http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/farming/display.var.2152767.0.Mixed_reaction_to_FFAs_call_for_one_day_food_strike.php

I've just picked up this bit which says FFA is calling for a 24 hour food strike on 22 August. It is the first I have heard about it (but I've spent alot of time in meetings recently so that is probably my fault) but I wonder if there is really an appetite for it among farmers?

I have been reading about the Argentine strike, so I was interested to read the link Isabel provided.  The comments about the beef price putting  consumers off beef I think is very accurate, I wonder why consumers in this nation have not started eating less beef based on the price.  The kind of strike I would like to see in this nation by farmers is one where we do not buy anything for a period of time, not a selling strike.  That in my opinion is where our true power lies, in the things we purchase.  Not that I think there is a prayer this would happen, but what if we simply put on 25% less fertilizer?  Sure, our yields would go down some, but also in an already tight market I would think this would lead to higher prices for what we produce, plus it would send a signal to the fertilizer industry.  What if a majority of us said simply, input costs are too high, we are going to idle 5% of our farmground?  I am willing to bet here in the States if we just seeded it to some bird cover, we could get our money back in bird hunting.  I strongly feel farmers need to make their economic clout felt, that is where our power lies.

And what the hell are they going to achieve by this other than putting everyones back up. Great idea, hold back a days production at what is for some a very difficult marketing period, and double the production the next and depress the price at a time of year when it will not recover. A bit more thought needed me thinks. An idea dreamed up by someone to get himself heard or in the headlines.

I have agreed with some of FFA's thinking in the past, but at a time when supply and prices are changing, and perhaps a better picture is evolving on the horizon, I think they have lost the plot here. My biggest worry is that food prices are going to escalate and the farmers are going to get the blame. I have no doubt that there are plenty of big guys in the food trade who will be quick to off-load any blame from their own door-steps and the, relatively innocent, public will feel cheated. "Backfire", as has been mentioned, is the most likely outcome. I agree with you Kansas that an inputs strike of some sort would be more appropriate but there are too many factors to fight with here; such as other farmers taking up the slack and the dependence on the lack of availability of alternate markets etc, etc. but you are on the right line.

AllyR:

I think they have lost the plot here

It strikes me they haven't lost the plot because it doesn't seem that there was one in the first place.  What's the strategy here?  To raise awareness?  Whose awareness?  A one day strike heralded 5 months in advance is only going to annoy a lot of people in the food chain because they would have to do a bit of planning to avoid it.  It will not seriously inconvenience anyone - certainly no-one whose attention he wants to atttract!

During the nineteen seventies and early eighties when unions where always 'battling' the bosses. I was operations director for a rather large company that was facing intense competition and so we had to work jolly hard to keep our costs, including wages as low as possible. The only action the unions never took, was a work to rule yet this was the very action that we would have been unable to plan for and would have closed us down earlier than we closed anyway.

In these dire time in the life of our nation, my own remedy, would be for farmers to play the game of the idiots that this government takes us for.

We should ring defra/trading standards/animal health for instruction before we do 'anything.' We should fax them, email them, write to them, telephone them. We should seek appointments with them before we move stock, treat stock, cut hedges, clear out ditches, plough, sow, muck spread, cut down trees, burn brash, in short, We should be no unilateral action that could possibly be affected by some rule or the other.We should act only when we get the name of the person giving us authorisation. When the media got involved we would justify the effect of our 'affected stupidity,' to the public by quoting regulations and our fear of acting illegally.

The effect of our actions would be to bring the industry to a halt. Not because we wantd to, but because the relevant authorities were unable to process the millions of decisions necessary each day and every day including Saturday and Sunday.

Strikes put us on a conflict course with government, whereas working to rule is simply, doing what they have told us to.

Let all the world know who it was whose rules make fools of us all!

The Soviet government fell, partly because the people stopped doing things they were not directly told to do by some official, and officials stopped telling people to do things unless approved by a higher official, eventually the man at the top got the message.

 

 

 

 

 

Love it but don't know if i could manage the phone bill

well FFA have won the day here, when was the last time you heard from them ?- they know just how to spark a debate, just not sure i agree with most of the content though

This from the people who thought we could raise the milk price by pouring our milk down the drain, possibly the most pea-brained idea of all time. I went to one of their meetings once. David Handley is a total hypocrite and rabble rouser. He said that "We still need the mechanism of the NFU". Allow me to explain, David, in words of one syllable. You can only have "The mechanism of the NFU" if people pay their subs. You don't, and you urge the rest of us to follow suit. If I had my way, anyone who didn't pay their NFU subs would be denied the right to buy red diesel. You and your kind are parasites, Handley, go and crawl back under the stone you crawled out from.

Well i pay my NFU subs but they won't allow me a vote on who is president so sometimes i do wonder why i bother.

Up the rams, you are so wrong.

Handley was right to call for milk to be poured away, we could have sorted out the milk crisis ten years ago. If everyone had done it , and the ones who wouldnt recieved a "visit" as happens in eire, the carnage wrought on the dairy farmers could have been stopped.

Similarly now , if pig producers stop delivering pigs for a week, they could fix their problems. Just let them out to a field.

I was on the barricades in the fuel strike, which was a whisker away from toppling the govt in 2000. We were told a pack of lies about being listened to in future, and stepped back from the brink. Such protests are now illegal. We now pay 5 x the duty on red we did then.

All the hauliers need to arrange a "holiday" for the same fortnight  sometime this summer, and see how the public cope with no food or goods, and the govt copes with no deisel tax.

Sounds like an organisation (if you could call it that) in its death throws to me. Potentially the biggest own goal in agriculture's history.

As regards pouring milk away, no-one from FFA ever said how much the milk price would have to rise to compensate for my lost income, plus it would have got the environment agency on our backs. As for the threat of a "visit", I would have countered this with a threat of a visit from my solicitor, and an immediate acquaintance with prison food. This is the sort of mentality practised by Scargill & co. in the '70s and '80s, for which we elected Margaret Thatcher to put a stop to. To continue the Scargill comparison, I would support a strike if it was voted for by a majority of my fellow farmers. The only answer to low prices is to take more interest in the end product. At the moment, we have a "wave it goodbye at the farm gate" attitude.  

I can't see how a 24 hour strike will help if it has taken 3 weeks of striking in Argentina to start emptying shelves.  It would need to go on for at least a week.

I used to think this type of action was the answer, but now that I have a better understanding of the industry, you would need to throw away ALOT of milk before anyone noticed.  It is hard to stomach the waste when you have spent hours, days, years working for producing the product, and that says nothing of the environmental damage of wasting dairy produce.

It is just a matter of supply and demand... keep the processors and retailers wanting more, and the prices will go up.

Regards, CW

I've just had a quick chat with David Handley and he says that the strike is something that is being 'talked about' but no firm decision. He says he has heard the criticisms before and if people don't want to take part, then they won't.

But he is adamant that a) there are few others ways to make people realise how serious the situation is getting and b) there are people who haven't appreciated quite how much inputs have risen and it is completely eroding any increases in farmgate prices. David's views is that these issues need airing now rather than in six months time when things really are at crisis point.

He maybe right about input costs but the way food inflation is going this would still be a massive PR own goal for the industry. How much of this is about doing the right thing for the industry and how much of this is about Handley bigging himself up as FFA are out of it these days?

He shoots, he scores. Society 0 Farming -1

LIV,

David Handley is probably singing from the wrong Hymn Sheet with this one,if he wrote a few articals regarding World Food Shortage he would be noticed a lot more.He has credance in Political circles above the muppits at the NFU and more MP's would heed his warnings on Food shortages as they do David Richardson.Therefore if I were him I would not do Strikes etc. but leave the Market to do the work and like so many Farmers are now posting dont expand production.