No Sex Please, We're British

“Most of us think that Britain would be better off with a stable or smaller population, for many reasons, including food supply. Perhaps we are coming to a point in our history where, in order to try to survive and thrive in harmony with each other, this beautiful island and our fellow creatures, as well as to feed ourselves securely and healthily, we will start to consider ways of encouraging our population back down to more self-sustainable levels.”
Paul Lovatt Smith written around 2015/6.

 
Mr Smith already has the answer for Mr Raab’s “Dig for Victory”, “No-Deal” Brexit Contingency Paper on agriculture which he presented this week. And if we were honest, it probably may also lead to Britain finally getting off the bottom of the EU manufacturing productivity table. The reason is far too clear. The Brits don’t work, or at least have their minds on other things, while at work. Britain almost tops the EU fertility table.
 
After France and Ireland (reasons I suspect are well known), the UK comes third in the sex league. Germany just fails to be in last place because the crisis-hit Greece, Portugal, Spain, Hungary and Poland can’t afford children.
 
Britain is only around 60% self-sufficient for food a situation that has not improved since 1900. It may even be less nowadays and like all these things, it is difficult to really quantify or compare. Would we be eating Camembert instead of Kentish Blue if the chipswater biscuits were down?
 
Germany has actually done better in the last 100 years and has only just slipped a little from 87% to 85% self-sufficiency. No doubt similar to the UK a farmer in 1900 “fed” four people - now it is over 130.
 
Today I found a free copy of Bavaria’s version of “Farmer’s Weekly” in the letterbox. It is the largest such “agricultural” publication in Germany with just short of 100,000 copies a week. But given that the percentage of the population involved in farming has dropped from 38% in 1900 to less than 1% today (600,000), it’s not a bad “hit” rate. The biggest “Special-interest” publications is in the Health sector where 5.3m are employed.
 
All the above is simply a justification for today’s Blip which was an emergency one taken in the evening when I realised I hadn’t got anything else.
 
Well, I won’t be taking out a subscription (€3,10, in the shops, an issue or €160/annum delivered. But it is still interesting to read and get the view of the farming world. They were rewarded this week with €170m drought relief by the Federal Government on the condition the 16 States match the amount, making €340m in total.
The pleasing part is that we consumers not only pay this relief from our tax contributions but we will also pay again through increased prices caused by the shortages. To be fair, the relief payments are only to be given to farmer’s whose existence is threatened and in no way to be used to compensate for any 3rd party losses such as the price of beef falling because of the large number of cattle which have gone early to slaughter, due to the lack of feed.
 
 And if we really investigate, how much of this “bonus” that farmers get will actually benefit them rather than the agricultural equipment manufacturers or the likes of Monsanto?
 
Pleasingly, the supplement inside the newspaper for our region of Bavaria, the Allgäu, concentrates on the blonde, one horsepower Haflingers. I did read with interest that a tractor still costs about the same nowadays as it did 25 years ago. Then it was 1,000 DM per 1 horsepower, equivalent now to €500/hp. Haflingers were “worthless” back then and were being given away for “slaughter” prices of around €300. Now you would only get a 3-legged one for €1,000.
 
While we “back-to-nature”, horsedrawn cart types are rolling in money, the agri-business farmers are handing over their money to the manufacturers who have upped the horsepower one needs. New Holland who assemble tractors in the UK and probably have their marketing department there, is advertising in the paper for their 6-cylinder tractor with the slogan “Jetzt mit Sechs-Appeal”. I don’t think I need to translate for you to see we are now back at the start of my monologue.