In reply to Andy Johnson:
> "According to a new report commissioned by the supporters of second poll, more than half of UK farms could go out of business if Britain crashes out of the EU on 31 October." If its that bad, and I've no reason to suspect if won't be, and given that livestock farming and agriculture is still the main non-leisure use of the countryside, what changes do you think we'll be seeing? Particularly given that farming in hill/mountain areas is already particularly precarious?
Three possibilities I can see:
* The taxpayer subsidises under-performing businesses to a far greater degree than we already do until the brexit debacle has played out, perhaps 2-20 years, trending toward a total economic wipeout.
* With the pound crashed foreign agri-business snaps up productive British land and stock in a fire-sale knowing they have the wealth/income diversity to sit out the coming hard times and the political influence to set the agenda in coming years whether we end up facing east or west.
* Large and medium scale farms fail largely at random, are mostly subdivided into smallholdings and co-ops, sustainability prioritised ahead profit. Changing social priorities open up new business opportunities.
A cynic would suggest we'll start with no.1 because it maintains the countryside as the pretty green living museum we mostly consider it. As no.1 becomes unsustainable we'll embrace no.2, consequences be damned. No.3 is utopian, an impossibility without the kind of anti 'investment' policies to maintain affordability which will be anathema to any government lumbered with this mess.
jk
Post edited at 13:38