Prepping for Brexit thread

EachPenny

maryb wrote: »

Do you keep hens now EachPenny?

No, sadly not. I ended up living in a city for work and although I've got a bit of a garden it isn't really suitable. But in my schooldays we had laying hens, [male chickens] to fatten for the table, bantams and Golden Pheasants. It was a real education to learn how to care for animals which provide food, not just entertainment.

But I've carried on growing a few potatoes (three generations of my family have grown them continuously every year since 1939) and still have some fruit and veg.

-taff

I thought this was a prepping thread not a lets-discuss-the-politics-and-issues thread....

Lizling

EachPenny wrote: »

But you've got things back to front. There is no reason why we wouldn't be able to import as much meat as we want, the problem will be trying to sell our meat into the EU if they decide to put up barriers to trade. That means if UK producers cannot export, whilst tariffs on imports are removed or lowered, the supply into the UK market will increase and prices will fall. The law of excess supply and demand. That's the correct Economics 101.

In the event of a no deal Brexit, the UK is no longer covered by the trade agreements between the EU and the rest of the world.

We then have to trade under WTO agreements, which are like the default, rock bottom option. When that happens, tariffs on imports and exports rise. No country can decide to just lower tariffs without having a trade agreement in place. We haven't yet negotiated any new trade deals and they each take several years to negotiate.

There's a nice explainer here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45112872 . One sentence in it is 'And agricultural tariffs would be significantly higher, rising to an average of more than 35% for dairy products.'

The tariffs would apply to both imports and exports, but we import more than we export. Also, assuming the pound's value falls (almost guaranteed because that's what always happens in times of uncertainty), UK exporters will get more £s for their goods sold abroad. In short, exports will continue as imports drop.

Back to the Economics 101. You will understand that adding an extra cost to the supplier (the higher tariffs) shifts the supply curve upwards. When that happens and demand stays the same, a lower quantity is supplied at a higher price. And there we are. Less sold; higher prices.

GreyQueen

In my region, over the past few years, it has been announced in the local press that this dairy farmer and that dairy farmer are going out of business. Herds which have been built up over several generations have been dispersed and are probably now deceased.

It will take time to bring certain parts of UK agriculture up to levels where they can make up for produce which are presently imported but we should not, IMO, need to import dairy products when we live in a temperate climate which is eminently suitable for raising them at home. Homegrown produce should be our default, and then WTO or other import rules become academic.

Also, the growing numbers of vegans are absenting themselves from the consumption of dairy and meat and fish, which reduces the quantity needed in the country as a whole. Others are going flexitarian with regard to animal products. Whether this is a fad for many (I work with several people who became vegan in 2018) or a lifetime commitment, only time can tell.

I'm pretty sure of reading about a mahoosive undercover tomato growing operation which was tooling up in Suffolk. Tomatoes, as home gardeners will be well aware, can be difficult to grow reliably as an outdoor crop in the UK. Capiscums - the big peppers - would need similar treatment.

We should not forget that the growers of fresh produce in EU countries which are major exporters to the UK are not going to be quietly put out of business, or see their business decimated. They will lean on their political representatives. And lean hard.

The political superclass in the EU tend to think of themselves as above criticism and beyond accountability, or give an able impression of same, but they can be brought down from within their own countries.


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This evening's preptastic planning will involve swinging by a Sainsbugs on the way home from my archery class. I seldom visit Sains as their whereabouts is not convenient to my everyday journeys, but will be stocking up on their own brand loose leaf tea. I use one pouch a month, will likely buy a year's supply. Double-benefit for me is that I won't have to go there again for 12 months and I may gain a little if there are price hikes.

Might also get lucky on the YS while I'm there.

maryb

There was a report published a few months back by a City Univers professor, Tim Lang who is considered an expert on food supply. I can’t think why as his assumptions were so unrealistic as to be laughable - ie that we suddenly faced a complete cliff top cessation of every last bit of food imported from the EU. One of the points he made was that it takes three years to bring a cow into milk once the decision is made to increase production. No mention of the fact that there are dairy cows in Europe who still need milking twice a day and the farmers need to get that milk to market each and every day. It may be that we do increase production after leaving the EU To my mind that can only be a good thing. But it won’t be because we would otherwise be rationed to one pint of milk a week.

GreyQueen

Good points, maryb.


I don't drink cows' milk personally (upsets my digestion - trust me, you wouldn't want the details) but use goat milk.


Dairy and other animals cannot be turned on and off like switches just because of politics. Nor can agricultural production be fiddled around with. Like all home gardeners of veggies, I'm in the planning and prepping stage of allotment agriculture at this time of year, and still enjoying the produce of the 2018 growing season.


I've holidayed in the Sierra Nevada of southern Spain. From the mountains, you can look down onto the coastal plains where there are an awful lot of plastic greenhouses. That's where a lot of our stuff is coming from at this time of the year.


Parts of Europe have sunshine and soil and not a lot else. By selling fresh produce, these can be monetised. Otherwise, what will those regions do?

Nargleblast

I think, looking back to when things have run short for some reason or other, or when things have rocketed in price, that is where you find your clues in how to prep for whatever the next few months has in store for us. It seems to come down to the basics, butter, milk, bread, fruit, veg, whatever staples you rely on and would miss. Elsewhere I have recently been in a discussion about where to get butter that is from grass-fed cows, and I learnt that it's a good idea to stock up on it in summer and autumn, before the cows in question switch over to grain feed in winter. (I know the most well known grass fed cow butter is Irish, but I can't see our friends from the Emerald Isle suddenly cutting off our supplies of Kerrygold!)

Milk - local milkman if at all possible, you know the milk is locally sourced and you are supporting the local economy, even if it costs a bit more than the supermarket stuff. Have UHT and dried milk stores as a backup.

Bread - get stores of flour and yeast and learn to make your own. Always covered then, if shops run out.

Fruit and veg - go with what's in season, have some frozen and tinned stuff in store. Will not getting lettuces or tomatoes from Spain ruin your life? No, because for one thing we grow them in the UK (tomatoes nearly all year round now) and if you stick to the natural summer season for this stuff, you can make salads the rest of the year without a hint of a lettuce or tomato.

Keep an eye on reduced price stuff near its use by date, stuff that can be preserved in one way or another (freezing,drying, pickling).

I am not suggesting we take the U.K. back to a time when everything was like something out of the Waltons((G'night, John-boy!) but we can each of us become a little more self sufficient in how we live so we can deal with whatever is ahead post-Brexit. Personally, I think it will come and pass like a damp squib, and we'll all be looking at each other and thinking "Is that it? Is that what all the hysteria was about?"

maryb

Lizling I read that briefing note and it confirmed what I had previously thought. We don’t have to impose eye wateringly high import tariffs on food as long as we lower them for everyone, EU countries and hired parties. The problem is the difficulties this would cause for domestic producers as we would have large imports of cheap food. However state subsidies would no longer be illegal in that case and the thinking is that there would be significant aid given to our own farmers

The EU is actually a protectionist bloc to the outside world. You might not need to buy Fairtrade if there were free trade for more developing countries

[Deleted User]

Let's debunk a perception this morning that seems to raise it's head frequently when talking about prepping I often (others too) throw into the pot that we managed in the last war to feed the nation and make the best of things which is being misguidedly taken as 'rose tinted specs harking back to a utopian golden age' and is in actual fact no such thing. What I hark back to is a time when solutions were found to problems that existed for the 6 harsh and stressful years we were actually at war and the years afterwards when rationing continued and in some ways became harder because even bread was put on ration. There are no golden times as such but people found practical solutions to the problems that beset them and made their lives as comfortable and as liveable as they could with what was available to them and I'm sure that we, the British nation will do the same now because although we've become accustomed to the ease and convenience of life in 2019 where if you can afford it everything is there for the getting at your fingertips on the internet and delivered to your home a few days later we are still the same British nation that had and still has the backbone to survive well under any set of circumstances we find ourselves in. Yes we'll moan and yes we'll be cross but once that's out of the way we'll get on and thrive.

Goldie you keep throwing passive aggression at people who have different views to your own, you also say we know nothing of you and how you live and we know nothing of your life but on the reverse of that you know nothing of our backgrounds and current circumstances either and many of your own comments might be taken as passive aggressive in reply to many of us. We all have different life experiences and those colour our individual way of thinking and our individual ways of planning how to cope with the unknown that is our collective future after the end of March. You're obviously a person who thinks deeply about things, who does research and finds facts and is prepared to share them and that's very useful at a time like this when uncertainty is rife, it would be so useful if you could actually find some that weren't as negative as many of your posts seem to indicate. We're all of us uncertain as to what is going to be after the end of March I get that people like me are annoyingly optimistic and horribly positive when others are really anxious and would like the whole situation to be put into reverse but I think a middle way will be there where we all could find ourselves finding ways and means of still living well afterwards and it will need ALL of us to make that happen. Be part of that future, be part of the solution!

EachPenny

Lizling wrote: »

In the event of a no deal Brexit, the UK is no longer covered by the trade agreements between the EU and the rest of the world.

We then have to trade under WTO agreements, which are like the default, rock bottom option. When that happens, tariffs on imports and exports rise. No country can decide to just lower tariffs without having a trade agreement in place. We haven't yet negotiated any new trade deals and they each take several years to negotiate.

There's a nice explainer here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45112872 . One sentence in it is 'And agricultural tariffs would be significantly higher, rising to an average of more than 35% for dairy products.'

The tariffs would apply to both imports and exports, but we import more than we export. Also, assuming the pound's value falls (almost guaranteed because that's what always happens in times of uncertainty), UK exporters will get more £s for their goods sold abroad. In short, exports will continue as imports drop.

Back to the Economics 101. You will understand that adding an extra cost to the supplier (the higher tariffs) shifts the supply curve upwards. When that happens and demand stays the same, a lower quantity is supplied at a higher price. And there we are. Less sold; higher prices.

Who collects the tariffs and where does the money end up?

If tariffs (i.e. taxes) on imports have to be imposed or increased the money is collected up by HMRC. We don't have to hand it over to anybody (unlike now) and the UK Government can decide how it is spent.

That could result in anything from VAT being reduced, business rates being cut, or corporation tax being lowered. Lower taxes on the supply chain and/or on sales means the potential for lower prices.

The imposition of tariffs under WTO rules is simply shuffling the tax take around a bit. If the UK Government take more tax off us as a result of Brexit then we just need to remember there is a General Election coming up in 2022.