Shop At Tescos...?

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Some of the major arguements i can see the pro-supermarket people argueing are;

1. "I don't have the time to walk down my highstreet and shop at the individual shops to buy my fruit, veg and meat."

What i say to this;

a. Yes, it is a shame with people's busy 24/7 lifestyles now days that we don't have the time to go to individual shops to buy our food.
But the problem with this, is the more you support supermarkets, the less local shops near you will there be in time to come- many people who are now forced to go to their local supermarkets instead of local shops if their want to get their food shopping done within 30mins, and seem to fail to realise that this was not the way it always used to be, and that the more they support their local supermarkets, the less options they will have.
People are fed up with having their crappy local somerfeild as the only local shopping resource, but also seem to fail to realise that the reason why its the only thing they have left is because they supported it to be there in the first place and allowed it to kill off all the local shops.

Also, i think a lot of it is just because people have become accustomed to having a supermarket that supplies them everything they need- in a lot of cases, it is not true that they don't have the time to drive further, its simply that they don't want to because they cannot be bothered (i do not mean offense to anyone here by saying this, however i believe this is the raw truth in a lot of cases).


I am one of the lucky people- my local supermarket is just as far away as my local shops. It actually takes me the same time to do my shopping in the local family run shops as the local supermarket, yes i do walk around more, but then again i get to see more of my beautiful town while getting a little bit of excercise, met friends i know on the street, watch the local wildlife buzzing around on a pleasant summers day as i get my food shopping done.
The whole experience is a lot better in many ways than driving down to my local supermarket, getting stressed finding a car parking space, spending ages trying to find what i want to buy at the supermarket because they've yet again re-arranged their stock and none of the staff seem to have any clue where it is while i go on a wild goose chase, then waiting in a que for ages to pay for my food, then trying to find the car again as the plastic carrier bag handles kill the life in my fingers off, getting jammed up in the car park in rush hour as everyone is trying to get in and out of it, and then eventually finally getting home again etc.


I go to my local supermarket to buy things i cannot buy in my local shops, or go their when my local shops have closed and i have forgotten to buy something in particular earlier or was not able to.

I admit supermarkets are convinient, but i never forget the price that convinience comes at to the environment, welfare of animals, and health of the local economy etc.


(continued in a moment)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

2. The seemingly second most common reason for supporting the way of supermarkets is the money arguement i.e. "i can only afford to buy cheap food" arguement.

What i say to this;

Regardless of whether you are concerned about buying and eating good quality environmentally friendly etc food or not, is it really true that all we can afford to buy in this day and age is cheap supermarket food?

Here is the bare reality of this situation for the average person;

Average weekly grocery bill (including food, basic laundry and toiletry items for 2 people) £60
Average pub meal £6 - £10
Average restaurant meal £12 - £20
Pint of beer £2.50 - £3
Average bottle of wine £10
Average meal for two in mid-priced restaurant £40

http/www.workgateways.com/working-cost-of-living.html

Price of an average house £194.362
Average annual gas bill £586
Average weekly earnings £539

http/www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/cu...tions/cost.html




The fact of the matter is that we devote very little of out income to buying food. It really isn't a case of people not being able to afford better and more expensive food, it simply comes down to people's priorities on food.
We all need food to survive- you are what you eat.


The question is, what price do you place on one of the most vital aspects of your life?


As far as other countries go, as a whole we the English devote the smallest percentage of our weekly income (i will get statistics later) on food in comparison to many other countries. It isn't because this is all we can afford to do, it simply comes down to our culture, which now days places less and less importance on the quality of food and more and more importance on the price.
This is slowly changing, as more people are placing more important on things like organic food, free range products, fair trade products etc, but we are changing slowly.


More and more now days i place a great deal of importance on the food i eat. In the past, before i became aware of many issues, my food bill was tiny and i was satisfied living off instant noodles, baked beans, battery range eggs and cheap tastelss iceburg lettuce and granny smith apples.
But times changed- i became a lot more aware of many issues. I stopped buying the cheap poor quality foods, opted for organic whenever i could instead of pesticide and wax covered fruit and veg, stopped buying immorally farmed animal products etc.
And i have been so much happier and healthier since. Ok, my wallet is slimmer for it, but i have the peace of mind knowing what i am doing is better, and that i am healthier and fitter for what i am doing.

Food always used to be about convinience and cheapness in the past. But the way i see it now, for example i much happier eating one high quality properly hung locally sourced beef steak once a fortnight, than buying cheap blood red steaks from my supermarket every week which are not farmed or slaughtered in a humane or environmentally friendly manner and which in no way support my local community by being there etc.


For some people, the quality and source of their food is not a concern for them as long as its cheap, for me i do not agree or advise that way of viewing food, and no longer do it myself- and i can positively say my health and welbeing has definately benefetted from me changing in this way, and the easiest way to do it was to rely less on my local supermarket and more on my local family run/small buisness shops etc .

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

And most people obviosult don't care too much about these things or else they woudl all be clamouring to pay more for their food at small shops that offer high quality foods. As to "more appropriate" hanging times, that is only to someone who values that taste and texture in their foods. I have worked in a restaurant kitchen cooking steakd and know just how many people in the UK order their steak either well done or burnt. At that point it doesn't matter if you have the best fillet steak hung for 17 days, or my old leather jacket thrown on the grill: it all ends up the same.

It's a simple rule at work here: people pay for what they want to pay for. The cheap food sells better because most people aren't that worried about having gourmet tasting foods in small portions each night, but prefer to have a hearty dinner at a low price.

It seems to me that some people value having the perfect ripeness and tenderness in their foods and can't understand why the mass population would rather have some more change in their pocket and some extra time at the weekend.

Do you care about the quality of your food though? Or is it all "cheap as chips" is best for you and thats all there is to it?


I am suprised that after working in a professional restrurant kitchen you seem to have no value or understanding on the quality of meat.


One of the things which encouraged me to start going to my local butchers instead of my local supermarket was the quality of the meat. I was simply fed up with buying the polystyrene wrapped radioactive red beef streaks which dripped with blood and tasted like chicken and had less texture than that.
So i went to my local butcher, and there to my satisfaction i found deep coloured brownish red beef steaks (a true sign of being hung and matured properly), rich in flavour, soft but textured. The beef actually costed less than the stuff in my local supermarket, since i wasn't paying for the unessarsary packaging that comes with so many supermarket products, and tasted a great deal better too.

Not just that, but the butchers there actually know what they are talking about and are friendly and interested too- for a test, when i was planning on doing a barbeque, i went down to my local supermarket butcher meat section to test the knowledge of the staff there and see what sort of advice they could give to me (someone who was about to do a massive barbeque for many people who liked a wide variety of meats).
To cut a long story short, the result was that the supermarket staff had no idea what they were talking about (they thought stuff like the redder the steak the better the quality it was, which is not true in the slightest) and couldn't really help me at all- they didn't even know the names of the different types of meats or cuts of meat they were selling, and had to check the labels before even stating what sorts of meats they were etc. When i went to my local butchers though, they were a great deal better, i even learn't things from them, they helped me out a great deal and even made some marinades for me at a special price etc .

This is situation what you get when you get professional butchers working and preparing meat in their own shops, and it is what you get when you get some skinny pale teenager pretending to be a butcher in a supermarket on bog standard basic training who hasn't even cut the meat he is selling.

Tell me who you would prefer to buy from? Someone who makes an effort for you, or someone who couldn't care less about what they are doing? Who do you think is a better asset to your local community?

 

[CFC]

£60 might be an average food bill for a couple living together with no children but throw just one child into that equation and you can easily add £40 to that bill and now you're talking about spending £100 a week on food. We spend at least £100 a week in the supermarket, although i will admit we dont buy cheap crap as we like to eat well. When we was going to the individual shops for food we found we was spending nearer £150 and then still having to go to the supermarket for bits and bobs on top of that. That extra £50 is a lot of money for a family to spend when they dont really need to. Our nearest shop is the supermarket which is a 10 minute walk around the corner, the nearest high street is a 40 minute walk away and doesnt have a butchers or green grocers (it does have a city farm shop which is very nice but ultra expensive), the nearest high street with all the shops you would need to do a weekly shop is Twickenham high street which is about 2 miles away but parking is terrible and expensive and whenever there is an event at the rugby stadium you can't even get into the town let alone get any shopping done.

Have a child or two and then see how easy it is to get around 3-4 different shops and how much price makes a difference to your weekly budget, i think then you might see the supermarket in a completely different way.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Your example is not common. The farming subsidies given to farmers by the governments and the EU under the CAP mean we have huge mountains of subsidised food which we dump on the developing markets at prices they cannot produce the food for. These subsidies keep our uneconomical farmers in business (some of whom then moan when they start to get squeezed by market pressures) at the expense of developping farmers who can't sell their food at the low prices our food is sold at.

Seriously Andy, you really have no understanding of what you are talking about when it comes to farms and subsidies and stuff, i guess its easy for you to view the situation in this way having not lived and run a farm (which i assume you haven't), but having being a part of the farming buiness myself, i will say that your views are sugar-coated when it comes to this problem and are not the reality of the situation.
See here for a little more info;

"Figures on who receives European farm subsidies show most payments go to wealthy landowners, not small farms, according to a leading think tank.

For too long people have been misled to believe that farm subsidies are about protecting small and family farms.

"This data shows conclusively that most of the EU's CAP payments goes to large agribusiness and wealthy landowners.";

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4373397.stm



"The government's failure to get EU subsidies to thousands of farmers on time has been called "a master-class in bad decision making" by MPs.

a "significant minority" of farmers had been left "stressed and in a financially precarious position".;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6980382.stm



" Late farm subsidies under attack- Nearly half of English farmers have yet to receive EU subsidies for last year, as the government faces more criticism over a new system of payment.";

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4983458.stm



Etc etc...


So you see, your rosey eyed view of the subsidies being there to help the small farmers, is not really the reality of the situation.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

"I don't care if they make some profit, and I to be brutally honest I don't care if someone who worked in an outdated method has lost their job, that is progress"

What is this progress? Do you honestly believe it is progress, when a farmer who has dedicated his life to running his farm, is forced out of buisness because he refuses to reduce the welfare of his animals to keep up with the low price demands of the supermarket?

Yes I do. He has a business that is working on a 20th or 19th century principle in the 21st century. As the world changes the motto of life is 'adapt or die'. Some farms adapted and are doing well, others didn't and are struggling.

If you think this sort of thing is progress, then you might as well support something like battery farming as a whole. The farms which are surviving now days are the farms which are run on a colossal scale which do not dote the love and care on their animals that a smaller farm may spend on his animals.

Just because the farm is huge and they haven't given every single chicken a name doesn't mean they are keeping them locked up. It is far from impossible to run a very large farming outfit and still treat the animal humanely.

You seem somewhat narrow-minded in your opinions. The message coming across is that unless the food is bought from a food and locally produced you believe it is evil; destroying the environment and treating all the animals badly. Sure, some practices can, and should, be changed by supermarkets and their suppliers but the same can be said of almost all things we buy now. Look at clothes; cheap clothes come at the expense of sweat shops. What is the public's response? Huge crowds outside Primark in Oxford Street to get some cheap clothes.

The changes that supermarkets should change are pretty minor, relating to the way they source their products. the ethos of the supermarket is still a very sound and great one, though I feel you would be against supermarkets even if they stocked local food wherever possible (though demand would far outstrip supply) and had no battery farms.

I don't think you have any right to call me "narrow-minded" when you fail to even see the reality of the current farm subsidy situation (probably because you have not thoroughly looked into it before stating your views).

"As the world changes the motto of life is 'adapt or die'."

If we are just basic primitive animals, then yes, this is the way of life. But we are human beings- we look after the elderly and vunerable in society, we fight for the rights of people, we have laws to protect people in society, and as human beings, we try to be compassionate towards those in situations worse or harsher than our own etc.

If you truley live by the "adpat or die" rule of evolution, then why even bother showing compassion or tolerance to those in a situation or circumstances less fortunate than your own etc? If you live by this motto, what makes you more mentally and morally civilised than an animal living by this motto?

"The message coming across is that unless the food is bought from a food and locally produced you believe it is evil"

Not at all- you are twisting my message in a narrow-minded way.


Not all food which is not bought from local sources/is locally produced is "evil", but purely from an environmental point of view, lets say an apple which is grown locally, packaged locally, and sold locally, is going to be a lot more environmentally friendly based pruely on transport emmission costs/impact than an apple which has been grown in another country, shipped to another country to be packaged, and then shipped to our country to be sold.

Do you deny this?

though I feel you would be against supermarkets even if they stocked local food wherever possible (though demand would far outstrip supply) and had no battery farms.

Not at all- my less than positive opinions on supermarkets are not based on some illogical hatred of the supermarket in essence. If supermarkets stocked food which was produced locally, processed and packaged locally, and bought for a reasonable price from the supermarket and sold, then i would have a lot less issues with the way supermarkets are run- i would even have a decent amount of respect for supermarkets if they stopped producing, buying and selling battery and barn range and 0 grazing animal products.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

£60 might be an average food bill for a couple living together with no children but throw just one child into that equation and you can easily add £40 to that bill and now you're talking about spending £100 a week on food. We spend at least £100 a week in the supermarket, although i will admit we dont buy cheap crap as we like to eat well. When we was going to the individual shops for food we found we was spending nearer £150 and then still having to go to the supermarket for bits and bobs on top of that. That extra £50 is a lot of money for a family to spend when they dont really need to. Our nearest shop is the supermarket which is a 10 minute walk around the corner, the nearest high street is a 40 minute walk away and doesnt have a butchers or green grocers (it does have a city farm shop which is very nice but ultra expensive), the nearest high street with all the shops you would need to do a weekly shop is Twickenham high street which is about 2 miles away but parking is terrible and expensive and whenever there is an event at the rugby stadium you can't even get into the town let alone get any shopping done.

Have a child or two and then see how easy it is to get around 3-4 different shops and how much price makes a difference to your weekly budget, i think then you might see the supermarket in a completely different way.

Thats very true, i can understand how a supermarket can be a life saver financially for those people who have children. But does this mean that we should agree with the way supermarkets are run to acheive these prices?

You may be grateful for the cheap prices and convinience a supermarket can offer, but that doesn't mean that you should nesarsarily agree with the way that supermarket achieved those cheap prices.


I would view the situation in this sense- lets say i was in deep finiancial trouble due to a series of bad luck and misfortune and was in desperate need of some money. Say a friend comes up to me one day and lends me a couple of thousand pounds and says i can pay him/her back in my own time- i would be very grateful for what they were doing. But if later i found out, that to get the money my friend scammed it off some old poor grannie, i would suddenly not feel so happy about the new situation.

Its one thing to feel grateful for something, but at the same time you can still disagree with the way it was gone about to achieve it.

I think it is good though, that even though you have to rely off supermarkets, you still make an effort to supply your family with good quality food.

 

[andywg]

I'll look at these one at a time

Some of the major arguements i can see the pro-supermarket people argueing are;

1. "I don't have the time to walk down my highstreet and shop at the individual shops to buy my fruit, veg and meat."

What i say to this;

a. Yes, it is a shame with people's busy 24/7 lifestyles now days that we don't have the time to go to individual shops to buy our food.
But the problem with this, is the more you support supermarkets, the less local shops near you will there be in time to come- many people who are now forced to go to their local supermarkets instead of local shops if their want to get their food shopping done within 30mins, and seem to fail to realise that this was not the way it always used to be, and that the more they support their local supermarkets, the less options they will have.
People are fed up with having their crappy local somerfeild as the only local shopping resource, but also seem to fail to realise that the reason why its the only thing they have left is because they supported it to be there in the first place and allowed it to kill off all the local shops.

Some people are fed up. Many more people are perfectly happy. Look at the opinion polls in support of supermarkets due to ease and convenience.

Also, i think a lot of it is just because people have become accustomed to having a supermarket that supplies them everything they need- in a lot of cases, it is not true that they don't have the time to drive further, its simply that they don't want to because they cannot be bothered (i do not mean offense to anyone here by saying this, however i believe this is the raw truth in a lot of cases).

Talk to older people who used to have to do the shops. My mum loves being able to do the shopping in a couple of house, and not over half a day. MAybe because both partners are at work all week, leave early and get in late they don't want over a quarter of their free time together to be spent looking for food? Cannot be bothered? I dare anyone to have a hard job that takes up your entire week and still say that spending half a day just to get food at the weekend is not a chore they would mch rather do without.

I am one of the lucky people- my local supermarket is just as far away as my local shops. It actually takes me the same time to do my shopping in the local family run shops as the local supermarket, yes i do walk around more, but then again i get to see more of my beautiful town while getting a little bit of excercise, met friends i know on the street, watch the local wildlife buzzing around on a pleasant summers day as i get my food shopping done.
The whole experience is a lot better in many ways than driving down to my local supermarket, getting stressed finding a car parking space, spending ages trying to find what i want to buy at the supermarket because they've yet again re-arranged their stock and none of the staff seem to have any clue where it is while i go on a wild goose chase, then waiting in a que for ages to pay for my food, then trying to find the car again as the plastic carrier bag handles kill the life in my fingers off, getting jammed up in the car park in rush hour as everyone is trying to get in and out of it, and then eventually finally getting home again etc.p

And you are very, VERY much in the minority. And maybe if you visited your store more often you wouldn't have too much trouble. Or else, thesupermarket is badly run and needs the competition of another one nearby to get it inot gear.

I go to my local supermarket to buy things i cannot buy in my local shops, or go their when my local shops have closed and i have forgotten to buy something in particular earlier or was not able to.

So even you can see the good points of supermarkets. You berate them and say we should all use local shops, but even then you recgnise their long opening hours and vast stocking range are massive plus points.

I admit supermarkets are convinient, but i never forget the price that convinience comes at to the environment, welfare of animals, and health of the local economy etc.

Do you really know what that price is? Do you do a whole life cost analysis of ech item you buy? Or do you just read a few greeny items and papers and decide from there? My case in point here is New Zealand lamb. Most greenies think it is bad because it is from so far away, but British farmers are so energy greedy in production it is less damaging to the global environment to ship the lamb from NZ to here than grow it here.

 

[andywg]

2. The seemingly second most common reason for supporting the way of supermarkets is the money arguement i.e. "i can only afford to buy cheap food" arguement.

What i say to this;

Regardless of whether you are concerned about buying and eating good quality environmentally friendly etc food or not, is it really true that all we can afford to buy in this day and age is cheap supermarket food?

Here is the bare reality of this situation for the average person;

Average weekly grocery bill (including food, basic laundry and toiletry items for 2 people) £60
Average pub meal £6 - £10
Average restaurant meal £12 - £20
Pint of beer £2.50 - £3
Average bottle of wine £10
Average meal for two in mid-priced restaurant £40

http/www.workgateways.com/working-cost-of-living.html

Price of an average house £194.362
Average annual gas bill £586
Average weekly earnings £539

http/www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/cu...tions/cost.html

Do you realise just how much a £200,000 mortgage costs? Assuming one had a 10% deposit you are looking at at least £1,200 per month on mortgage alone for just a £200k house. That's 2 weeks out of 4 wages on just the mortgage.

Do you live on your own, owning your own house and pay all your own bills? Forgive me if you do, but that list above is the most simple minded way of looking at the cost of food as a cost of living compared to wages.

Where are the incidentals in your list? Travel to work? Upkeep of a car (MOT, Insurance, VED)? House insurance? Birthday presents for family? Electric bills? Student loans? Credit Cards and Loans necessary to get through Uni to earn the average wage? Council Tax? TV Licence?

And £60 a week for two? Maybe in Eastern Europe. I eat not quite the basic crap from Tescos and we (a couple) struggle to keep it below £100 a week for us and £110 to £120 is more common.

The fact of the matter is that we devote very little of out income to buying food.

Because we are spending so much elsewhere, most notably our mortgage and the massively increasing energy prices.

It really isn't a case of people not being able to afford better and more expensive food, it simply comes down to people's priorities on food.
We all need food to survive- you are what you eat.

Both myself and my wife earn above average wages and have a small property but we still really notice the pinch if we start buying the finer things in the supermarket, let alone the higher prices for small shops' foods.

The question is, what price do you place on one of the most vital aspects of your life?

The price I pay. I can still eat healthily at a cheaper amount. It's not like Tesco's Value brand has arsenic or cyanide in it.

As far as other countries go, as a whole we the English devote the smallest percentage of our weekly income (i will get statistics later) on food in comparison to many other countries. It isn't because this is all we can afford to do, it simply comes down to our culture, which now days places less and less importance on the quality of food and more and more importance on the price.

It also comes down to us being one of the highest taxed countries in the developed world with a huge property price:wages ratio. Quick comparison on fuel prices: US= US$3 per US gallon; UK= $US8 per US gallon. Comparisons across countries just on amounts spent need to be taken in the grander view of the entire taxation and costs system of those countries.

More and more now days i place a great deal of importance on the food i eat. In the past, before i became aware of many issues, my food bill was tiny and i was satisfied living off instant noodles, baked beans, battery range eggs and cheap tastelss iceburg lettuce and granny smith apples.
But times changed- i became a lot more aware of many issues. I stopped buying the cheap poor quality foods, opted for organic whenever i could instead of pesticide and wax covered fruit and veg, stopped buying immorally farmed animal products etc.
And i have been so much happier and healthier since. Ok, my wallet is slimmer for it, but i have the peace of mind knowing what i am doing is better, and that i am healthier and fitter for what i am doing.

I am happy you have the time and money to follow your convictions. I, however, don't have the time and money to follow your convictions. And I would also contend that your better health is perhaps because of a change in the overall things you were eating (fruit instead of instant noodles) or is even a placebo because your mind is more at rest thinking your food was better produced.

Food always used to be about convinience and cheapness in the past. But the way i see it now, for example i much happier eating one high quality properly hung locally sourced beef steak once a fortnight, than buying cheap blood red steaks from my supermarket every week which are not farmed or slaughtered in a humane or environmentally friendly manner and which in no way support my local community by being there etc.

You realise the steaks are probably slaughtered in the same place, what with the huge reduction in abatoirs these days. I know a little of it, I have dealt with a couple of abatoirs which went bust because of the newer regs forcing the smaller abatoirs out of business.

For some people, the quality and source of their food is not a concern for them as long as its cheap, for me i do not agree or advise that way of viewing food, and no longer do it myself- and i can positively say my health and welbeing has definately benefetted from me changing in this way, and the easiest way to do it was to rely less on my local supermarket and more on my local family run/small buisness shops etc .

Not some, most. Just because you don't like it, you are still in the minority.

I wish people would avoid cheap nasty wine and spend a bit more on a better drop, but to some it is just a path to drunkedness, just like for many people food is to satiate hunger, not a grand cullinary experience.

 

[Underwurlde]

Price of an average house does not equate to cost of an average mortgage.

My house is $400,000. My mortgage is £50K. I got lucky 8 years ago.... As did the majority of home owners. Either that or everyone is moving out of bloody London.

True we are not all brain surgens....

Andy

 

[andywg]

Your example is not common. The farming subsidies given to farmers by the governments and the EU under the CAP mean we have huge mountains of subsidised food which we dump on the developing markets at prices they cannot produce the food for. These subsidies keep our uneconomical farmers in business (some of whom then moan when they start to get squeezed by market pressures) at the expense of developping farmers who can't sell their food at the low prices our food is sold at.

Seriously Andy, you really have no understanding of what you are talking about when it comes to farms and subsidies and stuff, i guess its easy for you to view the situation in this way having not lived and run a farm (which i assume you haven't), but having being a part of the farming buiness myself, i will say that your views are sugar-coated when it comes to this problem and are not the reality of the situation.
See here for a little more info;


Etc etc...


So you see, your rosey eyed view of the subsidies being there to help the small farmers, is not really the reality of the situation.

I'm sorry, I thought you were moaning that someone couldn't sell his farm produce in Africa due to his products being more expensive. I pointed out that the CAP meant we dump loads of uneconomically produced food onto the markets (which we do, ever heard of food mountains?).

I care not for the farming community in Britain. It is an industry which will slowly shrink down as we get more food from abroad fora cheaper price, like happened with coal mining and car production. It is the way of a globalised world. I understand that the larger farms get most of the CAP, but that is the CAP. Farming accounts for a tiny proportion (2%) of the GDP of England yet uses up a huge amount of land. I would far rather less money was given to farmers be they small or large.

And remind me exactly just where I said that any subsidies go to small farmers. I can't see it in my post. Maybe you should read what I put more clearly.

And remember, you can't have it both ways: Do you want our small farmers having more of the CAP or do you want African farmers to be able to sell their produce at a real price and not have to compete with government subsidised prices? This is a global community after all.

 

[andywg]

I don't think you have any right to call me "narrow-minded" when you fail to even see the reality of the current farm subsidy situation (probably because you have not thoroughly looked into it before stating your views).

Your ability to read my posts and only see what you want to see (see above) would indicate that perhaps it is more apt than you think, but I did say "seems", not it is. I also said it is how it seems to me and thus gave you the chance to explain better, rather than you putting words into my mouth about my views on the CAP. Perhaps you should be more careful before definitely stating you understand my views and thoughts?

"As the world changes the motto of life is 'adapt or die'."

If we are just basic primitive animals, then yes, this is the way of life. But we are human beings- we look after the elderly and vunerable in society, we fight for the rights of people, we have laws to protect people in society, and as human beings, we try to be compassionate towards those in situations worse or harsher than our own etc.

If you truley live by the "adpat or die" rule of evolution, then why even bother showing compassion or tolerance to those in a situation or circumstances less fortunate than your own etc? If you live by this motto, what makes you more mentally and morally civilised than an animal living by this motto?

Because by adapting as a society to care fo elderly and invalids we have gained valuable experience that might otherwise have been lost. I did not say the weak die and the strong live, just that you adapt or die. Older people are genreally less strong so they benefit society with experience.

Business have to adapt to the current market or they die. Look at MGRover for the prime example of not keeping up with the modern marketplace.

Also, life has been around for roughly 0.5 billion years, we as a society who care for elderly less than 2000 years. Which of these is the most successful model. We may one day find our compassion costs us. Who can say?

But, for clarity, I said 'adapt or die' not 'only the strong live'. Very important difference there.

"The message coming across is that unless the food is bought from a food and locally produced you believe it is evil"

Not at all- you are twisting my message in a narrow-minded way.

Wrong, I am perhaps mis-interpreting, which is why I said the message coming across, and not out. You shouldn't be so quick to jump at people expressing a difference of opinion or interpretation.

Not all food which is not bought from local sources/is locally produced is "evil", but purely from an environmental point of view, lets say an apple which is grown locally, packaged locally, and sold locally, is going to be a lot more environmentally friendly based pruely on transport emmission costs/impact than an apple which has been grown in another country, shipped to another country to be packaged, and then shipped to our country to be sold.

Do you deny this?

Think bigger! Can you be sure thaqt the local farm isn't more energy intensive and producing a smaller batch of apples and is thus costing far more energy than a larger foreign producer who perhaps produces enough to save enough eneregy to cover the energy cost of exporting many apples and thus is globally greener?

The environment is far from a black and white, local and far matter.

though I feel you would be against supermarkets even if they stocked local food wherever possible (though demand would far outstrip supply) and had no battery farms.

Not at all- my less than positive opinions on supermarkets are not based on some illogical hatred of the supermarket in essence. If supermarkets stocked food which was produced locally, processed and packaged locally, and bought for a reasonable price from the supermarket and sold, then i would have a lot less issues with the way supermarkets are run- i would even have a decent amount of respect for supermarkets if they stopped producing, buying and selling battery and barn range and 0 grazing animal products.

Then I accept your view is not as it came across to me.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I care not for the farming community in Britain. It is an industry which will slowly shrink down as we get more food from abroad fora cheaper price, like happened with coal mining and car production. It is the way of a globalised world. I understand that the larger farms get most of the CAP, but that is the CAP. Farming accounts for a tiny proportion (2%) of the GDP of England yet uses up a huge amount of land. I would far rather less money was given to farmers be they small or large.

The truth finally comes out- you don't give a damn about what happens to farmers in this country, the very people that maintain a whole variety of breeds of domesticated or semi-domesticated animals- if we didn't have farmers, such animals would go extinct in this country (and this is the truth, many of the less productive breeds have already gone extinct or are nearing extinction), these are the people whose food you were raised upon, these are the people that work all day to provide the countryside with buisness and help sustain the local ecomonies.

Farming is an essential part of countryside life, if you don't care about farming, then why even care about the people living in the countryside?


If you had a house and buisness which you and your family had lived in and run for generations, how would you feel being forced to sell it up? I'm sure if you were in such a position, if you would feel a lot less happy about your views of "progress".

And remember, you can't have it both ways: Do you want our small farmers having more of the CAP or do you want African farmers to be able to sell their produce at a real price and not have to compete with government subsidised prices? This is a global community after all.

I care most about this country because it is my homeland. I believe that before we delve into the problems of other countries, we should sort our own problems out. Foriegn food imports are driving our farmers out of buisness, we don't need these food imports, we are just being greedy and taking advantage of cheap foriegn labour in other countries where the human and workers rights in our country don't apply to them.

I have nothing against the african people, but africa's problems will never be solved by us buying food off them- africa's problems come down to corruption in their own country, which is mostly beyond our control.
So we should be concentrating on helping our own, instead of employing others at the expense of our own.

And remind me exactly just where I said that any subsidies go to small farmers. I can't see it in my post. Maybe you should read what I put more clearly.

You're forgetful in this thread today, see your quote below;

Your example is not common. The farming subsidies given to farmers by the governments and the EU under the CAP mean we have huge mountains of subsidised food which we dump on the developing markets at prices they cannot produce the food for. These subsidies keep our uneconomical farmers in business (some of whom then moan when they start to get squeezed by market pressures) at the expense of developping farmers who can't sell their food at the low prices our food is sold at.

The farmers which are having the hardest time selling their food at the moment in general are the smallest ones, what you said would essentially be saying that the subsidies are there to help the smaller farmers, which are either just starting out or have been going for a while.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Some people are fed up. Many more people are perfectly happy. Look at the opinion polls in support of supermarkets due to ease and convenience.

Can you show me these opinion polls? No point in making a claim without the evidence to back it up.

Talk to older people who used to have to do the shops. My mum loves being able to do the shopping in a couple of house, and not over half a day. MAybe because both partners are at work all week, leave early and get in late they don't want over a quarter of their free time together to be spent looking for food? Cannot be bothered? I dare anyone to have a hard job that takes up your entire week and still say that spending half a day just to get food at the weekend is not a chore they would mch rather do without.

You're exagerating by saying shopping at local shops takes half a day to do. It is true, some people with their jobs cannot shop locally, but there are those who can- you're indicating that no-one can that is why people should shop at supermarkets?

And you are very, VERY much in the minority. And maybe if you visited your store more often you wouldn't have too much trouble. Or else, thesupermarket is badly run and needs the competition of another one nearby to get it inot gear.

Before making such a bold statement such as that i'm "very, very much in the minority", can you give me these opinion polls you have been talking so avidly about? I'm curious to see what information your views are founded on, or whether they are just assumptions etc.

So even you can see the good points of supermarkets. You berate them and say we should all use local shops, but even then you recgnise their long opening hours and vast stocking range are massive plus points.

And i've never denied those good points, however i don't fool myself into thinking that those good points do not come at a cost, which would at least make those good points less "massive" for me than what they are for you...

I admit supermarkets are convinient, but i never forget the price that convinience comes at to the environment, welfare of animals, and health of the local economy etc.

Do you really know what that price is? Do you do a whole life cost analysis of ech item you buy? Or do you just read a few greeny items and papers and decide from there? My case in point here is New Zealand lamb. Most greenies think it is bad because it is from so far away, but British farmers are so energy greedy in production it is less damaging to the global environment to ship the lamb from NZ to here than grow it here.

Well i know the price, i've made plenty of well-founded example's in comparison to your only one about the New Zealand beef (which you have not even backed up with facts here). To turn things around, do you really know what the price is? Perhaps its your turn to start backing up your statements with evidence/proof/facts etc.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Because by adapting as a society to care fo elderly and invalids we have gained valuable experience that might otherwise have been lost. I did not say the weak die and the strong live, just that you adapt or die. Older people are genreally less strong so they benefit society with experience.

Business have to adapt to the current market or they die. Look at MGRover for the prime example of not keeping up with the modern marketplace.

But, for clarity, I said 'adapt or die' not 'only the strong live'. Very important difference there.

So lets get a little more exact here, i want to probe your views of "adapt or die" or only the strong live".

Based on your way of viewing life, would you see it to be a waste of time looking after a disabelled pensioner who had no experience to offer to society?
Or how about people who look after deaf and dumb or severely mentally retarded children?

In both these cases, the people we are looking after have no benefet to society as they have nothing to offer us from a financial point of view, they will be a strain on our resources until they day they die. But we don't let them die just as we don't leave our dead to rot in the countryside, because we have respect, compassion and tolerance for our fellow human beings.

I think your black and white way of viewing life is flawed and certainly very heartless, ignoring many ethical/moral issues.

Also, life has been around for roughly 0.5 billion years, we as a society who care for elderly less than 2000 years. Which of these is the most successful model. We may one day find our compassion costs us. Who can say?

Ooo, your facts there are very flawed.

Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record in Africa about 130,000 years ago, we haven't been around for 0.5 billion years, there is a great deal of difference between the Australopithecine Lucy that lived 3.2million years ago, she was not a human being, just a human ancester.

Grandparents have also been around a lot for at least 30,000 years, and most likely even longer than that;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3876623.stm


Please research your facts more before making such bold statements.

Think bigger! Can you be sure thaqt the local farm isn't more energy intensive and producing a smaller batch of apples and is thus costing far more energy than a larger foreign producer who perhaps produces enough to save enough eneregy to cover the energy cost of exporting many apples and thus is globally greener?

The environment is far from a black and white, local and far matter.

Yes i'm pretty sure food produced and packaged locally in this country would be more environmentally friendly than food produced and packaged in countries far abroad, can you give me any fact-backed examples of such, perhaps of lets say fruit or veg, that prove otherwise?