How much money

[dozy]

How much extra money are the Banks making from the over-inflated house prices and will we all live to regret it ???(especially parents of first time buyers)
Is the high house prices an effect of the first Foot and Mouth outbreak when farmers used the Taxpayers funded compensation to buy property instead of re-investing in new stock ???
Will the Taxpayer cough up yet again for the stupidity of some farmers with this new outbreak???
Don't farmers have insurance for this sort of thing ???
It cost over 5 Billion last time ,would that money not be better spent on Health and Infastructure than baling out the inefficent business of farming .
If farming was treated like any other business they would have gone bust along time ago ,they live on public money handouts .Its the biggest and most expensive non-job creation scheme on the planet.
So what do High house prices,Banks and Farmers all have in common ???

[corgiman]

without farmers what will we all eat????????

[jsherris]

without farmers what will we all eat????????

Plumbers? :lol:

[northener]

Dozy,

I know more than a few farmers who were determined to fight back after the last FMD outbreak and used their money to improve their farms and rebuild their stock - some herds and flocks had been built up by generations of the same farmers, they lost the lot. It amazed me that more of them didn't bale out of what has always been a difficult way of life after seeing years of work go down the tubes.

Farming is a business, true. But it is also part of the fabric of our society. To say that agriculture should just be allowed to go to the wall is unrealistic.

I think you'd be better off looking at the reasons why so many farmers are struggling. Perhaps having no option but to sell to large supermarkets for horrendously low returns may have something to do with it? And who drives that market - yup, the customer with their desire for cheap food at any cost.

If you read Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls' excellent book 'Meat', it gives a nerve-jangling insight into how supermarkets deal with producers regarding quality and profit - going off at a slight tangent I know, but it gives you an idea of how hard farming can be and how tough the supermarkets can be.

As for farmers pushing up house prices - hardly. Blame low interest rates, banks willing to throw increasingly stupid amounts of money at those ill-prepared to repay and greedy house sellers.

[mr do dar]

to say there poor you never see them on a push bike . there always in the latest 4x4 you never see them ploughing a field with a horse its alway a new tractor . so whos the poor ones ? i think its the people that work everyday paying the tax pay . ....were the ones that poor in this case

[badger]

I can see a connection between banks and high house prices but have no idea where farmers come into this.

One reason house prices have sky-rocketed, and repossessions are soaring, is that lenders have been lending far too much without checking the real situation of the borrowers and the Society of Mortgage Lenders are incredibly complacent about it. They simply won't admit any responsibility. When I first had a mortgage, which was about the time Noah built his ark, you could only borrow to purchase a house if you had a fairly hefty deposit as part of the price and the loan was based on a multiple of income. Now they lend up to 125% of the property value and seem to take no account of borrower's other commitments. It's crazy.

[Moira]

to say there poor you never see them on a push bike . there always in the latest 4x4 you never see them ploughing a field with a horse its alway a new tractor . so whos the poor ones ? i think its the people that work everyday paying the tax pay . ....were the ones that poor in this case

I'm not a farmer/crofter and I only use my push bike for healthy exercise. If any of us here traced our ancenstry back far enough, we were all living in caves at some stage. Thankfully we've all moved on from this scenario and I'm pretty sure farmers work most days and don't escape the attention of the Inland Revenue system :roll:

Whatever you're on tonight Mr do dar - send me a pint of the stuff.

[engiebenjy]

to say there poor you never see them on a push bike . there always in the latest 4x4 you never see them ploughing a field with a horse its alway a new tractor . so whos the poor ones ? i think its the people that work everyday paying the tax pay . ....were the ones that poor in this case


I have to say I've never met a skint farmer. I do know of one who looks skint and acts skint, but has actually got assets of well over 7 figures (and a healthy cash balance, not just tied up in the property!)

[Moira]

I have to say I've never met a skint farmer. I do know of one who looks skint and acts skint, but has actually got assets of well over 7 figures (and a healthy cash balance, not just tied up in the property!)

I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make here - why should farmers be skint? If the farmer you know really has made it this big I'd be begging him to share his knowledge with others :)

Contact telephone number would be appreciated.

[Foxy]

I have to say I've never met a skint farmer. I do know of one who looks skint and acts skint, but has actually got assets of well over 7 figures (and a healthy cash balance, not just tied up in the property!)

Engiebenjy i find that a very sweeping statement, i am a farmer and i'm not rich i have enough to get by. I don't have holidays abroad and have had one holiday in the UK in the last 13 years. I work hard for my money, if you've never been involved in farming you don't have a clue, i work 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year including xmas day and at busy times of the year we work 16 hour days.

[Kenn]

It might have happened in the past when there were subsidies to be grabbed from Europe but these days farmers have become unpaid stewards of the land.
They work long hard hours, take pride in what they do and then despair at what they get paid as the greedy supermarkets are not interested in supporting them, only in how cheaply they can buy a product.
We should all step back, take a look at our avarice and then be prepared to pay a proper market price for the goods we buy.
And before any one berates me for being simplistic, I am a farmer's daughter, I know what it takes to build up a pedigree herd my father spent 20 yrs of his life doing such a thing.
Would you who denigrate the farming community show the same commitment, I think NOT!

[thefugitive1993]

Its funny how some people seem to take a jealous dislike to others. In this case its the "poor" old farmers. I've seen a few other groups/occupations fall victim on the Org.

If farming is such an easy and well paid lark why not "go for it". Could it be the early morning starts, the blooming hard work, the boom and bust economy and the need to have a willingness to invest your all.

What about the suicides and the repossesions that farmers have suffered when stocks have been decimated by disease or trends.

Good luck (and a new Range Rover) to anyone willing to knock their pan in. They deserve it!

[Angela]

I've often heard folk come out with the "I've never yet met a poor farmer!" line...:roll:
Seem odd to me, as I've met plenty of farmers who are struggling financially, not to mention coping with the stress of mountains of paperwork, the 24/7 responsibilities, and always the worry that something completely outwith their control will destroy their business.
I have known two farmers who committed suicide.
I can't see how it can possibly be considered a soft option and I wouldn't begrudge any farmer a new 4x4 either. ;)

[_Ju_]

I wouldn't work as a farmer unless very well paid. You are at work or on call for it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When you are up till your shoulder helping birth a calf, with the rest of your torso freezing at 3.00am I am sure most wonder if it's worth it. When you are selling milk for less than it's production cost you almost cetainly wonder why you wake up at 04:00am to do the job. These are the people producing the building blocks of our nutrition. Do we want them to do a good job and not cut corners? You bet we do. Do they deserve to be paid for it? You bet ya! Alot more money goes to sustaining people who do not want to work than the lifetime of labour that being a farmer is. I do not begrudge them their earnings.

PS: try driving up a muddy track in mid winter in anything but a 4x4. They weren't made for the school run, you know.

[horseman]

Northener-fair outlook to that question.+foxy-dare anyone to challange you-course they will, ditto to Ju.