Food poverty-the way out

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reohn2
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by reohn2 »

al_yrpal wrote: 22 May 2022, 8:07pm Inflation and fuel and other increases will no doubt work through into higher food prices but 'horrendous' seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Al
Food is already is horrendously for people at the bottom of the pile,that's why why foodbanks are so prevalent and have grown exponentially since 2010 under Tory rule.
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Carlton green
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Carlton green »

simonineaston wrote: 22 May 2022, 7:44pm
Lamb is now horrendously expensive.
Just wait 'till everything is horribly expensive... it'll be just like living in a third world country.
Coming to a store near you, real soon.
I rather fear that we in the West are in for a massive correction. For many decades we have had superior buying power compared to the rest of the World but that will change and when it does there’s going to be a lot of pain.
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by rjb »

Innovative ideas such as this local fruit farm will feed us all. Strawberries now available 24/7 all year round grown in the UK, so no air miles either.
https://www.southwestfarmer.co.uk/news/ ... pply-aldi/
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reohn2
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by reohn2 »

rjb wrote: 22 May 2022, 9:32pm Innovative ideas such as this local fruit farm will feed us all. Strawberries now available 24/7 all year round grown in the UK, so no air miles either.
https://www.southwestfarmer.co.uk/news/ ... pply-aldi/
Yum yum.
They still need picking by hand and eye.
I watched a comparison on countryfile between a machinenand and an experienced strawberry picker in what could've even been the same farm,no contest the human experienced picker won by a mile.
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rjb
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by rjb »

reohn2 wrote: 22 May 2022, 11:26pm
rjb wrote: 22 May 2022, 9:32pm Innovative ideas such as this local fruit farm will feed us all. Strawberries now available 24/7 all year round grown in the UK, so no air miles either.
https://www.southwestfarmer.co.uk/news/ ... pply-aldi/
Yum yum.
They still need picking by hand and eye.
I watched a comparison on countryfile between a machinenand and an experienced strawberry picker in what could've even been the same farm,no contest the human experienced picker won by a mile.
It's a win win as the pickers instead of being on a short term summer contract are now employed all year round. :D
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reohn2
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by reohn2 »

rjb wrote: 23 May 2022, 6:16am It's a win win as the pickers instead of being on a short term summer contract are now employed all year round. :D
That's great news! :D
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Vorpal
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Vorpal »

al_yrpal wrote: 22 May 2022, 8:07pm Inflation and fuel and other increases will no doubt work through into higher food prices but 'horrendous' seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Al
It's horrendous if your food budget is £25 per week for a family of 4.
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by al_yrpal »

Vorpal wrote: 23 May 2022, 8:09am
al_yrpal wrote: 22 May 2022, 8:07pm Inflation and fuel and other increases will no doubt work through into higher food prices but 'horrendous' seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Al
It's horrendous if your food budget is £25 per week for a family of 4.
Well of course it is. What are you implying? If that all you have you would no doubt be going to the food bank.

Al
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reohn2
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by reohn2 »

al_yrpal wrote: 23 May 2022, 8:18am
Well of course it is. What are you implying? If that all you have you would no doubt be going to the food bank.

Al
Do you find that an acceptable way for citizens of the fifth or is it the sixth richest country in the world to have to live in 2022?
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al_yrpal
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by al_yrpal »

reohn2 wrote: 23 May 2022, 8:23am
al_yrpal wrote: 23 May 2022, 8:18am
Well of course it is. What are you implying? If that all you have you would no doubt be going to the food bank.

Al
Do you find that an acceptable way for citizens of the fifth or is it the sixth richest country in the world to have to live in 2022?
Of course not. We spend at least a couple of hours every week amongst people scraping an existence. We are well aware and we do our best to help. If all the whingers did the same thing Britain would be a better place.

Al
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Paulatic
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Paulatic »

al_yrpal wrote: 22 May 2022, 8:46am Yes Mick, the lamb chops were a bit of a treat from the family butcher and weighed 525g. But, I would expect that Lidls pork chops would cost roughly half what you paid. We usually shop at Aldi but occasionally shop at the butcher because his stuff is so nice. I would be interested to know why there is such a price difference. Is it because of the number of hands lamb passes through or a more legitimate reason?

Al
Your chops were £15.92 Kg
Mick's were £15.45 Kg
On the face of it not a lot of difference.
You bought four which individually weighed approx 130g including bone so something like <100g of meat.
Mick bought two weighing approx 150g each and described as steaks so no bone.
That’s now making Mick's look a lot cheaper.
Except from the size of your chops we can guess they were from a medium sized lamb. A lamb costing more /Kg than a heavy lamb.
We don’t know how thick Mick's are but we can guess if you put all the steaks back together they will make a leg far bigger than most buyers want. Hence sold as steaks. Bigger lambs cost less / Kg to buy.

Yes supermarkets have bigger buying powers than an individual butcher but the cost of transport, slaughtering, and butchering is very similar for them both. Often the biggest difference is they start off with a different resource.
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PedallingSquares
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

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al_yrpal wrote: 23 May 2022, 8:38am If all the whingers did the same thing Britain would be a better place.
All the whingers shouldn't have to.
Foodbanks have become the norm and Tories are actually taking pride in them.That is an unacceptable situation.
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Cugel
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Cugel »

There's an interesting and inspiring series of programmes on the BBC entitled "Farmers Country Showdown", which portrays in each episode the doings of a couple of families who are innovating in food production in all sorts of ways. A great deal of enterprise with often just a little bit of land sees the production of lots of interesting fud & drank.

Two aspects always intrigue me.

1) Why doesn't the wider farming community innovate and produce such variety & quality in this fashion? There seems to be a huge inertia in the mindset of many traditional farmers, who want to do what they've always done, in the way they've always done it. But cattle & sheep farming of the traditional varieties seem not only moribund but unable to produce good stuff, at a profit supporting the farm, in the way that the Farmers Country Showdown shepherd and cowfolk do.

The latter innovate in producing other things too; avoid the predations of the supermarket contracts (by selling direct to consumers in various ways); up the quality (of animal welfare and e meat/wool/milk etc.); make higher-value things from the base produce (e.g charcuterie, cheeses); and employ several other value-adding processes to what they produce & sell.

2) The Farmers Country Showdown folks' produce is often expensive albeit still exceptionally good value for money. It all reminds me of the William Morris Arts & Crafts dilemma - to produce high quality for good wages means high prices, which only the well-off can afford. I suppose the trick would be to get far more folk involved in such production, so their higher wages can mean they too can afford to buy higher quality locally-produced stuff.

Something of a push is needed to get farmers at large to change their ways towards making far more of their land and skills. But the buggers seem to have a huge inertia and are disinclined to move from their mossed-over habits about the landscape.

Or is that unfair?

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Cugel
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Cugel »

PedallingSquares wrote: 23 May 2022, 9:08am
al_yrpal wrote: 23 May 2022, 8:38am If all the whingers did the same thing Britain would be a better place.
All the whingers shouldn't have to.
Foodbanks have become the norm and Tories are actually taking pride in them.That is an unacceptable situation.
The pride seems to be in being a-one of the lucky (or is it just nastier-than-the-rest-so-successful) ones able to dole out charity, which is seen as a badge of worthiness. It doesn't occur to the Tory that having to rely on individual charity is just another indicator of the gross disparities they've perpetuated between haves and have-nots, with the gap ever-widening as the Tory mode concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer pockets, with their zero-sum approach to economics and power distribution suppressing and oppressing more and more, including large swathes of what used to be "the middle classes".

These days, it takes very little in the way of a Tory tweak to various policies and circumstances to degrade or destroy the well-being of yet another swathe of the formerly well-off. It's no longer confined to Thatcher decimating British industry in favour of asset strippers, landlords and hedge-fund parasites.

Who knows, even a certain Panglossian fellow hereabouts might suddenly find hisself a victim of the latest Torytrot machination! From smugly doling out a bit of gruel at the foodbank to having to beg for some oneself, overnight!!

Cugel, with an anxious eye on my pension.
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by al_yrpal »

Having a bit of experience teaching and encouraging folk to become entrepreneurs not everyone has it in them I guess. Farmers lives often appear exhausting and adding in more work is no doubt very daunting.

Al
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