Can Farming survive the free market?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Can farming survive under Osbornomics?
Also the farming minister is Liz Truss.....can they count on her support?

[Hope]

Can farming survive under Osbornomics?
Also the farming minister is Liz Truss.....can they count on her support?

To answer your thread title, rather than the somewhat different questions you pose in the OP, yes it can.  Mind you, that then depends on exactly here you are.  If you're in France, it may well not be able to, as French farmers rely far more heavily on state and EU hand-outs that do ours.  The free market should reflect a real cost of production.

[Rhiannon]

Farmers tend to add hahahahahaha rather hysterically after the name 'Liz Truss'.

[wigginhall]

This is one of the points in the various critiques of neo-liberalism - that in fact, states pay hefty subsidies to various sections of the economy.   The EU pays about 60 billion euros to agriculture, so is this the 'free market'?  But then we have paid a ton of money to the banks, and QE is said by some to be going into the banks, although it will be paid back eventually. 

As I said, this can be used as a comparison with 'benefits scroungers', well, do we mean the bankers and the farmers?  Of course, there are other subsidies, e.g. to rail, which seem to go under the radar.    It is often called 'corporate welfare', which is a nice one.

The best solution is to laugh hysterically,  and have a drink.   Everything is the free market, but some bits are freer than others. 

[Rhiannon]

I remember back when I was a kid, watching Blue Peter or some-such and the children on there were of the opinion that parts of the countryside should be preserved as nature reserves and for recreation and the rest built on, and we could buy our food from abroad. I think they all went on to work at Defra.

[splashscuba]

Also the farming minister is Liz Truss.....can they count on her support?

Very good. Truss..... support :-)