Labour Party/government Watch

[UndercoverElephant]

I am not in a position to have a strong opinion on the numbers involved. Hard to know who to believe.

[clv101]

That's a terrible rate of return.

Absolutely! That is the problem, the simply awful rate of return on capital, well under 1% when any conventional business would be expecting 5-10%. The current model simply isn't a viable business.

[Lurkalot]

Don't forget that a farm is a highly illiquid asset; difficult to sell quickly unless you want to sell quickly to a low bidder who is likely to be an institutional investor. Who would you rather own these farms? A family or some institutional investor such as Blackrock?

Farmland being sold off cheaply , one and a half million houses to be built , easing of planning and the grey belt ..
Good job I’m not a cynical old sod.

[Forever_Winter]

I am not in a position to have a strong opinion on the numbers involved. Hard to know who to believe.

That's a fair position. My point is that Labour could go after much juicier assets than the squeezed middle class. A small wealth tax on multi millionaires and billionaires would be a much better option in my opinion (and its my opinion of course)

[UndercoverElephant]

That's a terrible rate of return.

Absolutely! That is the problem, the simply awful rate of return on capital, well under 1% when any conventional business would be expecting 5-10%. The current model simply isn't a viable business.

So what is the answer?

[clv101]

Well, only about 15% of the sticker price of food finds its way back to the farmer. The retailers, and manufactures etc are taking a larger share. Maybe their margins could be cut while farmer's margins increased? Or better still simply do less 'manufacturing'. The more processed a food is, the more additional, for-profit, steps have been added between the farmer and your plate.

Also, farmland should be much cheaper. This might be worked on through the planning system by defaulting agricultural land ONLY to agriculture - ie make it harder/more costly to change use to development, solar farms etc, this could genuinely decrease the value of land to something closer to the actual value that can be extracted from it. Put limitations on who can own farmland. France have a farming licensing scheme which would (which has) prevented people like James Dyson buying (and bidding up the price) the land. The idea is that land ownership should stay with folk who farm, not billionaire vacuum cleaner designers.