Cost Of Food Set To Soar

oldtractor

our neighbour grows potatoes. the crop is less this year than it should be due to the weather and alot of the potatoes are rotting because of the wet too. Not suprising the price is rising. There is a shortage of decent spuds.

Butterfly_Brain

I am going to have a look at the price of a sack of potatoes on the market tomorrow and keep them in the shed, but some I will pre-roast and freeze.
Went into asda today and they have cut the cost of instant custard back down to 6p if anyone wants to go and grab some.

nuttyp

I went to the local farm and have paid £5 for lumos, the big huge potatoes the supermarkets dont want and £6.50 for best, but these are straight from the field.

We have seen around peterborough the bags being sold for £10 a sack!!!!!

lostinrates

kittie wrote: »

my local `posh` gentleman farmer only does wheat grain for animal feed, year upon year. Now and then he hires contractors and they whizz up and down in their big tractors and combines. I found out that he gets £33,000 a year in subsidy. That plus what he gets for the grain and for the puny field margins. He is, I believe honest and upstanding and I suppose only collects what the gov throws at him. It is/was an eye opener.

Subsidies certainly work out well for the larger land owners, especially If they have some old trees or hedgerows.

We have a very small amount of land, and no enhanced subsidy and I promise you the subsidy that we get doesn't pay for the maintenance of the land, there will always be things we want to do that would be better but cannot cover.

Hired contractors are not cheap (though economies of scale make them better for proper farmers, not like us:o) and the field margins really so make a wildlife difference.

£33k probably doesn't go as far as you might think for seed and contractors over a large land holding.

camNolliesMUMMY

Well today I did my weekly shop and omg I almost had a heart attack in tesco!!
Value black currant orange etc gone from 24p to 47p!!!!! What next???
Il tell you what next value beef mince £2.80 now and they have reduced the big packs - 800g of mince to 750g!!! Including the one they currently have on offer.....very sneaky!
However I went to lidl and bought 800g of beef mince for £2.49 and it looks good, so I bought two packs, as well as their xxl sack of spuds.
Also went to b&m few bargains there too.....500g of ham breaded £1.69
Air wick mulled wine plug in £2.69 tesco was £7!!!! Smells gorgeous like Xmas.
Astonish dish wash tabs 42 5 in 1 for £2.99, I've used half a tab and they are great so will get 84 washes out of them.
But my great buys were Iceland 40 fish fingers for £2 and 18 toilet rolls for £3 2 ply but were not too fussy.
I just can't get over the main supermarkets now I will be making a shopping list each week and will check my supermarket and make a note on who has what offers, but I will hit bargain shops first and Iceland just in case.
I'm a stay at home mum and house wife so this will be my job from now on!

RAS

lostinrates wrote: »

Hired contractors are not cheap (though economies of scale make them better for proper farmers, not like us:o) and the field margins really so make a wildlife difference.

I understand from an agricultural specialist that contractors are going to be a bit of a thing in the past. Farmers have woken up to the fact that with the change in the peformance of the jet stream there will be long periods of wet or dry weather and short windows of opportunity to do the work.

And those windows are too short and unpredictable to rely upon contractors so they are now all buying machinery so they can get out and do the job when they can rather than losing the limited chance they have to plough, sow, reap, harvest etc.

lostinrates

RAS wrote: »

I understand from an agricultural specialist that contractors are going to be a bit of a thing in the past. Farmers have woken up to the fact that with the change in the peformance of the jet stream there will be long periods of wet or dry weather and short windows of opportunity to do the work.

And those windows are too short and unpredictable to rely upon contractors so they are now all buying machinery so they can get out and do the job when they can rather than losing the limited chance they have to plough, sow, reap, harvest etc.

Well, better for empoyment then, but the trend since I was at ag college has definitely been from farmers and farm workers to contractors.

This year has been the test of that issue, but the first real test for a while. The cost of machinery is massive. Not tractors, which are not so very bad, or can be not so bad, but for all the bits and pieces people would need to not rely on contractors...it adds up.


Cooperatives, as for example, France does, or used to I do not know about now, would have real potential.......the issue there is that I think amoung many greed or the fear of greed might get in the way!

RAS

lostinrates wrote: »

Well, better for empoyment then, but the trend since I was at ag college has definitely been from farmers and farm workers to contractors.

Yep. The person who told me was very surprised by what he and fellow researchers had seen this year. Apparently sales of kit are well up. I really did not get the message the first time - that the specialists are now looking at major changes in farming with costs of fertilisers and fuels so much higher and major permanent changes in the weather patterns.

He and his like work mainly with the big farmers - east coast arable - and reckoned they had already stripped out the costly practices that are easy to change. Also reckons livestock farmers are next in line for big changes as feed costs will be so high.

I was asked if I realised that shop prices did not reflect production costs - umm yes very much so - and that with additional welfare costs and other increased input costs, meat are going to get more expensive. He expects intermittent price shocks which will "make it very difficult for people on low incomes if they are not given a lot of extra support." Within 18-24 months.

We did not discuss it but I suspect that things like gangs will also become more difficult as the need will be for more people at short order to harvest in the shorter windows?

lostinrates

RAS wrote: »

Yep. The person who told me was very surprised by what he and fellow researchers had seen this year. Apparently sales of kit are well up. I really did not get the message the first time - that the specialists are now looking at major changes in farming with costs of fertilisers and fuels so much higher and major permanent changes in the weather patterns.

He and his like work mainly with the big farmers - east coast arable - and reckoned they had already stripped out the costly practices that are easy to change. Also reckons livestock farmers are next in line for big changes as feed costs will be so high.

I was asked if I realised that shop prices did not reflect production costs - umm yes very much so - and that with additional welfare costs and other increased input costs, meat are going to get more expensive. He expects intermittent price shocks which will "make it very difficult for people on low incomes if they are not given a lot of extra support." Within 18-24 months.

We did not discuss it but I suspect that things like gangs will also become more difficult as the need will be for more people at short order to harvest in the shorter windows?

Fascinating. As you know, I live near another big arable area, so this change will be interesting to watch.

The thing is, with everything getting more expensive people do have to expect cost of meat and grains to go up , cost more to produce and in self employment or areas of growth then the self emoyed or employers should and can offer cost and living wage increases...including to farm workers, this also costs more on the end product.

Welfare is really my biggest interest and my fear is that current conditions make intensive production make more sense as more and more people look to reduce meat price rather than meat eating frequency on the whole.

As far as livestock goes this year, grain is going to be an issue...but it's to be balanced for some producers with the fact that many have got so much grass crop that their clamps could not hold it all. The grass grew like stink, and was wet for turn out, but could be fed cut, while if it did dry up now, non productive youngstock, for example, could stay on grass much, much longer than normal.

But....for the ground wet ness. E.g. Our summer grazing is far from spent, but I cannot offer it to sheep keepers when I pull off it in a week or too because it's just too wet. (if it were dry, or to dry up earlier) I would graze it myself.

I see the straw issue as a big one locally, certainly more than grass and frankly, lots of complainants about grain I know here DID get it ipn. It's not great, but it's in. It's hardly an unprecidented farming event.


This is really interesting RAs, I shall be interested if you hear more on this!

Actually though, what my first post related to was tax arrangements in agriculture, where loss years are considered ' useful' for many.

Popperwell

Well, as said elsewhere Tesco's have increased the space given over to meat, variety is up but priced still seem high to me...even on what would be seen as cheap cuts...

However...if you have the money(I say if)they had 8(or was it 9)fresh large chicken breasts individually wrapped for £9.99 is that good value? You can get smaller frozen breasts that are cheaper but I guess this comes out around £1.20 per breast. I could eat one or split it and make two meals from one(or use some in a sandwich)

I had no room in the freezer and I was not wanting to spend that kind of money anyhow...but I got some quick cook Turkey steaks(6 for £4.58)so that makes them approx 70p each. Is that good value? Should get 6 meals from them and be able to do a variety.