Daily Mail-style rant? Hopefully the opposite.

[cheekbones3]

Apparently numerous fishermen are complaining that they lose money every time they leave port, and are therefore thinking of blockades as a protest about fuel costs etc.

 

Call me stupid, but wouldn't it be more sensible if they didn't set out fishing until it's economically viable? "Duh, the fuel for the boat is going to cost more than the price I'll get for what I catch. I'll set out anyway and whinge about it later."

 

Might even be some fish to catch if they take some time off...

Comments

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much how it gets resolved.
Problem is that a) involves a percentage of the industry going bust. It therefore needs politicians to legislate, but they lack the backbone.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Backbone boils down to the disproportionate media profile they manage to hang on to I suppose...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

We need much tighter quotas set in the EU. The problem is every year the environmental scientists advise on what the quotas should be to avoid stocks collapsing, then get over-ruled by the politicians. The french fishermen will blocade major ports at the drop of a hat.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[wee0ne.livejournal.com]

I tell you what: how about letting most of the fishing industry go bust; the farming industry die off; and the haulage industry fail....

We can live by importing all our food; and use overseas companies to distribute the goods once they land at a UK dock.... not a problem!

.... or is there a flaw in that?

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

It doesn't require most of the fishing industry to go bust. If the price of fish is too low, the way to bring it up is less supply.

As for the farming industry, I thought they were back in the cash with the price of food going through the roof.

I don't see the haulage industry dying either. It's not as if people are gonna stop needing trucks. Again, if road freight prices are too low, uncompetitive operations may go bust, but the price will then go up as trucks become a bit more scarce. There is limited scope for international divers filling up on the continent and competing for work here, especially in Scotland.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

One of the main arguments the truck drivers keep giving on telly is that foreign truckers are now allowed to work in any EU country - hence lots of truckers filling up in Luxembourg, dropping off in the UK, picking up a new load and driving it somewhere else in the UK, then driving off home again. On cheaper costs.

I'll have a chat with a farmer about what he thinks of higher food prices next time I'm on site - I'm quite interested in hearing what they say! I speak regularly with a mixed organic farmer and a hill shepherd farmer, as well as a lazy-ass old farmer who owns some fields near the M8 and does f*ck all with them except think up mental money making schemes so he can continue doing f*ck all.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I can tell you now what the farmers will say - whinging will be involved...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

You do get some truckers doing that, but it's limited. They have to be coming here anyway otherwise the cost of the trip isn't economic. Also, diesel prices are going up by the same amount all over Europe, so recent price rises won't make the Foreign trucks any cheaper by comparison.

[wee0ne.livejournal.com]

Sheep sell for £50 each; Cattle are better, they can go for about £800 each (see these prices)
Barley is about £160 a tonne at the moment.

Now you know why sheep-farms are dying: How do you make a profit on £50 a skull, given the investment needed to husband them?

Yes, there is a surge in food-prices, but it's all fueled (if you forgive the pun) by the cost of diesel: getting livestock in & out the farm; getting vets, staff, chemicals, mechanics, fencing materials, and general sundries etc in & out the farm; shipping the final product off the farm & into the start of the processing chain.... believe me, there isn't money going into the farmers pocket...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Well presumably farmers everywhere are facing the same rise in the price of oil? I expect New Zealand lamb will become a lot more expensive as the shipping costs go through the roof.

Also, as the tax here is a fixed amount per litre rather than a percentage, as oil prices go up, the relative tax burden here goes down. I percentage increase to costs would therefore be greater in somewhere like the US.

Grain is also becoming a new fashionable comodity to invest in, just as oil did (causing the price rise). So if farmers who are able switch to that do so, supply of livestock would also decrease, driving up the price.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, most livestock (apart from dairy) is on land unfit for grain.

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Just as well we have CAP then!

I reckon a change in the stupid greenbelt protection laws would be a good start. Make it easier for farmers to turn land into housing and they'd have an alternative source of iocome to fund getting out of the industry when it slumps. Also, if land for housing wasn't so incredibly hard to create, housing wouln't be anywhere near as over-priced as it is.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Farming's very balanced for 2007 - income went up strongly last year (for arable farmers), but these increases were tempered by strong increases in fertiliser (Autumn onwards), fuel and feed costs. Since fertiliser costs appear to have almost trebled in the first quarter of this year (blame Chinese tariffs and fuel costs), and feed and fuel costs are continuing to strengthen, farm profits and maybe yields I suspect may take a hit this year. Shame I'm moving post before I'll get a chance to publish the figures!

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Next year should be more interesting still, as grain (and others) are becoming a fashionable commodity for speculators. Grain futures are where it's at...

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I've certainly heard that people are piling into agric land as an investment. As for grain, I do expect it to stay high, especially while the EU and others stick to their biofuels policy.

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

The driver is the futures market - people are buying up crops at high prices on the theory that prices are going to go up even more. They'll make a killing until the bubble bursts...

[llamarines.livejournal.com]

I'm from an extremely rural community. Like, as rural as you can get. I am not by any means a city kid - and yet farmers complaining always rings extremely hollow for me.

When I used to work in the pub, I remember a farmer complaining because the beef crisis in 2001 meant he had to take one of this three BMW's off the road.