"The Lie of the Land" - Will you be a vegetarian on Friday

harryhound

It is an interesting week on Channel 4:
It seems that last years "Lie of the Land" being repeated tonight, won prizes.
Hugh Fearlessly-Eatsitall, and Jamie Oliver join forces to take on the mass production of poultry.
Should be an interesting program to watch on Friday "Jamie's Fowl Dinners" @ 21:00.
(Though I'm far from convinced that trying to turn us into a nation of "backyarder's" is the solution - I think this time we can leave it to the Chinese to breed up "bird flu" into a pandemic?")

Harry.

geordie_joe

harryhound wrote: »

It is an interesting week on Channel 4:
It seems that last years "Lie of the Land" being repeated tonight, won prizes.

I am watching it at this very minute!

ManAtHome

But as one of the farmers has just said - if you all go veggie, do you think we're going to keep animals as pets..?

lightisfading

Interesting to see Jamie Oliver supporting Hugh F-W's chicken out campaign, given Mr Oliver works for Sainsbury's :rolleyes:

geordie_joe

lightisfading wrote: »

Interesting to see Jamie Oliver supporting Hugh F-W's chicken out campaign, given Mr Oliver works for Sainsbury's :rolleyes:

Yes but I've never seen him advertise their cheap chickens.

Anyway, when you get paid for having your face on TV you don't care who is paying.

mikeywills

Good programme, it did not dramatise the problem in the same way as hugh or jamie are doing with poultry.

The farmers and huntsmen are clearly stuck in a rut, more often than not they lead quite simple lives. Even the last guy that had only been farming for 10 years was struggling to comprehend how the new legislation was going to affect his farm. If he can't when he clearly is quite a savvy business man how on earth do we expect the more elderly farmers to cope.

Farming is an industry like any other, but most farmers accept that they are custodians of the land not owner and profiteers. We all want to make a profit by doing something that we really care about and enjoy, but for how many of us does that involve the lives of animals.

Farming is a very unique industry that battles between what is best for the farmer and what is best for the animal, I would love to see us get to a situation where we can buy direct from the farm, and farmer. This however needs the farmer to change many of their practises and take a leap of faith, at a time when their livelihoods hang in the balance.

Why is there not more support for local farm businesses in the same way there is for starter commercial units on industrial sites.

Cardew

mikeywills wrote: »

Why is there not more support for local farm businesses .

The dilemma is that many farmers are 'asset rich' and sometime 'income poor'.

It doesn't help that for years and years they(the NFU) have 'cried Wolf' about the very low prices they get for their produce - milk being the latest. No doubt at times this is a justified complaint(like milk); but for years they got(and still get) huge subsidies from the Common Market which were convieniently not mentioned.

It is difficult to get an accurate picture of farmer's income.

lightisfading

geordie_joe wrote: »

Yes but I've never seen him advertise their cheap chickens.

Anyway, when you get paid for having your face on TV you don't care who is paying.

Yes but if you have a set ethic - in this case re factory farming - then surely supporting a company that actively engages in that practise is against you ethics.

I admire his work sorting out kids school dinners, and I support anything against factory farming, but to then plaster your face all over a supermarket's ads seems rather hypocritical.

geordie_joe

lightisfading wrote: »

Yes but if you have a set ethic -

IF is a big word! We don't know that he any ethics at all, all we know is he gets paid for saying he does. Everyone has their price, give me the money he is getting and I'll go on TV and say anything you want me to say.

lightisfading wrote: »

in this case re factory farming - then surely supporting a company that actively engages in that practise is against you ethics.

If you have any ethics. I would also question HFW ethics, even his sense.

After all, he is making money trying to turn people against intensive chicken farming by doing it himself. He didn't actually have to kill the small chickens to prove his point. He could have said "normally this one would be killed because it is too small" and not actually kill it. Could have had a third shed where he put the ones that normally would have been killed, once it a few chickens in he could have shown them and said these ones would normally have been killed.

Instead he went round killing them and eventually put on the crocodile tears saying "I am sick of killing chickens"

No body forced him to kill them, it was his idea and he got paid for it.

Right, I'm off to see if they will pay me, to persuade people not to murder children, by killing my neighbours kids on TV.

Cardew

geordie_joe wrote: »

Right, I'm off to see if they will pay me, to persuade people not to murder children, by killing my neighbours kids on TV.

You could practice on some of the yobs around here; if caught a plea of 'justifiable homicide' would have merit!