Dim wrote:
On Tue, 17 Dec 2002 18:47:39 +0100, Torsten Brinch wrote:

So, back to EU Commissioner Fischlers proposal, to cap the subsidy
per farm to no more than 300,000 Euro (~$300,000) a year:

You probably do not know how little farmers earn, and how little
is done to help them. Look, if they can't make a living, they've
got no choice but to leave farming, is that what you want? Perhaps
you rather have city people carve up rural Britain with their
4-by-4 vehicles.

Grin, so now you are all into get-back-to-the-land, eh? But you know,
farmers always complain - if I had a pound for every time I heard
a farmer moaning about how poor they are, I'd be able to afford one
of those 4x4 off-roaders you're on about.

Rememember that farmers have already made a great effort to cut
costs and diversify into new sources of income. Indeed some
farmers change use of the land, are moving into the leisure sector
or convert land into wildlife and nature parks.

It doesn't matter how they diversify, if they can't run a business.
They moan now, but they had an avg -£80 K- profit in 1995. They should
have put some of that aside, all businesses have their ups and downs,
but the farmers think society -owe- them a living.

There's a lot of ignorance about farming. What's very much needed
is support for agriculture and education to show how important it
is to us all.

Right, let us have one more campaign to win more help for farmers who
have spent their lives getting rich whilst wrecking the countryside.

With a Government that doesn't care and a public that resents
them like you appear to be doing, one should think farmers have
enough misfortune. But remember, they are also ripped-off by
the supermarkets.

What's this all about? Have you got a persecution complex or what?!
Farmers sell their goods in a free market - what's unfair about that?

Farmers are being exploited everywhere they turn.

Supermarkets exist to make money - farmers should learn to adapt. And
farmers are still trying to sell us BSE-infected meat, aren't they?

Farming itself is a stressful occupation due to the long lonely
hours. There are fewer farm workers now due to cuts and new
technology, and extra labour is seasonal. Medium-sized farms
are being combined to cover larger and larger areas. Soon all
we'll be left with are rural factories, bigger and emptier
than disused shipyards.

That's just the nature of the game. You hear farmers rambling
on about how they love the solitude of the hills all the time
on Country File. So nice. We should we pay him for that?
Really, out here in society, if a worker cannot pay his own
wage, he is one too many where he is --- anyhow, face it,
bigger farms are more efficient - that's just economy of scale.