tinfoilhat Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 They don't. No they drive around in noisy, uncomfortable uneconomical land rovers. Yet they cost a bomb !! A 15 year old example will set you back 3k and an 07 nearly 13k (according to eBay). You could get a far better hilux for less than that. Farmers eh. What were talking about ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Tax them, let them decide if they want to give it up or continue using it. Increase the tax if too many people are using land to store scrap cars whilst people wish to grow food. If nobody wishes to own land, the tax is too high. How many pay full council tax now? How are you going to get more out of them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rampent Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 They don't. Some might drive around in sheds - most don't - prove otherwise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andygardener Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Some might drive around in sheds - most don't - prove otherwise I think we can just leave your assertion that they all do to one side and let those who choose to believe it take you up on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rampent Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I think we can just leave your assertion that they all do to one side and let those who choose to believe it take you up on that. Is that a riddle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sid Umpley Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 i will let my assumption on what farmers drive be based on actually knowing and living among a farming community for 5 yrs. there where one or two wealthy man living on inherited money. the rest drive tools for their jobs. mainly battered landies. until you have spent a week or two "lambin" you dont know farming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted October 30, 2012 Author Share Posted October 30, 2012 Well far be it from me to bring facts into it but have a look at your thread title. It's the poor growing their own food. Upon a very small plot! 10 rods (an allotment is but 1/16 of an acre). For everyone to have an allotment you would only need 6.25% of the land set aside for allotments. Hardly a large amount of land! even if everyone wanted their own plot (and they don't, but a good 1% of people do, perhaps as high as 2%). You talk about "idle land" but you don't ever define it. It's seems you see a field with nothing apparently going on in your eyes and envisage a multitude of the poor gorging themselves on a variety of fruit and veg they have magically now grown in it. You have apparently no horticultural or agricultral knowledge yet have made ludicrously impractical mass market small scale agriculture your cri de coeur. It's a fantasy nonsense and even if it where vaguely practical then what as other posters have raised do you do in a year like this when "harvests" have been badly hit by weather conditions and the poor are all dependant on them? There is lots of idle land, there is land that used to be allotments that is idle! There is grassland that used to be used for food production and has now become parts of parks. The amounts of land for allotments needed is really quite small. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/oct/04/land-deals-preventing-food-production International land investors and biofuel producers have taken over land around the world that could feed nearly 1 billion people. Analysis by Oxfam of several thousand land deals completed in the last decade shows that an area eight times the size of the UK has been left idle by speculators or is being used largely to grow biofuels for US or European vehicles. In a report, published on Thursday, Oxfam says the global land rush is out of control and urges the World Bank to freeze its investments in large-scale land acquisitions to send a strong signal to global investors to stop "land grabs". "More than 60% of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in developing countries with serious hunger problems. But two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on the land. Nearly 60% of the deals have been to grow crops that can be used for biofuels," says the report. Very few, if any, of these land investments benefit local people or help to fight hunger, says Oxfam. "Instead, the land is either being left idle, as speculators wait for its value to increase … or it is predominantly used to grow crops for export, often for use as biofuels." The idle land problem is worldwide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinfoilhat Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Upon a very small plot! 10 rods (an allotment is but 1/16 of an acre). For everyone to have an allotment you would only need 6.25% of the land set aside for allotments. Hardly a large amount of land! even if everyone wanted their own plot (and they don't, but a good 1% of people do, perhaps as high as 2%). There is lots of idle land, there is land that used to be allotments that is idle! There is grassland that used to be used for food production and has now become parts of parks. The amounts of land for allotments needed is really quite small. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/oct/04/land-deals-preventing-food-production The idle land problem is worldwide. Am I right in thinking you are using Chinese land grabbing to support an argument that the council is converting some allotments to parks ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted October 30, 2012 Author Share Posted October 30, 2012 Am I right in thinking you are using Chinese land grabbing to support an argument that the council is converting some allotments to parks ? Where is the mention of Chinese land grabbing? China has had land reform though, and put more land into the hands of the people, helping to reduce poverty and increase production. China has also had very successful land reform in the past under the Ming dynasty where people could cultivate fallow land and claim it for themselves. (They also had some bad reforms where tried to force people to work the land). But by letting people who wished to work the land, work the land they had success. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perplexed Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 We live in a society where there is a market for pre-grated cheese. There is "pre-washed" veg/salad in packets. There are plastic bags full of carrots, ready chopped. I actually heard a woman in the shop recently, in conversation with her daughter. The little girl wanted some veg. The mother said no because she'd have to chop it herself and she "didn't do chopping..." This nation is really not full of people chomping at the bit to get down and dirty in the garden. Yes, some do, me included. But I would suggest that most would rather watch Corrie... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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