Food prices - Scaremongering? (Warning - Potential Political Content!)

Discussion in 'General Gardening Discussion' started by KevinH, Jan 6, 2013.

  1. redstar

    redstar Total Gardener

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    Ahh, Mum, my first Thanksgiving with husband's folks was canned veggies, and pillbury dough boy for the bread. Then next holiday, I brought the good stuff.
    Anyway, also from this years Thanksgving Turkey, the finally offering the turkey gave to me was a fine kettle of turkey bone soup, which is frozen in 4 separate 2 cup containers.
     
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    • OxfordNick

      OxfordNick Super Gardener

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      I read an interesting book last year - "Growing a Farmer: How I learned to live off the land" by Kurt Timmermeister which is about how he decided to quit his city job & become a smallholder ; he talks quite a lot about the economics of small scale farming & comes to the conclusion that theres no way to make it pay unless you add value (in his case by making cheese) & can guarantee a steady output. It also has some amusing insight into living with cows (!). Its out of print at the moment I think but worth picking up a second hand copy if you can find one cheap... Sadly someone has borrowed my copy & not returned it.
       
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      • shiney

        shiney President, Grumpy Old Men's Club Staff Member

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        Dave, that takes me back to the stories my uncles used to tell about the 'Great War'. fortunately they, too, survived. My grandparents and, to a certain extent, my parents suffered food poverty.

        Although I was lucky enough not to have to go through that we had to be extremely frugal in my younger days and new the value of food and how to make it last. It never occurred to us that food could be thrown away. Even veggie peel was used for stock.

        The cost of food has definitely increased but, like most of you, I think that a lot less could be spent on it if people ate, and cooked, the right food.

        Growing food ourselves comes into different categories.

        There's the veggie/fruit plot that most people with gardens could do fairly easily. The problem with that is people who are retired and have the time are finding it physically harder to do and those that are fit are busy working all hours to pay the bills. Forums, like GC, can help novices by giving lots of advice - and there's the seed swap and individual swaps.

        Then we come to the group of people that want to take it further so they can also grow food to barter or sell. With the energy, time and space the growing of the food is not too difficult (although we all have our crop disasters). Finding the people to barter with or sell to can be more difficult. This requires tenacity and social skills (giving the surplus away is much easier).

        Nowadays, I'm not fit enough to grow as much as I used to and I need to be choosy about what crops I grow. From the point of view of raising funds it's necessary to grow things that have a higher shop price. Tomatoes used to be an excellent choice for this but too many people are now growing them for themselves - and there is an increasing problem of blight.

        I'm fortunate to have been able to build up a large circle of customers but have reduced the crops I sell to the ones that I can manage best. Tomatoes, runner beans, courgettes, rhubarb, apples, pears and plums are about my limit now (we do grow other things just for ourselves). People also need to know that you can supply them consistently. e.g. Most of my customers now don't bother to grow their own runner beans and they place their orders in advance. This year I sold well over 400lbs of them and they only took up a space about 6' x 25' with me also growing onions in the same area. I also cash in on the people who want to grow their own beans by selling them the plants (they order these in advance as well).

        Most of you know that we give all the money to charity but, if it was necessary, we could have it as a fairly reasonable supplement to our pensions. Someone mentioned earlier that we also propagate and sell over 1,000 plants. There are some on here that grow much more than we do. Finding, and keeping, the punters is the tough part!

        Going back to the original topic - yes, the food prices are going up but I think there is more scaremongering than truth to it. Unfortunately the scaremongering turns the falsehood into reality. Shops charge more than they need to because the media have conditioned the public to the increase. If people cooked properly and more healthily the cost of eating would not be so high!
         
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        • shiney

          shiney President, Grumpy Old Men's Club Staff Member

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          I agree with the 'not being able to make it pay' part. I have friends who retired early and bought a 15 acre smallholding in one of the Welsh National Parks. They grew a variety of crops and had quite a wide range of livestock. They found that not only was it extremely hard work but they would have been living from hand to mouth if it wasn't for their pensions.

          They now supplement their income from the smallholding by also doing other work. She helps out on some of the farms (lambing etc) and he, an expert woodworker, makes fences and gates for the farmers and services chainsaws and does some logging for the farmers.
           
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          • KevinH

            KevinH Guest

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            A mass of wonderful posts - I need to re-read them - and all highly relevant to what we do.

            Mum - As for Maggie Thatcher - I agree She (for it is 'She') made important, essential inroads for women; that is never in dispute. The wreckage She left was Colossal. Romance is optional, but you have my Enduring Respect!

            DaveW - my DW's old Uncle Derek Kinne (who is alive today) is a survivor of the Korean POW camps where he was tortured as well as starved (The Korean Army then called its detainees 'Students' so as to 'avoid' the Geneva Convention on keeping POW's) and he wrote a book about his experience. He was awarded the Victoria Cross. As such he gets an invite every year to Her Madge's Tea Party, all expenses paid. That said, He - along with my Dad - bear the scars every day. This past 2 years I have been watching the WWII channel and the horrors of War - something which our young cannot understand (and hopefully never again). Sadly the proceeds of his book amounts to nearly nothing but his book is stored physically and electronically in the British Library. I know of another similar author who gets just 2pence per book sold. That makes me sad, but I post this to make you aware of the time and costs involved in producing a book. As it happens, Morrisons sell Gravy Salt and my father's mother used to mix one level teaspoon with 2 pints of water and boil it forever on the coal fireside. This is what he had, and as a special treat he would have a slice of bread with it. On very special days his mother would use a heaped teaspoon of Gravy Salt. This was the main meal. Try it! I have said I will eat this with my Dad but (understandably) he has left it on the kitchen shelf.

            Shiney - your post is especially valuable. I'll be taking note of your comments. I also take your point about the role the newspapers play and it's a real bug-bear/bone of contention with me in that I just don't know what they get out of it. We can go into detail with this if you like because I'm absolutely clueless about this part of it.
             
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            • KevinH

              KevinH Guest

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              • OxfordNick

                OxfordNick Super Gardener

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                Ooh yes - thats the one. Nice to know I can pick up another copy if I never see mine again (lending things to people who never return them is a pet peeve of mine!)
                 
              • KevinH

                KevinH Guest

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                Not only that - but I've had a situation where someone has insisted that I take his vinyl album home to listen to and I had to take it to appease DW but did not play it. Said owner of vinyl declared that I returned it to him scratched and so he demanded a new album. He got a new one and I ended the so-called friendship, against DW wishes. Now I don't lend or borrow but I will give away.
                 
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                • "M"

                  "M" Total Gardener

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                  Synopsis:

                  ~ need to teach children how to cook properly ----> learning to eat more healthily
                  So, bring back old fashioned "Home Economics" and put Food Tech in the bin with ready meals

                  In addition ....

                  ~ as importantly .... teach children *how* to read a newspaper!
                  How to distinguish fact from opinion; how emotive language is used to pursue an argument; how a one sided argument is constructed and how to identify it. How, and where, to find facts to back up arguments.

                  In a number of ways, the "progression" of our society/culture, in just a generation or two, has resulted in a regression of personal skills once deemed fundamental.
                   
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                  • shiney

                    shiney President, Grumpy Old Men's Club Staff Member

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                    Hi Kevin,
                    Thanks for your comments :blue thumb: I don't really want to get into it but I didn't want to look as though I was ignoring you. :)

                    You will see from my post count that I have posted quite a lot on here. I come on GC mainly for the gardening and social aspect and try not to get too heavily into serious subjects - but I do stick my oar in occasionally :heehee:. I have enough of serious things in a lot of other things I do.

                    Suffice it to say, what they get out of it is the sale of newspapers. Truthfulness or valid or logical interpretation of events is not within their purview. Cynical! Moi? Never! :lunapic 130165696578242 5:
                     
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                    • KevinH

                      KevinH Guest

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                      Yes, agreed - likewise. Thank you for your kind courtesy of your reply, though!
                       
                    • shiney

                      shiney President, Grumpy Old Men's Club Staff Member

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                      Good post :dbgrtmb:

                      In addition - instill in them the thought that their first reaction should be 'I don't believe it'! This would help them to then try to develop a questioning mind.
                       
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                      • Steve R

                        Steve R Soil Furtler

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                        I cant see it posted here on this topic anywhere, so I'll add it.

                        Farmers and consumers alike could be helped if irregular shaped and sized veg was bought from the farmers and sold on to consumers. I remember the days you went to a veg shop and bought cauliflower at pence per pound as opposed to the now statutory pence per item, you got what you paid for then, proper sized caulis and large and small where sold together...now they are little tiny efforts all the same size and the farmers compost what the supermarkets do not buy...which is very wasteful indeed. So if the farmer gets a less than perfect crop he/she makes less profit.

                        The supermarket#s stance is and always has been that their customers demand uniform perfect veg...yet over the years I have never ever met anyone who admits to this.

                        C'mon supermarkets, help our farmers out!

                        Steve...:)
                         
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                        • KevinH

                          KevinH Guest

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                          SteveR - there was such a shop near to me ('Oop North) - they took in perfectly good veg in whatever shape it was and sold it. Sadly customers voted with their feet and continued to shop at the Borgs and so the shop selling 'normal' veg was forced to close. (I recall a documentary about it but cannot remember its name.)
                           
                        • "M"

                          "M" Total Gardener

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                          It wasn't consumer demand, Steve, but EU directives.

                          EU changes rules on misshapen vegetables (and that goes back to 2008!)

                          Also, Supermarkets to stock 'ugly' vegetables this Christmas (Dec 2012)

                          And, Sainsbury's has relaxed its rules on the cosmetic appearance of fresh produce after one of the worst harvests in decades (Sept, 2012)

                          Finally, Tonnes of 'ugly' produce sold as supermarkets relax rules (Dec 2012)
                           
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