Stocking up for Brexit?

[George.]

So apparently our NHS, farmers,and many other important employers will be unable to find workers when we eventually leave the EU.(if we do ?) no doctors ,nurses or strawberry pickers ect.

We could try employing our own people. We could also let the foreigners go home to find out how to grow their own strawberries, while we go out to catch our own fish.

[Ghostrider]

I'm sure plenty of Asians and Africans will be delighted to come here and pick strawberries, once we, and not Brussels, can decide who we want to let in.

 

The NHS relied on Filipino nurses and Indian and Pakistani doctors BEEC, but Brussels hasn't exactly been receptive to that model during our EEC/EU years, so again, when we can do as we like again, we'll just have to start that up again as well.

[Urabug]

The problem is many of our own folk are to lazy and picky about what they want to do,but also our benefit policies  are poorly though out with regards to encouraging anyone to work.

 

As soon as you inform the benefit agency you have got work ,payment stops although it might be a month until the first wage packet. How can someone on the breadline survive a month without money.

 

Really do not know how the "immigrants workers " survive they must have a different set up .

 

Also their appears to be an anomaly in the job qualifications,apparently favouring  incomers to locals,or so I am told.

[George.]

Also their appears to be an anomaly in the job qualifications,apparently favouring  incomers to locals,or so I am told.

 

Does this anomaly relate to Shetland, Scotland or Britain?

Edited September 18, 2018 by George.

[mikeyboy]

I'm sure plenty of Asians and Africans will be delighted to come here and pick strawberries, once we, and not Brussels, can decide who we want to let in.

 

The NHS relied on Filipino nurses and Indian and Pakistani doctors BEEC, but Brussels hasn't exactly been receptive to that model during our EEC/EU years, so again, when we can do as we like again, we'll just have to start that up again as well.

The usual hyperbole!

None EEC immigration far outstrips EEC immigration to the UK. The UK government has and always had 100% control of this immigration.

The UK has always been able to decide who we let in from the EEC but decided to not put in place the safeguards that other EEC countries did. Absolutely nothing to do with Brussels. After all Brussels just puts in to place the policies that the UK along with the other EEC countries helped shape.

[Ghostrider]

^ Nice theory. Shame that the horse trading of politics completey effs it up in practice on the ground.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

We already have about 3 months worth of food stocked up as it is. (Building more kitchen cupboards as we speak..)

During the Y2K situation I stocked up with a years supply of food and water, plus sewage facalities to deal with what came out the other end !

Practically everyone else I knew had ran away to their overseas property to wait it out..

I suppose technically I now live in an overseas property.


One already has to run a stockpile approach to shopping at Tesco as you can go there several weeks in a row and still find the shelves empty of the item you want. (Or months in the case of Cola..)


I think its rather a shame that foodbank access for many is now via referral, as I've met folk who really deserved a helping hand and yet couldn't get a referral !

As such in the past, I've given folk food parcels myself.


I'm not a great fan of JIT (Just In Time.), I much prefer the old days of big warehouses !


> UK only produces 60% of its food consumption

I thought I read someplace we was down to 40% now..

Related links:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/06/more-than-half-of-uks-food-sourced-from-abroad-study-finds

> More than half of the UK’s food and feed now comes from overseas

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/8021327/Britain-least-self-sufficient-in-food-since-1968.html

> how much of the food eaten in Britain is grown here – is 58.9 per cent.
That was in 2010, given that our population has gone up since then, but the amount of land for farming has gone down, I'd guess that figure is a bit lower now.


> fishermen will be able to catch so much more fish they'll be able to feed us.

I notice for some strange reason it seems quite difficult to get cheap fish here, even though we produce a huge amount, why is that ?


> why not dig up your garden (if you have one) and start growing your own ?

I was hoping to do that when I moved up here, but then I found out its quite difficult to get almost anywhere with a garden bigger than a postage stamp. (Thanks I hear to the crofting laws making it impossible to have anything other than a postage stamp garden.. I guess a left over from the Scottish Clearances to stop us poor folk being difficult by producing our own food..)

Though I prefer greenhouses and hydroponics myself.

Wasn't they going to reuse that old greenhouse complex in Tingwall ?

We appear to have lots of land sitting around doing not a great deal up here, could we not build one of these:

https://hydromag.co.uk/industry-insider/thanet-earth/


> A business can NOT just import food without some
> sort of agreement between the two governments
> no matter how big they are.
>
> What are the customs arrangements?

Considering how good the UK has been at smuggling stuff for many centuries, I can quite imagine we'll be fine with our privateer navy.

Related link:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/dec/27/crime-smuggling-alcohol-tobacco


On the plus side, if food becomes more expensive, it will help solve the obesity problem in the country.

Not to fear though, as I hear from various places, they are willing to sell us food, for example I was chatting to a farmer I know in Uruguay who said the following which may be of interest to some:

-------------------
Our speciality is grass fed beef (mostly Herefords and Angus.) Being grass
fed, the beef tends to be lean with little in the way of marbling.
However, in 2011 the EU passed a directive decreeing that our grass fed
beef animals had to be confined on feed lots and fed cereals for at last
90 days before slaughter in order to satisfy unspecified Eurimperial
health regs.

We sell prime beef internationally for just under one third of
CAP prices and on average, world food prices are a bit under half CAP
prices.

Pre CAP the UK had a most excellent system called Guaranteed Prices.

The UK food market was freely available (with the proviso of quality
controls) to the entire world and UK farmers agreed minimum prices with
MAFF annually on most items (but on a 2 yearly basis for beef.)

If the world price exceeded the guaranteed price, the farmers sold their
produce and HMG paid farmers nothing but if world price fell to less than
the guaranteed price, the farmer would sell his produce, send his receipts
to MAFF and get a cheque for the deficit.

The system was simple, cheap to run and resulted in cheap food for
consumers.
-------------------

> as soon as its done they re-jig the place to do an order
> of the same product for someone somewhere else to
> entirely different specs and standards.
> Food is not really much different.

That reminds me of a food factory in Cumbria that would first package its food for M&S, and if it failed their quality standards, would repack it for another less concerned customer..


> unable to find workers when we eventually leave the EU.
> (if we do ?) no doctors ,nurses or strawberry pickers ect.

I remember when I lived in Kent some years ago that local people was fine picking potatoes for example, but nowadays folk don't like hard work I notice.

Perhaps if we lowered the benefit rates, suddenly people would find an economic reason to work in such jobs.


> also our benefit policies  are poorly though out with
> regards to encouraging anyone to work.

FX [ Nods in complete agreement. ]


> As soon as you inform the benefit agency you have got work
> ,payment stops although it might be a month until the
> first wage packet. How can someone on the breadline
> survive a month without money.

Worse than that is when the job ends, if you are unlucky, you won't get any benefits for 6 months, and it can take them a year to sort it all out before you get any money at all !

I would far something like Universal Basic Income, so that taking paid work for however long is a simple and uncomplicated procedure, I'm pretty sure it could help boost this countries economany to the next level.


> Really do not know how the "immigrants workers " survive

Family, friends, people of the same religion/etc. they help each other out.

Some cultures also have foodbanks, but you don't need a referral to use one !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31557192

----------
Today, thousands of free Langar meals are served every day in Sikh temples throughout the UK. The Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara in Southall, thought to be the biggest Sikh temple outside of India, says it alone serves 5,000 meals on weekdays and 10,000 meals on weekends.
----------

Also, you can fit a lot of folk into one cheaply rented room.
(I know as I used to live in a such a place in London for over a decade, and yes you can fit 50 people into a 3 bedroom terraced house..)
 

[George.]

I notice for some strange reason it seems quite difficult to get cheap fish here, even though we produce a huge amount, why is that ?

 

 

> why not dig up your garden (if you have one) and start growing your own ?

 

I believe it's almost impossible to grow fish in the garden, regardless of how much you dig it up.

[Colin]

Goldfish Pond ?

[George.]

Goldfish Pond ?

 

I didn't know that the fishmonger sold goldfish. Are they smoked or just gutted

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

> I believe it's almost impossible to grow fish in the garden

 

Interestingly I was reading the other month about how onland fish farming is more profitable than at sea !

 

Related links:

https://www.fastcompany.com/3068608/replacing-farms-with-fish-farms-the-odd-solution-to-both-hunger-and-cli
> Replacing Farms With Fish Farms: The Odd Solution To Both Hunger And Climate Change

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/04/07/298333029/the-future-of-clean-green-fish-farming-could-be-indoor-factories
> The Future Of Clean, Green Fish Farming Could Be Indoor Factories

I was also reading how forests are twice as profitable as sheep farming..

 

[Colin]

There used to be an "on-shore" salmon farm in Lerwick.  Not sure if it's still there though.

[George.]

There used to be an "on-shore" salmon farm in Lerwick.  Not sure if it's still there though.

 

Where was it in Lerwick and what was it called?

[Ghostrider]

It never got beyond being just a hole in the ground stage. It’s was on the toon side of the Ness of Sound, just before you go up to the farm.

 

It was still just a hole in the ground last I was aware, and probably is now an SIC ‘asset’ - I guess.

[Guest PJS1979]

There were large tanks at ness o sound they may still be there, are they for farming or originally some fish farm idea ? I always thought it was the latter ???