I’m one of the people who thinks you’re a turkey who voted for Christmas, but I think you’re an intelligent and interesting person who makes good content so I’ll keep watching when the notification appears. Don’t worry too much about what we think, I don’t agree with most of my mates on politics, it’s not a necessity. Keep up the good work.
@@irisaviation852 except he isn't. They are worker-owners. They're the epitome of the workers owning their own means of production (more or less). This policy will encourage the coalition of land to fewer, wealthier people.
I sometimes think these political words like left & right, socialist & capitalist are just big hurdles to get over when talking to people. You realise most people agree on a lot of things if you zoom into specifics but if you try to summarize it into a political "alliance" or broader ideology people get upset and stop listening to the actual words you are saying. I'm sure I do the same to other people constantly if they let on that they identify with a broader idea I have already dismissed. That's why I like this channel so much! Focusing on one of the most obviously agreeable specifics: "we should probably be able to grow a good portion of our own food and have it be affordable for working people" and just going from there. The broader ideologies are useful in more abstract or academic context or if you are looking to speak to people who are already aligned with the things you want to say. If you want to convince people it's probably better to stick to concrete issues.
Within the system we have all over the West, Left and Right are largely without meaning as much of all policy decisions are based on Center-Left thinking. Having read a score of books from the turn of the 20th Century, i have become strongly convinced of the need to see some old fashioned concepts and ideas be reintroduced to rural life. Such that will improve everything from personal health, food production, sustainability, environment, revenue and autarky. That last one is a dirty word when associated with the Right.
@@Ironrider88 I agree with reintroduction of some old fashioned ideas in the sense that there was a lot more materialist discourse back then, a lot of politics almost felt like solving logistical dillemas instead of the weird nebulous virtue signalling. I think I disagree on the notion that center-lef dominates policy in the West. In my conception of left you at least have to propose a Keynsian idea of economy and government investment in infrastructure. Those things are completely absent now. Maybe that is reducing all of politics to economy but I think that's the case for most people anyway. Minority rights are important for sure but you can't build politics on giving everyone an equal slice of an ever shrinking pie.
@Jef_Laenen I can't really argue your own notion of the Left. On a full political spectrum, it is center-left as farming and ag are treated as a standard business with incomes, overheads, taxes and a product that is then sold. I don't think farms are just another business. If we go back in time, dare I say a bit reactionary, very few succesful nations considered farms this way, those that did soon after collapsed from lofty heights. Minority rights are not important, especially here in regards to ag. What is important is finding ways to aleviate the burdens farming faces, reducing taxes, giving them the land without cost, protectionism vs free trade, inhetitence and more. I won't obfuscate my position, i advocate for a more aristocratic/fedualism or aspects of 'blood and soil' sort of position. Im here to hopefully learn more from the channel and maybe find better ways
I grew in a lefty family (socialism, ecology, etc). Slowly lost faith...or the left left me. Didnt go oposite, to conservative, or even libertarian. Just become agnostic. And then came back to homesteading my small family land, inspired by Voltaire (what a romantic!). Belive that, even if the poor rural people were beneficiaries of the socialist land reforms and "cheap food" subsdize policies of post war, people conected to the land are usualy more conservative, because the land (and the activities of the land, like agriculture) still runs on natural cycles. And there s a stability in those cycles , one strronger then ideologies. Ownership of land, rural land is the closest thing to "independence", or even "freedom". Its your castle. Its also your responsability. With no private land there are no solid roots. We become flowing energy, eterium, invisible in the wind.
@jameskoss yep, land ownership more or less just grants you the right to keep renting your land from the government until they decide it's theirs. In my town in Canada, the RCAF "expropriated" a man's family farm to expand the airbase. It had been in his family for over 200 years, that's longer than Canada has existed as a country. Pretty sure King George III signed the deed originally.
@@jameskoss yes, seems like private land, absolute private, was a mere ilusion of tge 19 century...and its slowly going back. Too much "small people" ownership was too good to be true. With all the taxes and regulations (that were supose to hit the big aristocratic land ownership - minus the state and the church) we become just renters. And "climate change" its still arriving..
Let's just start with saying I really like your channel. I live in the Netherlands, and although the context is different, we've been having a similar political discussion around the limits and goals of large scale/intensive/modernised agriculture. Let's just say that the main defenders of farmer interests aren't very clear in their goals beyond the next election. So, the historical context you've given for the system as it was a few decades ago is much appreciated. That being said, I think you're wrong about environmentalism just being an aristocratic position defended by the urban middle class. Although I share your disdain for anyone who thinks they deserve slacking of in a large home, and I am by most measures urban middle class, some intensive agriculture has quite severe externalities, and certainly not all environmentalism is solely subsidizing wellfare counts. The negative externalities of intensive agriculture are real, and as with all externalities, you'd need government regulation to internalise the costs of those externalities. For example, the province I grew up in had a quite large intensive pig industry. This caused a lot of particulate matter. Only by creating and enforcing environmental standards, and sometimes downscaling/rewilding part of the land, is the government able to reach a level of particulate matter that is somewhat healthy. The point here is not that I think we should wrap every farmer in several layers of regulatory chains, the point is that there is a balance to cheap food policy (which I think is good) and the costs of that policy to society (besides the money). I do think you can be genuinely left wing, want cheap food, and sometimes want environemental policy. I was going to drone on about ownership structures not really explaining contemporary political conflict between urban and rural population, but this comment is long enough. Your channel is really appreciated, and I hope you keep making insightful videos. KR
There's a variety of ways to control for farmers harming the environment. It doesn't need to be a self-serving politician chaining everyone down with arbitrary laws. The best of them is social pressure, which takes longer.
You are right that the prosperity of British farmers in the second half of the twentieth century derives from the decisions of the 1945 Labour Government. A left wing policy, underpinning farming prosperity subsequently morphing into EU policy. However a "cheap food" policy was not historically associated with subsidies to farmers. Rather opening British markets to imported foreign food was in the 19th and early twentieth century seen as a cheap food policy. The radicals wanted the Corn Laws repealed so industrial workers could afford to eat. There is no doubt that the long depression in British Agriculture from 1870 to 1939 coincided with a time of gradually cheaper food because of foreign imports. In the early twentieth century when the Tories, representing "the landed interest" , were arguing for a return to tariffs and Empire preference. Liberals talked of the "hungry forties" referring back to the time before tariffs were removed. The Liberal Party won that particular political argument. Today we have a situation where food is a much smaller proportion of the average person's expenditure than it was in 1947 or the 19th century. Cheap food would certainly help those attending food banks but for most cheaper food would have to be weighed against the price of other goods and the level of taxation. It may well be cheaper for a reforming government to provide targeted support to the poorest in our society rather than underwriting farm production. Of course there are arguments about food security as well but you should remind yourself that "cheap food" has not always been associated with farm subsidies.
Issue with the corn laws, was they were not subsides though, and pub the burden directly on the consumer. Subsidies allow importing cheaper food, and lower price and protecting domestic production. As it derives from general taxes, subsidies are proportionally paid for more by the wealthiest. No farmer is really seeking the return of corn laws.
@tisFrancesfault The Corn Laws were an indirect subsidy that skewed the market in favour of home production but I take your point no one is suggesting a return to such blatant market rigging.
Left wing, right wing, socialist, capitalist, red, blue and green. Not sure any of these labels are clearly defined and I suspect two socialists wouldn't bitterly argue with each other about policy - or two blue people or six greens. Here's an idea - regardless of your colour or wing distribution - how about you grow food and I'll buy it off you and nobody else needs to be involved? or is that too simple.
Far too simple. Afterall, we need to make sure you have the correct political leanings, we must ensure your prices are "fair", and leverage the agricultural sector to encourage society in the right direction.
A strong domestic food production farming industry is important. We still have a class based society and the existing aristocracy enjoys most of the benefits of the subsidies. In my opinion this needs to change. The recent exposure of the way the royals suck money out of the society they look down on.
I think the government is fundamentally looking at food differently than you present it. The major health problems of today's advanced countries, including the UK, isn't malnutrition; it's obesity. The problem of affording sufficient food (leaving aside the draconian austerity policies of the former government) isn't hard to solve. I do agree that re-wilding needs to be done a lot more thoughtfully and not as a subsidy to upper-class landowner. However, it is a very good tool for mitigating the effects of climate change and other environmental concerns (e.g.:flood control, carbon sequestration, maintaining biodiversity, etc.). If the government wants to take these on then it should take the land needed and not make it an income steam for the landed grandees. I'm personally optimistic that organic (or at least less carbon intensive) farming methods will develop over the years, such that we will be able to produce sufficiently for the whole population sustainably.
So much fashionable policy has the outcome of higher food and energy prices *and* higher taxes on the productive people, you’d have to wonder what the goals really are.
Basically Labour have gone from being the Party of "working people" to the Party of the public sector, NGOs, and universities, particularly the managers of those organisations. This is true of many centre-left wing parties in the West, as seen in the farm/trucker protests in Canada and Europe. Interesting idea: you defect to Reform and become their Farming Spokesman haha. Although I get the feeling you might not like some of their trade policies!
Henry Tufnell labour MP on the EFRA select committee family owns a huge estate in the Cotswolds. more subsidies for the shareholders of global corps and aristocrats! SMH the worlds gone mad!
The urbanite middle-class have realized that the bureaucracy doesn't work in their favor and are sick of their own lifestyle. Any change is welcome at this point, so hankering for a more relatable past is appealing. They're not "confused". Also, the bureaucrats have won. You're not a peasant anymore. The few remaining aristocrats, if that's even really a thing anymore, aren't calling the shots.
The right thing to do is tax fertiliser but subsidise farming to make up for it. That way everyone has an incentive to use less fertiliser if possible or use fertiliser made with green hydrogen.
I recall reading in 'The Economist' how the initial impetus for governmentally improved public health and nutrition arose as a result of the sorry state of English youth enlisted into the military for WWI. Military officials were so disturbed by the lack of size and condition of their recruits that improving their feed and care was seen as essential to the nations safety. Hardly seems 'left', does it?
A huge element was post war concerns of a Communist uprising ( a very really concern at the time ) so active measures were instituted to nominally improve conditions. These post ww1 measures were rather lack lustre. Its really during WW2 that were see any worth while policy.
Well put together. What is incredible is that every year the left wing descends on Tolpuddle in rural Dorset to commemorate the first union, the NFU, and the Tolpuddle martyrs.
I'm the same, I don't look at manifestos, I just vote for the party that did something good 85 years ago, they must be due to do something good again by now.😂
"no farmers no food" has the same logic as when the unions in Delaware decided pumping petrol was something a worker had to do. Like, yeah, sure, but we need to look at a bigger picture because we have bigger picture issues facing us today And you know, maybe there's a long game to it, that if we support workers first and foremost, we'll eventually get to a stage where the collective decision is made to look at the bigger picture. In my mind it's a bit far off though, and I don't trust any bigger entity than a local commons or cooperative to make decisions other than to exploit me, bit by bit more and more
Your videos are great, and I’m absolutely on board with your critique of re-wilding / organic farming, but I’m not convinced by your criticisms of the budget. Every interest group in the Uk are currently making the same points you made in your last video for farming - we’re uniquely important, we’ve already been at breaking point for years, so you mustn’t tax us, but you also can’t cut any of our subsidies or benefits. Healthcare, big-business, SMEs, the creative industries, finance, the old, the young, the comfortably off who’ve worked hard for what they have, the desperate who’ve faced the kind of cruelty and injustice you can’t even imagine. You can make the same impassioned plea for every one of those lobby groups, and the only people who can tell them all ‘jam for everyone!’ are parties like Reform and The Greens who know they’ll never have to write an actual budget. Of course you don’t have an issue with Reform’s agricultural plan - because it’s a fantasy. The UK is struggling and there’s now an urgent need for investment in its future. The only way to do this is to get those with a bit more to contribute rather than continually increasing the gulf between the people who have, say, £1m worth of assets, and the majority who have nothing but inflation, wage cuts and debt. You’re right - we don’t want it to go the other way. Upper middle class farmers selling land to aristocrats that they can then use for unproductive rent-seeking or as tax-dodging vehicles is terrible for the economy. So please make a video about how that can be avoided e.g. through sky-high land-taxes on estates over X hectares / IHT relief only applies farms that have been worked within the family for 35+ years (similar to NI contribution for state pension). At the moment these videos just feel like the same points every lobbyist is making for their own particular interest group, and that doesn’t get us anywhere as someone has to pay. If you know a way to target things better, to actually get the rich to pay, or if you want to name another group who aren’t important, struggling or deserving of help, then I’m sure Rachel Reeves will be all ears, and I’m sure she’ll happily drop the tax on fertiliser to say thanks.
The difference I see between agriculture and other industry lobbyists is that we all need to eat food. The danger is less that farmers will suffer as a result of this, but that there will inevitably be less food, leading to higher prices and a worsening cost of living crisis. I have suggested to the party having designated 'agricultural' land to reduce land values and prevent exploitation for investment. The fertiliser tax is dangerous for the same reasons - if food prices go up (as they likely will) this might not even affect farmers that much, but it will hurt the silent majority - people who eat food, whose lives will become more expensive
Oli for elected office! I thought you might mention that your inheritance has vanished with the budget. The government are borrowing billions for the ballooning NHS expenditure and doctors don't know what to do about teletubby kids and just fear they will explode with diabetes before tthey enter the workplace. I am only exaggerating slightly. The country had its best diet during post WW2 rationing. The farmer has to declare war on the processed foods that have led to the obesity epidemic and a decline in British productivity. In the soon-to-be Trump regime they have RFK junior on the team making this point. Pharma comes into it too. We need Oli with a platform to redefine farming with it being about healthy food and joined up to the NHS agenda.
He may look like a turkey voting for xmas, but the problem was deciding which was the best of a bad lot. Labour had some track record, not sure Conservatives had anything to offer. Dammed if you do, dammed if you dont.
Have you thought about entering government? In the end it might be the only way to make a big enough difference in these things you're talking about. People trust you when you have skin in the game. As opposed to "vested interests". I don't know the difference exactly but hope you know what I mean.
God no, we don’t need anymore socialist in government. We have the communist party in power now and we’ve just kicked out a socialist government. What we need is more Reform politicians
When it comes to right wing vs left wing, one of the key differences is property rights. Right wingers believe in property rights and left believe in 'redistribution' via the state. Right wingers therefore come under two categories: the inheritance lot that want property rights to pass on, and the free marketers that want minimal state for economic opportunity. The left basically want no economic freedom or inheritance but redistribution with no effort on their part. You see this with socialism, crony financialisation, feminism, welfare, benefits. The left only destroys, the right creates and preserves.
I understand, the reality is cant pigeon hole all farmers if opposition wants to deal environmental standards then economic development is needed for farm be sustainable farming practices. if look school set up of education it has failed future farmers in environmental policies, history, government interference/control, these should be debate to which government is in power. Not one politician representing some of the farmers. All my farm working life, i seen failed ideal from politicians with agendas but no one hold responsible for situation except the farmer who had pay for the mess n try untangle himself out of brainwash ideas. Heck OHS in farming isn't taken seriously by both sides I try warn farmers that if did nothing some politician will spotlight themselves on this subject to claim power, now government is in overreached position but these farmers are past that education. Private sector like insurance companies are charging over top, private inspectors cant keep up plus, inspections have gone up in cost like my gear jump 300% in last few years. Quad bikes are nearly non existence, lady sue manufacturers for non farming incidence with quad bike, over night manufacturers stop sales.
End bio-fuels and we'd be awash in food. There is no risk of food shortages. Global hunger is caused by poverty. Ag can be more sustainable and feed the world.
It would take a big increase in food prices and a more agrarian society with far more farmers and far less specialists. I am not against this type of society in theory, but in reality for England to do this it would take a massive decrease in our standing in international power conflicts, and can not be achieved willingly and therefore would rely on tyrannical governmental force, a bit like Pol Pot’s regime… not good
Oli: Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are a bona fide intellectual and therefore quite susceptible to letting ideas get in the way of seeing things as they are. I do it too. The inversion you speak of has been “clawed at” since before you were born and isn’t going anywhere, notwithstanding the fact that is “upside down” relative to the past. It has been several decades since the power brokers of the three biggest parties there cared much about British working people’s well being or food supply. People who are vulgar and ill-educated are seen as holding back the white collar, managerial Britain they wish to have (whether experimental and Lefty or strait laced and Righty). And particularly with regard to food, the assumption has been that the Yanks can be the farmers and just send the stuff to the UK, which can enjoy it in a re-wilded, quaint, green and pleasant land free of fertilizer runoff. And where the working class stays in culturally “enriched,” decaying areas and doesn’t bother their betters. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Yes it is sad, but I think you must face up to it. The only way to change it may be to give Nigel a call and get a new job as an MP. Sorry.
I’m sorry but you have totally missed the point on all of this “left right” thing. The fascist and if you want the Nazis are left wing, always have been. Unfortunately just after the war it needed to be category of history teachers and how they taught history. We couldn’t really say that we fought against the left wing because the USSR was on our side. So a couple of historians back in the late 40s early 50s managed to turn this around and said Facists and Narzis were “right wing” thank to a chap I can’t remember his name. But if anyone would like to see there is a guy on here who is a historian called TIKhistory. He goes into it in greater detail than I can here. But what I can tell you is as a kid I spent many years living in Germany and my dad was a soldier. The old man who did all the odd jobs around camp were ex Wehrmacht and SS. We lived in a camp that was an SS barracks and some of the old men were there during the last little disagreement. I spent many hours talking to them as I had a fascination for WW2. And speaking to these old men I learnt a lot about the NSGWP which is and always have been on the left of the political spectrum. As far the “aristocracy” they also back in the 20s,30, and 40s were left wing or had left wing tendencies as long as they where left alone (see Mosley a Baronet and the Mitford sisters who’s farther was a Baron). And to be honest nothing has changed as they all have leftwing tendencies just look at the present king. And to say farmers are socialist is disingenuous to them, all they want is to produce good quality food at a price they can live off.
9:42 And that is unsustainable. By not acting now you are going to cause even more suffering in the future. Or do you think human population can keep growing and you can keep feeding it with quality food?
@char377 Well for starters countries should deport foreigners and thus reducing burden on farmers of that country. Next would be to make farming more efficient while not damaging the land. All Europan countries can feed themselves or as a whole through trade. Should limit imports from the rest of world because self sustainability is crucial. Countries that can't feed themsleves will transition, with casualties of course.
Reform isn't actually right wing tho is it. Not in the sense you use the word anyway, Its the same old 'smear' thats being falsely used against farmers. Its not a party of the aristocratic classes its a party of the people that draws support from all sections of society and is saying all the right things...
If you burrow down into the deeper levels of socialist versus capitalist (i.e. right-wing versus left-wing) ideology, you find phantasms that shouldn't be there. Do we need socialism? Of course we do. We can't have privately owned nuclear weapons for instance. We don't want roads to be privately owned also. But do we need private enterprise? Yet again, we have family farms producing food for people, so I'm sure we'd be inclined to agree that private enterprise can be, and is, a good thing. The problems with rural politics are no different to the general problems of politics. Opportunists such as Nigel Farage recognise that there's potential in the rural vote and will align his politics to the interests of country people. Then again, his party advocates shooting migrants dead on UK beaches. We can't allow ourselves to fall into that sort of sub-democratic hellhole. I think the UK rural community made an incredibly shortsighted decision in voting for Brexit. The smarter people among us ought to have realised that there would be a Labour government at some point, and that they'd end the special conditions on inheritance tax that we've enjoyed for so long. As for aristocrats, they're becoming increasingly irrelevant in the countryside: the overwhelming majority of farmers are middle class in the Marxist sense of the term (i.e. owners of a means of production). And they do not enjoy hereditary titles and are not in line to inherit vast estates. That said, I think a confluence of the 'right wing' and 'left wing' position is possible (after all, the essence of politics is the art of compromise) We need to preserve the private ownership of property and ensure that the owners of said property are taxed fairly while also bolstering the power of trade unions and ensuring that workers are paid a fair living wage. I suspect that the Labour government are trying to do that at the moment. I suspect also that, given how rich many farmers are, that the new budget isn't going to affect them/us disproportionately. The tax will undoubtedly sting, but then that's the price we pay for having been in thrall to a conservative government for so long. I'll stop this here. I can't respond to this video without a wall of text. Excuse me.
Amen. I was surprised with how tribal this channel got the second farmers were asked to contribute a little more. No doubt there’s still work to be done to improve the incentives the tax-code produces. But I’m not convinced the changes to IHT / fertiliser taxes are the existential threat Olí presents them as, or that they’re at all unreasonable given what the rest of the country is having to face - not least because of Brexit.
Maybe looking overseas. Perhaps to India where nature, and small unite village farming still influences national policy. Looking beyond systems across the world may show areas of better integration There is the water harvesting awards in dryland India as an example of localism solving national watershed problems.
Thats actually not the case at all. Yields per hectare are greater than literally most of the world. You would need 4 times the land in say Brazil or Argentina, and twice as much in the US to equal the one hectare of UK production. The issue is that So much wheat is produced, it pushes the value below cost of production.
@ British yields are average and the climate reduces crop production to a narrow period, as well as having a very small area that’s arable. The limiting factor in Britain is the appalling weather which makes double cropping virtually impossible, and therefore the yields per hectare low in comparison with countries which have a climate to produce two crops from an area a year. Additionally the necessity to feed British livestock on stored feed during Winter reduces yields, because again, the climate when it’s cold reduces production to virtually nothing.
@@seanlander9321 ...No? its worked out by land area of grown crop divided by annual production of said crop. This would include double cropping, and excludes land not used to grow said crop. The UKs around 7.8t per hectare this year, though the 5ya is around 8tph. This iirc puts it 3rd or 4th in the world. Tbf Im off, Argentina produces 2.9 MT/hectare this year (last it was 2.3). Also the end use of a crop is not relevant to the yield.
@ The annual crop or crops per hectare determine the yield. In the case of Britain it’s a one crop yield and yes 8t/ha, but compare that to the major grain areas of Australia for instance, producing two 5t/ha crops annually. Additionally, stubble in ground is better stock feed than harvested stubble as feed, and we are talking about per hectare production of farms. Britain’s climate isn’t great for producing the better grades of grain either and the climate is why its fungicide use is the world’s highest.
I’m one of the people who thinks you’re a turkey who voted for Christmas, but I think you’re an intelligent and interesting person who makes good content so I’ll keep watching when the notification appears. Don’t worry too much about what we think, I don’t agree with most of my mates on politics, it’s not a necessity. Keep up the good work.
Best comment. I like this guy but he needs to understand that he is now the ‘landed gentry’ of old.
@@irisaviation852 except he isn't. They are worker-owners. They're the epitome of the workers owning their own means of production (more or less).
This policy will encourage the coalition of land to fewer, wealthier people.
I sometimes think these political words like left & right, socialist & capitalist are just big hurdles to get over when talking to people. You realise most people agree on a lot of things if you zoom into specifics but if you try to summarize it into a political "alliance" or broader ideology people get upset and stop listening to the actual words you are saying. I'm sure I do the same to other people constantly if they let on that they identify with a broader idea I have already dismissed.
That's why I like this channel so much! Focusing on one of the most obviously agreeable specifics: "we should probably be able to grow a good portion of our own food and have it be affordable for working people" and just going from there. The broader ideologies are useful in more abstract or academic context or if you are looking to speak to people who are already aligned with the things you want to say. If you want to convince people it's probably better to stick to concrete issues.
Within the system we have all over the West, Left and Right are largely without meaning as much of all policy decisions are based on Center-Left thinking.
Having read a score of books from the turn of the 20th Century, i have become strongly convinced of the need to see some old fashioned concepts and ideas be reintroduced to rural life.
Such that will improve everything from personal health, food production, sustainability, environment, revenue and autarky.
That last one is a dirty word when associated with the Right.
@@Ironrider88 I agree with reintroduction of some old fashioned ideas in the sense that there was a lot more materialist discourse back then, a lot of politics almost felt like solving logistical dillemas instead of the weird nebulous virtue signalling. I think I disagree on the notion that center-lef dominates policy in the West. In my conception of left you at least have to propose a Keynsian idea of economy and government investment in infrastructure. Those things are completely absent now. Maybe that is reducing all of politics to economy but I think that's the case for most people anyway. Minority rights are important for sure but you can't build politics on giving everyone an equal slice of an ever shrinking pie.
@Jef_Laenen
I can't really argue your own notion of the Left. On a full political spectrum, it is center-left as farming and ag are treated as a standard business with incomes, overheads, taxes and a product that is then sold. I don't think farms are just another business.
If we go back in time, dare I say a bit reactionary, very few succesful nations considered farms this way, those that did soon after collapsed from lofty heights.
Minority rights are not important, especially here in regards to ag. What is important is finding ways to aleviate the burdens farming faces, reducing taxes, giving them the land without cost, protectionism vs free trade, inhetitence and more.
I won't obfuscate my position, i advocate for a more aristocratic/fedualism or aspects of 'blood and soil' sort of position. Im here to hopefully learn more from the channel and maybe find better ways
I grew in a lefty family (socialism, ecology, etc). Slowly lost faith...or the left left me. Didnt go oposite, to conservative, or even libertarian. Just become agnostic. And then came back to homesteading my small family land, inspired by Voltaire (what a romantic!).
Belive that, even if the poor rural people were beneficiaries of the socialist land reforms and "cheap food" subsdize policies of post war, people conected to the land are usualy more conservative, because the land (and the activities of the land, like agriculture) still runs on natural cycles. And there s a stability in those cycles , one strronger then ideologies. Ownership of land, rural land is the closest thing to "independence", or even "freedom". Its your castle. Its also your responsability. With no private land there are no solid roots. We become flowing energy, eterium, invisible in the wind.
Agreed. And ironically, it's not your castle, as the state will label you an enemy of the people, and take it from you.
@jameskoss yep, land ownership more or less just grants you the right to keep renting your land from the government until they decide it's theirs.
In my town in Canada, the RCAF "expropriated" a man's family farm to expand the airbase. It had been in his family for over 200 years, that's longer than Canada has existed as a country.
Pretty sure King George III signed the deed originally.
@@jameskoss yes, seems like private land, absolute private, was a mere ilusion of tge 19 century...and its slowly going back. Too much "small people" ownership was too good to be true. With all the taxes and regulations (that were supose to hit the big aristocratic land ownership - minus the state and the church) we become just renters. And "climate change" its still arriving..
Let's just start with saying I really like your channel. I live in the Netherlands, and although the context is different, we've been having a similar political discussion around the limits and goals of large scale/intensive/modernised agriculture. Let's just say that the main defenders of farmer interests aren't very clear in their goals beyond the next election. So, the historical context you've given for the system as it was a few decades ago is much appreciated.
That being said, I think you're wrong about environmentalism just being an aristocratic position defended by the urban middle class. Although I share your disdain for anyone who thinks they deserve slacking of in a large home, and I am by most measures urban middle class, some intensive agriculture has quite severe externalities, and certainly not all environmentalism is solely subsidizing wellfare counts.
The negative externalities of intensive agriculture are real, and as with all externalities, you'd need government regulation to internalise the costs of those externalities. For example, the province I grew up in had a quite large intensive pig industry. This caused a lot of particulate matter. Only by creating and enforcing environmental standards, and sometimes downscaling/rewilding part of the land, is the government able to reach a level of particulate matter that is somewhat healthy. The point here is not that I think we should wrap every farmer in several layers of regulatory chains, the point is that there is a balance to cheap food policy (which I think is good) and the costs of that policy to society (besides the money). I do think you can be genuinely left wing, want cheap food, and sometimes want environemental policy.
I was going to drone on about ownership structures not really explaining contemporary political conflict between urban and rural population, but this comment is long enough.
Your channel is really appreciated, and I hope you keep making insightful videos. KR
There's a variety of ways to control for farmers harming the environment. It doesn't need to be a self-serving politician chaining everyone down with arbitrary laws.
The best of them is social pressure, which takes longer.
We only needed to see how Welsh labour have treated farmers for the last 25 years in the Sennedd to see what U.K. labour would do to us.
You are right that the prosperity of British farmers in the second half of the twentieth century derives from the decisions of the 1945 Labour Government. A left wing policy, underpinning farming prosperity subsequently morphing into EU policy.
However a "cheap food" policy was not historically associated with subsidies to farmers. Rather opening British markets to imported foreign food was in the 19th and early twentieth century seen as a cheap food policy. The radicals wanted the Corn Laws repealed so industrial workers could afford to eat. There is no doubt that the long depression in British Agriculture from 1870 to 1939 coincided with a time of gradually cheaper food because of foreign imports. In the early twentieth century when the Tories, representing "the landed interest" , were arguing for a return to tariffs and Empire preference. Liberals talked of the "hungry forties" referring back to the time before tariffs were removed. The Liberal Party won that particular political argument.
Today we have a situation where food is a much smaller proportion of the average person's expenditure than it was in 1947 or the 19th century. Cheap food would certainly help those attending food banks but for most cheaper food would have to be weighed against the price of other goods and the level of taxation. It may well be cheaper for a reforming government to provide targeted support to the poorest in our society rather than underwriting farm production.
Of course there are arguments about food security as well but you should remind yourself that "cheap food" has not always been associated with farm subsidies.
Issue with the corn laws, was they were not subsides though, and pub the burden directly on the consumer. Subsidies allow importing cheaper food, and lower price and protecting domestic production. As it derives from general taxes, subsidies are proportionally paid for more by the wealthiest. No farmer is really seeking the return of corn laws.
@tisFrancesfault
The Corn Laws were an indirect subsidy that skewed the market in favour of home production but I take your point no one is suggesting a return to such blatant market rigging.
Left wing, right wing, socialist, capitalist, red, blue and green. Not sure any of these labels are clearly defined and I suspect two socialists wouldn't bitterly argue with each other about policy - or two blue people or six greens.
Here's an idea - regardless of your colour or wing distribution - how about you grow food and I'll buy it off you and nobody else needs to be involved? or is that too simple.
Far too simple. Afterall, we need to make sure you have the correct political leanings, we must ensure your prices are "fair", and leverage the agricultural sector to encourage society in the right direction.
@@jgomo3877 Good point - forgot about that!
A strong domestic food production farming industry is important. We still have a class based society and the existing aristocracy enjoys most of the benefits of the subsidies. In my opinion this needs to change. The recent exposure of the way the royals suck money out of the society they look down on.
I think the government is fundamentally looking at food differently than you present it. The major health problems of today's advanced countries, including the UK, isn't malnutrition; it's obesity. The problem of affording sufficient food (leaving aside the draconian austerity policies of the former government) isn't hard to solve.
I do agree that re-wilding needs to be done a lot more thoughtfully and not as a subsidy to upper-class landowner. However, it is a very good tool for mitigating the effects of climate change and other environmental concerns (e.g.:flood control, carbon sequestration, maintaining biodiversity, etc.). If the government wants to take these on then it should take the land needed and not make it an income steam for the landed grandees.
I'm personally optimistic that organic (or at least less carbon intensive) farming methods will develop over the years, such that we will be able to produce sufficiently for the whole population sustainably.
So much fashionable policy has the outcome of higher food and energy prices *and* higher taxes on the productive people, you’d have to wonder what the goals really are.
Basically Labour have gone from being the Party of "working people" to the Party of the public sector, NGOs, and universities, particularly the managers of those organisations. This is true of many centre-left wing parties in the West, as seen in the farm/trucker protests in Canada and Europe. Interesting idea: you defect to Reform and become their Farming Spokesman haha. Although I get the feeling you might not like some of their trade policies!
Henry Tufnell labour MP on the EFRA select committee family owns a huge estate in the Cotswolds. more subsidies for the shareholders of global corps and aristocrats! SMH the worlds gone mad!
The urbanite middle-class have realized that the bureaucracy doesn't work in their favor and are sick of their own lifestyle. Any change is welcome at this point, so hankering for a more relatable past is appealing. They're not "confused".
Also, the bureaucrats have won. You're not a peasant anymore. The few remaining aristocrats, if that's even really a thing anymore, aren't calling the shots.
The right thing to do is tax fertiliser but subsidise farming to make up for it. That way everyone has an incentive to use less fertiliser if possible or use fertiliser made with green hydrogen.
I recall reading in 'The Economist' how the initial impetus for governmentally improved public health and nutrition arose as a result of the sorry state of English youth enlisted into the military for WWI. Military officials were so disturbed by the lack of size and condition of their recruits that improving their feed and care was seen as essential to the nations safety.
Hardly seems 'left', does it?
A huge element was post war concerns of a Communist uprising ( a very really concern at the time ) so active measures were instituted to nominally improve conditions. These post ww1 measures were rather lack lustre. Its really during WW2 that were see any worth while policy.
Thank you
Well put together. What is incredible is that every year the left wing descends on Tolpuddle in rural Dorset to commemorate the first union, the NFU, and the Tolpuddle martyrs.
I'm the same, I don't look at manifestos, I just vote for the party that did something good 85 years ago, they must be due to do something good again by now.😂
"no farmers no food" has the same logic as when the unions in Delaware decided pumping petrol was something a worker had to do. Like, yeah, sure, but we need to look at a bigger picture because we have bigger picture issues facing us today
And you know, maybe there's a long game to it, that if we support workers first and foremost, we'll eventually get to a stage where the collective decision is made to look at the bigger picture. In my mind it's a bit far off though, and I don't trust any bigger entity than a local commons or cooperative to make decisions other than to exploit me, bit by bit more and more
Your videos are great, and I’m absolutely on board with your critique of re-wilding / organic farming, but I’m not convinced by your criticisms of the budget. Every interest group in the Uk are currently making the same points you made in your last video for farming - we’re uniquely important, we’ve already been at breaking point for years, so you mustn’t tax us, but you also can’t cut any of our subsidies or benefits. Healthcare, big-business, SMEs, the creative industries, finance, the old, the young, the comfortably off who’ve worked hard for what they have, the desperate who’ve faced the kind of cruelty and injustice you can’t even imagine. You can make the same impassioned plea for every one of those lobby groups, and the only people who can tell them all ‘jam for everyone!’ are parties like Reform and The Greens who know they’ll never have to write an actual budget. Of course you don’t have an issue with Reform’s agricultural plan - because it’s a fantasy.
The UK is struggling and there’s now an urgent need for investment in its future. The only way to do this is to get those with a bit more to contribute rather than continually increasing the gulf between the people who have, say, £1m worth of assets, and the majority who have nothing but inflation, wage cuts and debt.
You’re right - we don’t want it to go the other way. Upper middle class farmers selling land to aristocrats that they can then use for unproductive rent-seeking or as tax-dodging vehicles is terrible for the economy. So please make a video about how that can be avoided e.g. through sky-high land-taxes on estates over X hectares / IHT relief only applies farms that have been worked within the family for 35+ years (similar to NI contribution for state pension). At the moment these videos just feel like the same points every lobbyist is making for their own particular interest group, and that doesn’t get us anywhere as someone has to pay. If you know a way to target things better, to actually get the rich to pay, or if you want to name another group who aren’t important, struggling or deserving of help, then I’m sure Rachel Reeves will be all ears, and I’m sure she’ll happily drop the tax on fertiliser to say thanks.
The difference I see between agriculture and other industry lobbyists is that we all need to eat food. The danger is less that farmers will suffer as a result of this, but that there will inevitably be less food, leading to higher prices and a worsening cost of living crisis. I have suggested to the party having designated 'agricultural' land to reduce land values and prevent exploitation for investment. The fertiliser tax is dangerous for the same reasons - if food prices go up (as they likely will) this might not even affect farmers that much, but it will hurt the silent majority - people who eat food, whose lives will become more expensive
Oli for elected office!
I thought you might mention that your inheritance has vanished with the budget.
The government are borrowing billions for the ballooning NHS expenditure and doctors don't know what to do about teletubby kids and just fear they will explode with diabetes before tthey enter the workplace. I am only exaggerating slightly. The country had its best diet during post WW2 rationing.
The farmer has to declare war on the processed foods that have led to the obesity epidemic and a decline in British productivity. In the soon-to-be Trump regime they have RFK junior on the team making this point. Pharma comes into it too. We need Oli with a platform to redefine farming with it being about healthy food and joined up to the NHS agenda.
i love soil , i hate soil. i need better soil!
its a shame what the new policy is.
I voted Green. Not gonna get anything left wing out of these Red Tories.
All the best to you
He may look like a turkey voting for xmas, but the problem was deciding which was the best of a bad lot. Labour had some track record, not sure Conservatives had anything to offer. Dammed if you do, dammed if you dont.
Can I interest you in this small red pill? No bother if not
Give it a while and he'll discover he is FAR RIGHT
Just look at him
He is WHITE and MALE
Have you thought about entering government? In the end it might be the only way to make a big enough difference in these things you're talking about. People trust you when you have skin in the game. As opposed to "vested interests". I don't know the difference exactly but hope you know what I mean.
God no, we don’t need anymore socialist in government.
We have the communist party in power now and we’ve just kicked out a socialist government.
What we need is more Reform politicians
You need to get it all into a few sound bites for those of us who don’t watch and enjoy your channel 😊
When it comes to right wing vs left wing, one of the key differences is property rights. Right wingers believe in property rights and left believe in 'redistribution' via the state. Right wingers therefore come under two categories: the inheritance lot that want property rights to pass on, and the free marketers that want minimal state for economic opportunity. The left basically want no economic freedom or inheritance but redistribution with no effort on their part. You see this with socialism, crony financialisation, feminism, welfare, benefits. The left only destroys, the right creates and preserves.
Russia is Noah Arc
I understand, the reality is cant pigeon hole all farmers if opposition wants to deal environmental standards then economic development is needed for farm be sustainable farming practices. if look school set up of education it has failed future farmers in environmental policies, history, government interference/control, these should be debate to which government is in power. Not one politician representing some of the farmers. All my farm working life, i seen failed ideal from politicians with agendas but no one hold responsible for situation except the farmer who had pay for the mess n try untangle himself out of brainwash ideas.
Heck OHS in farming isn't taken seriously by both sides I try warn farmers that if did nothing some politician will spotlight themselves on this subject to claim power, now government is in overreached position but these farmers are past that education. Private sector like insurance companies are charging over top, private inspectors cant keep up plus, inspections have gone up in cost like my gear jump 300% in last few years. Quad bikes are nearly non existence, lady sue manufacturers for non farming incidence with quad bike, over night manufacturers stop sales.
End bio-fuels and we'd be awash in food. There is no risk of food shortages. Global hunger is caused by poverty. Ag can be more sustainable and feed the world.
It would take a big increase in food prices and a more agrarian society with far more farmers and far less specialists. I am not against this type of society in theory, but in reality for England to do this it would take a massive decrease in our standing in international power conflicts, and can not be achieved willingly and therefore would rely on tyrannical governmental force, a bit like Pol Pot’s regime… not good
"Working class" regressive petit bourgeois millionaires... Brilliant
Oli: Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are a bona fide intellectual and therefore quite susceptible to letting ideas get in the way of seeing things as they are. I do it too. The inversion you speak of has been “clawed at” since before you were born and isn’t going anywhere, notwithstanding the fact that is “upside down” relative to the past. It has been several decades since the power brokers of the three biggest parties there cared much about British working people’s well being or food supply. People who are vulgar and ill-educated are seen as holding back the white collar, managerial Britain they wish to have (whether experimental and Lefty or strait laced and Righty). And particularly with regard to food, the assumption has been that the Yanks can be the farmers and just send the stuff to the UK, which can enjoy it in a re-wilded, quaint, green and pleasant land free of fertilizer runoff. And where the working class stays in culturally “enriched,” decaying areas and doesn’t bother their betters. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Yes it is sad, but I think you must face up to it. The only way to change it may be to give Nigel a call and get a new job as an MP. Sorry.
I’m sorry but you have totally missed the point on all of this “left right” thing.
The fascist and if you want the Nazis are left wing, always have been.
Unfortunately just after the war it needed to be category of history teachers and how they taught history.
We couldn’t really say that we fought against the left wing because the USSR was on our side.
So a couple of historians back in the late 40s early 50s managed to turn this around and said Facists and Narzis were “right wing” thank to a chap I can’t remember his name.
But if anyone would like to see there is a guy on here who is a historian called TIKhistory.
He goes into it in greater detail than I can here.
But what I can tell you is as a kid I spent many years living in Germany and my dad was a soldier.
The old man who did all the odd jobs around camp were ex Wehrmacht and SS.
We lived in a camp that was an SS barracks and some of the old men were there during the last little disagreement.
I spent many hours talking to them as I had a fascination for WW2.
And speaking to these old men I learnt a lot about the NSGWP which is and always have been on the left of the political spectrum.
As far the “aristocracy” they also back in the 20s,30, and 40s were left wing or had left wing tendencies as long as they where left alone (see Mosley a Baronet and the Mitford sisters who’s farther was a Baron).
And to be honest nothing has changed as they all have leftwing tendencies just look at the present king.
And to say farmers are socialist is disingenuous to them, all they want is to produce good quality food at a price they can live off.
9:42 And that is unsustainable.
By not acting now you are going to cause even more suffering in the future.
Or do you think human population can keep growing and you can keep feeding it with quality food?
What is the crux of what you are suggesting? De-population? What would that look like?
@char377 Well for starters countries should deport foreigners and thus reducing burden on farmers of that country.
Next would be to make farming more efficient while not damaging the land.
All Europan countries can feed themselves or as a whole through trade.
Should limit imports from the rest of world because self sustainability is crucial.
Countries that can't feed themsleves will transition, with casualties of course.
Reform isn't actually right wing tho is it. Not in the sense you use the word anyway, Its the same old 'smear' thats being falsely used against farmers. Its not a party of the aristocratic classes its a party of the people that draws support from all sections of society and is saying all the right things...
You're lying.
You're absolutely correct. Bigots will disagree
@@afgor1088 I don't think that they think that they are. You may have to try harder
@@malkomalkavian don't care 🤷♂
If you burrow down into the deeper levels of socialist versus capitalist (i.e. right-wing versus left-wing) ideology, you find phantasms that shouldn't be there. Do we need socialism? Of course we do. We can't have privately owned nuclear weapons for instance. We don't want roads to be privately owned also. But do we need private enterprise? Yet again, we have family farms producing food for people, so I'm sure we'd be inclined to agree that private enterprise can be, and is, a good thing. The problems with rural politics are no different to the general problems of politics. Opportunists such as Nigel Farage recognise that there's potential in the rural vote and will align his politics to the interests of country people. Then again, his party advocates shooting migrants dead on UK beaches. We can't allow ourselves to fall into that sort of sub-democratic hellhole. I think the UK rural community made an incredibly shortsighted decision in voting for Brexit. The smarter people among us ought to have realised that there would be a Labour government at some point, and that they'd end the special conditions on inheritance tax that we've enjoyed for so long. As for aristocrats, they're becoming increasingly irrelevant in the countryside: the overwhelming majority of farmers are middle class in the Marxist sense of the term (i.e. owners of a means of production). And they do not enjoy hereditary titles and are not in line to inherit vast estates. That said, I think a confluence of the 'right wing' and 'left wing' position is possible (after all, the essence of politics is the art of compromise) We need to preserve the private ownership of property and ensure that the owners of said property are taxed fairly while also bolstering the power of trade unions and ensuring that workers are paid a fair living wage. I suspect that the Labour government are trying to do that at the moment. I suspect also that, given how rich many farmers are, that the new budget isn't going to affect them/us disproportionately. The tax will undoubtedly sting, but then that's the price we pay for having been in thrall to a conservative government for so long. I'll stop this here. I can't respond to this video without a wall of text. Excuse me.
Amen. I was surprised with how tribal this channel got the second farmers were asked to contribute a little more. No doubt there’s still work to be done to improve the incentives the tax-code produces. But I’m not convinced the changes to IHT / fertiliser taxes are the existential threat Olí presents them as, or that they’re at all unreasonable given what the rest of the country is having to face - not least because of Brexit.
Shooting dead migrants on beaches- you lost me there. Where the hell did you hear that?
@@tomtom21194 Channel 4 news.
Maybe looking overseas. Perhaps to India where nature, and small unite village farming still influences national policy. Looking beyond systems across the world may show areas of better integration There is the water harvesting awards in dryland India as an example of localism solving national watershed problems.
Imported food is cheaper because British farmers are inefficient and subsidised. Larger unsubsidised farms equals cheaper food.
Thats actually not the case at all. Yields per hectare are greater than literally most of the world. You would need 4 times the land in say Brazil or Argentina, and twice as much in the US to equal the one hectare of UK production. The issue is that So much wheat is produced, it pushes the value below cost of production.
@ British yields are average and the climate reduces crop production to a narrow period, as well as having a very small area that’s arable. The limiting factor in Britain is the appalling weather which makes double cropping virtually impossible, and therefore the yields per hectare low in comparison with countries which have a climate to produce two crops from an area a year.
Additionally the necessity to feed British livestock on stored feed during Winter reduces yields, because again, the climate when it’s cold reduces production to virtually nothing.
@@seanlander9321 ...No? its worked out by land area of grown crop divided by annual production of said crop. This would include double cropping, and excludes land not used to grow said crop.
The UKs around 7.8t per hectare this year, though the 5ya is around 8tph. This iirc puts it 3rd or 4th in the world.
Tbf Im off, Argentina produces 2.9 MT/hectare this year (last it was 2.3).
Also the end use of a crop is not relevant to the yield.
@ The annual crop or crops per hectare determine the yield. In the case of Britain it’s a one crop yield and yes 8t/ha, but compare that to the major grain areas of Australia for instance, producing two 5t/ha crops annually. Additionally, stubble in ground is better stock feed than harvested stubble as feed, and we are talking about per hectare production of farms.
Britain’s climate isn’t great for producing the better grades of grain either and the climate is why its fungicide use is the world’s highest.