sick of propping up non performing farms

No.

Pay for it directly on the food or pay it indirectly through taxes, either way I'm paying for it.

Doesn't address the point though, in any other industry a business either makes money or it fails, yet in this industry we continue to prop up loss making enterprises. Read the farm forum here and you see lots of lads declaring their intention to keep just enough stock to get the "payments". What sort of warped industry model is that?

Good for ypu now can you u go and sell that idea of paying cost of production to the other 500 million people in EU so farmers can have a fair market to sell into instead of putting your time into trying to start a keyboard warrior war.

The supermarkets are the greatest winners from farm subsidies. Follow the supply chain and see how much the price rises between the farm and the shelf in the supermarkets.

and the way things are set up now the supermarket can't lose. People are entrenched in their habits, local markets have been all but eradicated and there are EU rules to make life awkward for those wishing to bypass the supply chain. Even back in 1995 the local shopkeeper here would ask people if they wanted "gugs" because she wasn't officially allowed to sell them anymore.

Farm subsidies end up in the pockets of Mr. Dunne/Aldi & Lord Tesco so they can buy more self-checkout machines and a new superyacht for themselves

Farmers here are very good at lobbying Government, the construction Industry not so good, I'd even go further and say the Construction Industry has a poor reputation and is goes through too many cycles of boom and bust along with all the price gowging and Tax payer bailouts along with it. I'm still paying USC from the last Banking/Building bailout. It's a hard penal Tax hitting the average Joe for an extra €70/week on average.

But you do have a point that farmers are always moaning about prices and costs etc yet there has been a boom in land prices, New buildings/expansion and new Tractors and Machinery over the last few years. The amount of money some of these farms are on the hook for is staggering. Let's just hope Interest rates don't rise too much or there could be trouble ahead

again, this is one of the main conundrums, increasing prices will more than likely cause inflation, causing an increase in pay, causing.....

its a potential feedback loop, we ve shafted ourselves, with modern economics

People don’t want to “bail out farmers”

but they do want the “Aldi super 6” and “5 meats for 20 quid”.

Any decent construction contract has a clause for inflation price rises.

People keep repeating that as if we don't already know it, and also as if it addresses the actual point at hand, but it doesn't.

I'm paying for this food either way so I have no specific issue with food prices rising in line with a change to the business model. People will pay the market price for anything, whatever that might be.

You have an industry that encourages people to basically have a shell company doing just enough so that it can receive support payments, that is a broken business model. If doing something about it means higher prices at the till then so be it.

You're making the assumption that agriculture is the only sector that is subsidized. It's not.

It's losing money not loosing money good god, we need our farmers though but any help should be done correctly

I find it hard to believe that you actually want a serious discussion when you didn't even bother reading the article that sparked your outrage.

happy days, a lot of that goes straight back into the economy, so all good

Sounds like you are agreeing with me. Yes the market should be allowed to operate normally, and yes that would mean higher prices. But eventually it would also be more efficient, the lads who run a good farm and a tight ship would see the benefit as all the poor operators drop out of the market. Farmers as suppliers would gain more leverage instead of being beholden to the supermarkets.

No it probably won't happen, just as with the health service governments have created a problem too big for them to fix. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.

Great point re the money that is brought into the country. For balance alot of our inputs are however imported also.

Do you have a number or percentage for “sizeable”?

Ultimately the problem is that people want to eat too many times a week and repeatedly so. Nor have they any interest in changing that filthy habit.

We certainly can continue to rely on the Ukraine and Russia for grain, as can the rest of the world. Vlad is apolitical when it comes to resources and leverage. Maybe we need to completely hand over supply, even more than now, to Russia and China etc

Subsidisation goes on across the board with most industries in some format, be it tax breaks (multinationals), infrastructural, (including electrical supply, services, roads, ports), direct job investements (IDA), foreign diplomatic backup.

Investement in jobs that produce goods and services sold abroad return handsomely for the country. Its really not important that the primary producer (where most of these subsidies are targeted) makes profit, rather than they can keep producing.

Regardless of my farm profit, if I sell €200,000 product from my farm, typically €700,000 is brought into the country on the back of it.

Countries can only survive by selling stuff...money in..

42

In my opinion farm grant payments have ruined farming.

Go back 30 to 35 years ago and here in west of Ireland a fairly average few week old calf was going for 300 punts plus and meat was affordable in shops.

Now a similar class of animal at same age might go for 450 euro. A tiny rise in prices over 35 years yet diesel and everything else is likey at least 10 times the price now.

This is only sustainable due to grants.

Now shop meat prices have not stayed down at 1980s prices - they have gone up with cost of living so I can only assume that the meat factories, distributors and retailers are making a mint.

I don't think meat needs to be produced so cheaply in order for meat to be affordable in shops.

I think there is enough margin the system that would allow farmers be paid reasonably and the meat in the supermarket shelf still affordable.

Grant aids allows prices be pushed Into the ground.