:thumbup:It certainly shows the hypocrisy of a hunting ban...or a hare coursing ban come to that
Red
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:thumbup:It certainly shows the hypocrisy of a hunting ban...or a hare coursing ban come to that
Red
I was responding to your post that said
Where do you think it got us?
It simply isn't a one sided discussion sadly - but that post sounded like it was. You can have cheap food, enabling poorer people to feed their kids meat, or you can have apex carniorous predators. I'm unsure which you prefer?
I don't think its anything to do with helping poor people eat meat, commercial interests and government don't give a monkeys about poor people. Factory farming is about agribusinessmen, processers and supermarkets making the maximum profit for the minimum amount of investment and bother.
If the market was forced to change to higher welfare standards and hence better quality grub, it could be made to turn itself around in no time at a very similar price structure. There is nothing more resourceful than a farmer or supermarketeer.
In the meantime the general population have just become accustomed to eating ropey food and drinking low quality alcohol. have you noticed that you now have to eat gold brand foods, just to get the same quality of food as standard brands from about 30 years ago. How awful cider has become for instance, crap thrushy bacon that shrinks to nothing when you cook it, tasteless pork that won't cook proper crackling, dull androgenous lager that gives you a bad head.
As the fox numbers are considerably safer than the owl numbers, it's a simple case of maths to shoot the red fella surely?
Aaah so you think the good old days were better?
My Gandad budgeted to spend one third of his take home pay on food.
In real terms food is cheaper than it was ten, twenty or fifty years ago. Its the consumer that drives the businesses - don't kid yourself. If people wanted high quality food, its out there. But, the vast majority of people want "cheap" so they get it. They shop where the weekly shop is cheapest. This creates large supermarkets with economies of scale, and monster farms.
If people want small farms, they can go to farmers markets, to the farm gate, grow their own etc. But most people want cheap, convenient, accesible food. So they go to Tesco. No-one puts a gun to their head. If Tesco open a new store and people don't shop there because they want local, high quality food, then they would close it. I know, I sued to work for them. But the truth is, food that represents a lower proportion of take home pay is more important to the majority. I wish it wasn't so, but, working for major retailers for thirty years, I know that it is.
I spent three and a half hours making caramalised onion chutney today. I grew the ingredients. I could have earned the money to buy that quantity in twenty minutes. Most people won't make that investment - or pay for those that do.
Sad, but true.
Red
#If people want small farms, they can go to farmers markets, to the farm gate, grow their own etc. But most people want cheap, convenient, accesible food. So they go to Tesco. No-one puts a gun to their head.
I agree Adam - but we do have free will. I opted out (having worked in senior positions for big retailers for many years), I now grow a lot of my own and get most of the rest from local farmers - who I also do work for. I speak about both farming and retailing from decades of hands on experience. No-one make us buy this way. You are living proof of that. But convenience, price and marketing is enough to convince most people to take the easy path. We may wish it was otherwise - but (thankfully) we live in a society where people are free to make those choices.
With all due respect, the marketing men and the accountants make us buy this way - do you really believe supermarkets can't use their immense buying power raise the quality and welfare standards of food ?
Why should we be thankfull that a small group of supermarkets have a monopoly and dictate the standard of food we eat and how its produced, thats nothing to do with freedom of choice or ecomomics !
You don't have to eat it and have admitted to having "opted out", as you can afford too - but expect the rest of us to put up with poor food as an inescapable fact of life !
Speaking as an ex-senior executive for a major retailer, do you feel that your contribution during your time at the helm, has worked out well for anyone except yourself and the shareholders ?
Be the change you want to see in the world
That was a rare sight few people will have seen - how did it come together ? Have watched them mousing and seen them stalking and pouncing at birds and darting in trying to grab a rabbit, but never actually catch anything.
... the fox was just there as if from nowhere. ...
As the fox numbers are considerably safer than the owl numbers, it's a simple case of maths to shoot the red fella surely?