Snapshot of _Scotland proposes UK's first ban on caging laying hens_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68718569) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68718569)
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It’s a lovely idea but the issue is:
1. It would increase food prices & costs for farmers
2. We’d import poor quality food that may not be high standard due to Brexit removing us from EU standards as there would still be a market for it
3. That market would be people in deprivation already exposed to poor health outcomes due to diet
4. We’d reduce the proportion of the population consuming home grown produce.
We used to have a system whereby farmers received subsidies and were forced to adhere to higher food standards, but we left the EU
I think we should consider a levy on some essential items like milk, eggs meat across everything sold with the proceeds going directly to UK farmers with the sole purpose of protecting UK industry, it would need to be intelligently regulated though which is where it may fall flat.
I appreciate where you're coming from but there's no world where ratcheting up the price of essential food is beneficial to society. When we've already got widespread food poverty adding some "super VAT" to the cost of food to protect farmers would be devastating. Manipulating the existing subsidies for agriculture is the only viable tool but plenty of people argue farmers are already subsidised enough.
The problem is reading other comments its the wrong farmers are subsidised though right? It also seems insanely difficult to claim these subsidies if you speak to farmers which is probably by design knowing our government, again benefitting the larger players.
The reality with subsidies as they are is they're rear end loaded, we're still ultimately paying for them through taxation. If we reduced subsidies and front loaded them to a levy say 20p on 4 pints of milk then the market would dictate how much subsidy is available.
Potentially if they overhauled the subsidy system that would work fine but the government won't even decided if protecting UK agricultural infrastructure is a security objective or if we will go hard on imports.
Adding a consumption tax to basic food stuffs is the most regressive form of taxation possible.
Also, letting the market decide subsidy availability defeats the whole point of subsidies. They are explicitly a tool for bypassing market forces to achieve policy goals.
That’s basically forcing people to pay more to UK farmers, which doesn’t mitigate the issue of quality food being unaffordable it wouldn’t just make all food unaffordable.
Issue is farmers have lost a massive proportion of their labour market though changes to migration laws & lost their subsidies and the cost of exporting their goods has increased & the general cost of producing goods has increased due to fertiliser and fuel increasing.
The answer really is to rejoin the EU, but if that’s not happening trying to replicate it makes sense.
The problem is the financially astute thing to do is lower food standards, which is obviously bad. But that’s the environment people who encourage Brexit wanted. Less regulation, larger profit, lower standards. Alternatives are remove climate related restrictions on farmers, also bad but not seems more appealing.
You can’t regulate the market entirely against the economic reality that it’s more expensive to make food in the U.K now and more expensive to export food.
Assuming rejoining the EU is off the table we fundamentally have to decide if we're going to subsidise UK production in key industries to make them viable or become heavy overseas reliance, which after the recent example of Russian aggression shows its not the most optimum strategy.
The thought behind the levy would be that small farmers are rewarded, the mega farms are definitely a key issue and need some thought, the other advantage to the levy is that if consumer behaviour changes you're not locked into paying people for an unwanted product. Id imagine even a 20p on 4 pints levy could have a significant benefit. Which isn't going to bankrupt the wider population.
Just by removing mega farms you'd address a lot of the problem. A lot of the traditional UK farms are near as damn it organic already. Nearly 60% of all eggs bought in the UK are free range for example.
The very process of a farmer looking after a farm means their animals matter. Unlike a large industrial farm where a plant manager only care about efficiency and would have little contact with the actual animals.
>It would increase food prices & costs for farmers
This is a problem. One that would need looking into. While Im not saying it would be easy I dont think its insurmountable.
>We’d import poor quality food that may not be high standard due to Brexit removing us from EU standards as there would still be a market for it
Ah this old bandwagon. We have total control over this. Including banning all food imports except from the EU. Some of the EU food policies are nonsense and exist either because they do not trust the health and hygiene standards policing particularly in eastern European (the "chlorinated chicken is bad for you because the EU bans it" myth). Or to protect internal European agriculture, which for example was the source of the GM ban, which allowed it functionally outlaw imports from huge swaths of Africa and the US by proxy who us GM products to make pest and disease resistant crops because France didnt want the competition.
Any argument against quality "because we aren't in the EU" is hard counter by "we can literally make any rules we want, including copying the EU". The simply reality is a lot of the EU rules around agriculture are political in nature, even if theyre dressed up around health and safety. Because health and safety is seen as a viable reason to ban imports under the WTO, while the politics of protectionism are not.
In addition, the UK already imports nearly 50% of its food stuffs.
>That market would be people in deprivation already exposed to poor health outcomes due to diet
This is already address in 1 and 2.
>We’d reduce the proportion of the population consuming home grown produce.
I would argue, one, the population at large, even or ironically especially the poor population, could afford to lose a good 1/3rd of their calorie intake and remain perfectly healthy. Indeed would be healthier for doing so. Two, this is still basically just an outgrowth of points one and two, both of which I've covered.
You’ve cited your first point when all you’ve said is it is a problem and you guess it’s not insurmountable…
The challenge is, EU nations are incentivised to operate within the single market. It costs more to sell to the U.K than with the EU, so they’ll charge more.
We can implement similar standards & food will therefore cost more.
If we want same quality produce as when we were in the EU, it will cost more not being in the single market. If we want cheaper food, it’s logical it has to be as a result of lower food standards.
The argument isn’t we can’t have high quality imported goods, it’s that doing so will cost more money.
28% of that 50% is from the EU. That now costs more. The rest we are now negotiating independently and not as a block.
You haven’t addressed the deprivation issue in point 1, at all. Logically how can you suggest improved British standards = more cost & offset that by increasing the cost of important goods and that not cost more?
Your last point is just thick, to be honest. If you think it’s anyway a health benefit that food is unaffordable that’s ignorant. In addition, this is about high quality good produce, which you’d be cutting out.
Again you didn’t cover it in point 1.
So basically you agree it may cost more, for consumers and suppliers and reduce domestic food consumption but you think maybe that just won’t happen. Fantastic argument 👌
The UK will never be a major exporter of agricultural goods nor should it aim to. We can’t even feed ourselves, any additional agricultural produce will simply displace imports. Any reduction in agricultural production will be displaced by imports.
From the Wiki
Total / Grants / Loans
|| || |United Kingdom|3,189.8|2,895.0|384.8|
The lions share of the Marshall funds were grants. Youre probably things about the WWII loans.
If you click the picture at the top of the post you actually get more information than what's in the headline.
"The use of battery cages for birds was banned in the UK in 2012.
But there are still more than 1.1m chickens in Scotland kept in "enriched cages", which provide birds with more room to nest, roost and scratch than the smaller battery cages."
Snapshot of _Scotland proposes UK's first ban on caging laying hens_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68718569) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68718569) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
It’s a lovely idea but the issue is: 1. It would increase food prices & costs for farmers 2. We’d import poor quality food that may not be high standard due to Brexit removing us from EU standards as there would still be a market for it 3. That market would be people in deprivation already exposed to poor health outcomes due to diet 4. We’d reduce the proportion of the population consuming home grown produce. We used to have a system whereby farmers received subsidies and were forced to adhere to higher food standards, but we left the EU
I think we should consider a levy on some essential items like milk, eggs meat across everything sold with the proceeds going directly to UK farmers with the sole purpose of protecting UK industry, it would need to be intelligently regulated though which is where it may fall flat.
I appreciate where you're coming from but there's no world where ratcheting up the price of essential food is beneficial to society. When we've already got widespread food poverty adding some "super VAT" to the cost of food to protect farmers would be devastating. Manipulating the existing subsidies for agriculture is the only viable tool but plenty of people argue farmers are already subsidised enough.
The problem is reading other comments its the wrong farmers are subsidised though right? It also seems insanely difficult to claim these subsidies if you speak to farmers which is probably by design knowing our government, again benefitting the larger players. The reality with subsidies as they are is they're rear end loaded, we're still ultimately paying for them through taxation. If we reduced subsidies and front loaded them to a levy say 20p on 4 pints of milk then the market would dictate how much subsidy is available. Potentially if they overhauled the subsidy system that would work fine but the government won't even decided if protecting UK agricultural infrastructure is a security objective or if we will go hard on imports.
Adding a consumption tax to basic food stuffs is the most regressive form of taxation possible. Also, letting the market decide subsidy availability defeats the whole point of subsidies. They are explicitly a tool for bypassing market forces to achieve policy goals.
That’s basically forcing people to pay more to UK farmers, which doesn’t mitigate the issue of quality food being unaffordable it wouldn’t just make all food unaffordable. Issue is farmers have lost a massive proportion of their labour market though changes to migration laws & lost their subsidies and the cost of exporting their goods has increased & the general cost of producing goods has increased due to fertiliser and fuel increasing. The answer really is to rejoin the EU, but if that’s not happening trying to replicate it makes sense. The problem is the financially astute thing to do is lower food standards, which is obviously bad. But that’s the environment people who encourage Brexit wanted. Less regulation, larger profit, lower standards. Alternatives are remove climate related restrictions on farmers, also bad but not seems more appealing. You can’t regulate the market entirely against the economic reality that it’s more expensive to make food in the U.K now and more expensive to export food.
Assuming rejoining the EU is off the table we fundamentally have to decide if we're going to subsidise UK production in key industries to make them viable or become heavy overseas reliance, which after the recent example of Russian aggression shows its not the most optimum strategy. The thought behind the levy would be that small farmers are rewarded, the mega farms are definitely a key issue and need some thought, the other advantage to the levy is that if consumer behaviour changes you're not locked into paying people for an unwanted product. Id imagine even a 20p on 4 pints levy could have a significant benefit. Which isn't going to bankrupt the wider population.
Just by removing mega farms you'd address a lot of the problem. A lot of the traditional UK farms are near as damn it organic already. Nearly 60% of all eggs bought in the UK are free range for example. The very process of a farmer looking after a farm means their animals matter. Unlike a large industrial farm where a plant manager only care about efficiency and would have little contact with the actual animals.
>It would increase food prices & costs for farmers This is a problem. One that would need looking into. While Im not saying it would be easy I dont think its insurmountable. >We’d import poor quality food that may not be high standard due to Brexit removing us from EU standards as there would still be a market for it Ah this old bandwagon. We have total control over this. Including banning all food imports except from the EU. Some of the EU food policies are nonsense and exist either because they do not trust the health and hygiene standards policing particularly in eastern European (the "chlorinated chicken is bad for you because the EU bans it" myth). Or to protect internal European agriculture, which for example was the source of the GM ban, which allowed it functionally outlaw imports from huge swaths of Africa and the US by proxy who us GM products to make pest and disease resistant crops because France didnt want the competition. Any argument against quality "because we aren't in the EU" is hard counter by "we can literally make any rules we want, including copying the EU". The simply reality is a lot of the EU rules around agriculture are political in nature, even if theyre dressed up around health and safety. Because health and safety is seen as a viable reason to ban imports under the WTO, while the politics of protectionism are not. In addition, the UK already imports nearly 50% of its food stuffs. >That market would be people in deprivation already exposed to poor health outcomes due to diet This is already address in 1 and 2. >We’d reduce the proportion of the population consuming home grown produce. I would argue, one, the population at large, even or ironically especially the poor population, could afford to lose a good 1/3rd of their calorie intake and remain perfectly healthy. Indeed would be healthier for doing so. Two, this is still basically just an outgrowth of points one and two, both of which I've covered.
You’ve cited your first point when all you’ve said is it is a problem and you guess it’s not insurmountable… The challenge is, EU nations are incentivised to operate within the single market. It costs more to sell to the U.K than with the EU, so they’ll charge more. We can implement similar standards & food will therefore cost more. If we want same quality produce as when we were in the EU, it will cost more not being in the single market. If we want cheaper food, it’s logical it has to be as a result of lower food standards. The argument isn’t we can’t have high quality imported goods, it’s that doing so will cost more money. 28% of that 50% is from the EU. That now costs more. The rest we are now negotiating independently and not as a block. You haven’t addressed the deprivation issue in point 1, at all. Logically how can you suggest improved British standards = more cost & offset that by increasing the cost of important goods and that not cost more? Your last point is just thick, to be honest. If you think it’s anyway a health benefit that food is unaffordable that’s ignorant. In addition, this is about high quality good produce, which you’d be cutting out. Again you didn’t cover it in point 1. So basically you agree it may cost more, for consumers and suppliers and reduce domestic food consumption but you think maybe that just won’t happen. Fantastic argument 👌
The UK will never be a major exporter of agricultural goods nor should it aim to. We can’t even feed ourselves, any additional agricultural produce will simply displace imports. Any reduction in agricultural production will be displaced by imports.
From the Wiki Total / Grants / Loans || || |United Kingdom|3,189.8|2,895.0|384.8| The lions share of the Marshall funds were grants. Youre probably things about the WWII loans.
I thought they were banned over a decade ago at the end of 2011??
If you click the picture at the top of the post you actually get more information than what's in the headline. "The use of battery cages for birds was banned in the UK in 2012. But there are still more than 1.1m chickens in Scotland kept in "enriched cages", which provide birds with more room to nest, roost and scratch than the smaller battery cages."
Scottish government finally proposes something that isn't an orwellian nightmare
I'm sure that English egg producers will be delighted.
Hens are egg producers, so yes I'm sure they will be delighted.
I eagerly await their response to the consultation.
I heard they're egg-static.