Prepping for Brexit thread

greenbee

Slinky said:

greenbee said:

3secondmemory said:

I’ve seen local businesses adapt and change this year due to Covid. There are opportunities and gaps to fill in the market so I wish all the young entrepreneurs a prosperous and innovative New Year. 

- the reduction in agricultural workers over time is almost exactly mirrored by the increase in the number of accountants (I do wish I could find the graph again).

Pity that we can't eat spreadsheets.

We could try eating accountants

The decline in agricultural workers is as a result of mechanisation and automation, not necessarily down to producing less food. What I'd intended to illustrate was the fact that some jobs may disappear, but others tend to appear to fill the gaps. 

[Deleted User]

My hope is that eventually we'll get back to some sort of farming that isn't about quotas and factory farms with huge fields and monoculture.  Smaller and more diverse farms with replanted hedgerows and more people employed and selling to the home markets.  I'd love more local farm shops in all areas, farm shops selling produce from local suppliers without the carbon footprint of having been grown in Cornwall, transported to Lincolnshire to be packaged and then transported back to the supermarket in Cornwall in the next town over to the farm they grew on. Safeway in Penzance and potatoes when we were on holiday down there on the farm growing the potatoes. Better management of the land, more employment and less pollution from transport and the higher prices we'll have to pay will be worth it for the good of the land.

littlemoney

Primrose said:

Yes, whatever individual views on Brexit , I think we as a nation tend to underestimate our ability to achieve great things   Just look at the OxfordAstra Zeneca vaccine !   Now more then ever we need to rebuild our national confidence and invest in ourselves.  And a new campaign to "Buy British" wherever possible and put our money where our mouths are  would help many businesses rebuild themselves after the devastation of Coronavirus.  We really can put the "Great" back into Great Britain if everybody really values  their citizenship and contributes in the best way they can.   

It's rather difficult to buy British when we don't make many things. I see even my Colgate toothpaste is made in Poland. Our economy is 70% service based economy. 1 in 14 people work in financial services which can easily be moved to another country and financial services was not included in the Brexit agreement. Covid and working from home has shown how easy it is to relocate many jobs. You can work on a computer anywhere in the world. The next move may be to move such jobs to another country with cheaper labour costs. We have already done it with manufacturing so  I can see financial services going the same way. I hope I am wrong as the consequences could be dire for the UK economy.

SeekingFlight

boazu said:

My hope is that eventually we'll get back to some sort of farming that isn't about quotas and factory farms with huge fields and monoculture.  Smaller and more diverse farms with replanted hedgerows and more people employed and selling to the home markets.  I'd love more local farm shops in all areas, farm shops selling produce from local suppliers without the carbon footprint of having been grown in Cornwall, transported to Lincolnshire to be packaged and then transported back to the supermarket in Cornwall in the next town over to the farm they grew on. Safeway in Penzance and potatoes when we were on holiday down there on the farm growing the potatoes. Better management of the land, more employment and less pollution from transport and the higher prices we'll have to pay will be worth it for the good of the land.

I also hope we can re-localise but that needs support from councils and consumers. They have just closed the market here in Cambridge even to food stalls (grocers, cheesemonger, fish etc) apparently to stop people going to the town centre. They are small local business that need that central location with transport links to be viable. If it stays closed many of them will be pushed out of business, while all the big names (costa, marks and Spencers, McDonalds are open on the market square and attracting people to the town centre. 

annieb64

I used to love Cambridge  Market. The fruit and veg stalls were brilliant .Can't  see any justification  for shutting them. I know a lot of students won't  be back but some will and they need to buy food. DD used to do most of her own cooking when she was there and relied on the market for her veg etc. 

[Deleted User]

Possibly many more things in a post Brexit UK will be at a more local level? perhaps Market Charters will be one way of letting local producers sell their produce direct to the public rather than have to meet the regulations that supermarkets set that lead to so much of the crops they grow being ploughed back into the fields.  Local markets a couple of times a week were the norm when I was younger and the daughters were pre school,  it was one really good way of making the one wage we had coming in go as far as it was possible to make it go.  Many weekly markets have gone from life and many of the permanent ones have gone too, it would be a very good move to reinstate them wouldn't it?

GreyQueen

Lots of these older forms of retail are predicated on the existance of a rare creature these days; the housewife. When wives(or partners) who are also mums are in the workforce in huge numbers, many of these older methods of retailing are impossible. Women I know with school age children start their day before 6 am and finally sit down about 8 pm, having fitted three-quarters of a workday between parental duties. I imagine if one suggested to them something more complicated than the weekly supermarket dash, you'd get a very sardonic look. And possibly a flea in the ear.

greenbee

GreyQueen said:

Lots of these older forms of retail are predicated on the existance of a rare creature these days; the housewife. When wives(or partners) who are also mums are in the workforce in huge numbers, many of these older methods of retailing are impossible. Women I know with school age children start their day before 6 am and finally sit down about 8 pm, having fitted three-quarters of a workday between parental duties. I imagine if one suggested to them something more complicated than the weekly supermarket dash, you'd get a very sardonic look. And possibly a flea in the ear.

I suspect those who have converted to online s/market shopping this year won't be going back in store either - they'll have decided that the time/cost trade-off has been worth it, even if they miss a few bargains. There's more time to plan carefully, and less chance of impulse buys. I know I'm saving, as a. I don't incur the fuel/parking costs and b. don't buy stuff I don't need just because it is cheap. And the very careful meal planning I had to do in the first lockdown during my 10 weeks of isolation means I know that planning makes the nutrition go further (and have a positive impact on waistline/health!). 

I suspect the jobs growth we'll see is in people to do paperwork for post-brexit customs controls

[Deleted User]

There are an awful lot of retireds who would welcome back local and locally produced goods on sale in a market, we have a weekly produce market in the village halls in the areas around about  here and they're always packed out, it's for smaller local producers not to have to sell to the supermarkets.  It's not cheap but the quality is in every product and it keeps local producers in business to the benefit of all of us.  It wouldn't take a huge amount to make them outdoor markets once a week and perhaps draw in more custom from the cities. Our morning market here runs from 8.30 - 12 30 and stalls sell out.  It's a lifeline for the artisan suppliers.

GreyQueen

Pre Covid, we had a bi-monthly farmers' market in the city centre. I'd have a brief look at loaves of bread in the £3-£7 range, and small pots of jam at about £5, and locally produced cheeses, the cheapest of which was £18 a kilo. Lovely stuff, I am sure, but way beyond my pocket and way beyond the pockets of the majority of consumers. Good job I have access to non-artisanal industrial agriculture food (and the allotment produce) or I would be very skinny and starved in no time at all.