Posts Tagged ‘farm subsidies’

Is Jeremy Clarkson Saving UK Farming?

Sunday, May 19th, 2024

It may be a stretch to say that everyone’s favorite bombastic Brit petrolhead-turned-farmer is saving UK farming, but he certainly seems to have drawn attention to its post-Brexit, regulation-strangled plight.

  • “In 2008, during the peak of Top Gear, Jeremy bought a thousand acres of land and farm called Curdle Hill Farm in Oxfordshire England, near Chipping Norton in the Cotswalds. The land came up for sale during the 2008 financial crash and was going for a lot cheaper than usual. When I say ‘cheaper,’ I mean £4.25 million.”
  • Clarkson: “The truth of the matter was that land almost never comes up for sale around here, and 2008 was the big financial crash, and this came up for sale, and I just thought ‘nobody’s making more land,’ so many people are moving out from London. But it was a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot less then, so I just thought ‘may as well get it.'”
  • Also for something to leave to his children, since you don’t pay estate taxes on agricultural land.
  • The guy Clarkson was paying to farm the land for him retired in 2019. That and Flu Manchu gave birth to Jeremy Clarkson, Novice Farmer and newly rechristened Diddly Squat Farm.
  • I’m going to skip over the details of his farmhouse renovation…

    …and note that the new house has a basement theater, among other amenities, so he’s not exactly roughing it.

  • “Due to the weather, the farm’s crops brought in £90,000 less than the previous year, leaving them with only a profit of £144.”
  • “When the show released the following year Clarkson’s Farm became the most watched Prime Video Original Series in the UK.” It’s also been at the top of the ratings heap in the U.S. as well, getting much better ratings than things like The Rings of Power, which has to be something like one or even two orders of magnitude more expensive to film.
  • Clarkson: “What’s happening to farming in this country is ethnic cleansing. That’s a strong thing to say, but it sort of is happening. The government is trying, really, to drive farmers off their land.”
  • “In five years, the subsidies, the grants, are stopping, so farms have to think of new ways of making money.”
  • Another farmer: “Most farmers like me are 66 years old. We’re throwing in the towel. Let’s just take the government money. It won’t be our problem if people starve.”
  • “We’ve been paid to grow wild flowers. We need to have food produced and made in the UK, but people say well we can import from aboard. The same madness is happening in Europe, they’re asking farmers to plant wild flowers instead of food.” This appears to be done under a Sustainable Farming Incentive program, which offers subsidies for “Flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field strips” and “Herbal leys.”
  • One of the continuing plotlines on Clarkson’s Farm is how the local council opposes every single one of Clarkeson’s money-making farm enhancements in the name of “tradition,” from a farm shop selling locale produce to a restaurant using the farm’s ingredients. This makes for great TV, but I can only imagine how difficult such a battle would be for a farmer without Clarkeson’s fame and resources.
  • “Clarkson has done more for the farming community to bring attention to their case with just two seasons than any farming organization has done in decades.”
  • “Farmers across the world have praised the show for highlighting the struggles they have to go through.”
  • “The many bases that this show covers is pretty incredible, from animal conservation, bureaucratic jargon, climate change, and just generally detailing how difficult it is to run a farm, especially in these current times.”
  • “It’s educated the masses about an industry that gets easily neglected, despite its glaringly obvious necessity.”

    • Someone needs to save farmers, not just in the UK but here as well, from the global warming fanatics who would drive them out of business.

    Tags:, , , , , ,
    Posted in Global Warming, Regulation, video | 4 Comments »

    Two Cheers for Tim Pawlenty

    Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

    Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota Governor and 2012 GOP Presidential contender, came out in favor of ending ethanol subsidies. In Iowa, no less.

    Good for him. This is good governance and good politics.

    Ethanol subsidies are among the most egregious examples of federal agribusiness pork, stealing money from taxpayers to give to Fortune 500 companies, not to mention driving up the price of food for poor people. Given the huge size of the Obama deficits, this fiscally and morally irresponsible subsidy is a great place to start trimming.

    However, like all agribusiness subsidies, ethanol is extraordinarily popular among agriculture state politicians of both parties. Given how early the Iowa Caucuses fall in the Presidential election cycle, it’s long been thought that opposing ethanol (or any other agribusiness subsidies) was political suicide for a Presidential aspirant, which is why which is why normally free market Republicans like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich have fallen all over themselves to pimp for subsidies to the likes of ADM.

    But that was before Obama transformed the annual federal budget deficit from hundred of billions to trillions of dollars, and before the Tea Party flexed their muscles in the 2010 election. At long last reality may be intruding on this particular sacred subsidy cow. Simply put: If we can’t cut agribusiness subsidies, then there’s almost nothing we can cut, we’re heading toward a debt crises of horrifying proportions, and the future of the United States of America will look an awful lot like Greece’s present.

    The political and structural barriers to real budget reform are daunting, so it’s going to require serious political courage (and Republicans in charge of the House, Senate and White House) to actually address. So far serious courage (or even courageous seriousness) have been in short supply in the 2012 Presidential race. Certainly Obama has none when it comes to the deficit; he either thinks he can come right up to the edge of the falls before jumping off the boat, or refuses to believe that the falls even exist. The Republican field has been somewhat better, but (as Gingirch’s Iowa pander exemplifies) not nearly enough.

    Before his announcement, I must admit that I was only vaguely familiar with Pawlenty. His name showed up in National Review from time to time, but I wasn’t nearly as familiar with his work as governor as I was with, say, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels or Sarah Palin (yes, many of us were familiar with her before McCain tapped her as his running mate). As a 2012 GOP hopefully, Pawlenty was someone I considered way back in the pack, ahead of people like Herman Cain (the Presidency of the United States of America should not be an entry-level job) and Buddy Roemer (not switching to the Republican Party until 1991 indicates that he’s something of a slow learner), but behind almost everyone else.

    Denouncing ethanol subsidies in Iowa displays precisely the sort of political courage the next President is going to need. For me, that moves Pawlenty out of the back of the pack and into the front ranks. He’s now in the conversation as a serious possibility, which he wasn’t really before. So two cheers for Tim Pawlenty.

    Why not three cheers? Because he didn’t call for the complete elimination of all agribusiness subsidies…

    Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Elections, Republicans | 1 Comment »