic emergency in 1984. I believe even to this day one of the only subsidies they have is on diesel fuel for irrigation. Oddly enough farming did pretty well since. New Zealand has a reasonably popular dairy industry and their lamb is quite popular.
France is the main beneficiary in Europe of the CAP. French farmers get paid a lot of money to not farm and do very well out of it. Although UK farming has cleaned its act up a lot since the BSE outbreak. It probably wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to the industry. The food is generally better quality now than it was in the 80's.
I know in some countries its worse. I have no idea why its so screwed up but dairy in Canada is controlled under some sort of monopoly which makes cheese very expensive. From what I've heard its even more dysfunctional than the CAP in Europe.
Subsidies also cause serious issues in America - especially when it comes to corn. Whenever I'm in America I notice the high fructose corn syrup in things from the taste. The beef in America can sometimes leave something to be desired and I know many farmers feed their cattle on corn instead of grass which is crazy because cows evolved to process grass, not corn.
Subsidies really produce perverse results wherever they are employed in most cases.
💯 subsidies are corporate welfare. Why heavy subsidies on only corn and soybeans in US? Monsanto-Bayer, that’s why. You wanna grow bell peppers? FUCK YOU!