Thursday 21 October 2021

Sheep may safely graze

Can anyone explain to me the benefits of the latest trade deal between the U.K. and New Zealand?

Does anyone believe that New Zealand will import British lamb when it has so much of its own to export?

Up until now, the arrangements regarding lamb have worked well for the consumer because we have opposite seasons, so if you wanted to eat lamb all year round, you could without British farmers suffering any more than they already have when it comes to pricing, the lack of demand for wool, supply-chain and labour problems.

I suppose that if you are the sort of person who is willing to spend £10 on a pot of Manuka honey you may see a slight fall in the cost, but any discounts are going to be more than obliterated by the sharp rise in supermarket prices.

I just don't understand - the first sentence of this post is a genuine question to those who may know more about this business than I do.

27 comments:

  1. Twenty pence off a bottle of wine anyone? A few pennies off kiwifruit?
    No. It is politics.

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    1. What is so bad about this current situation/crisis is that there is a glut of politics and a dirth of pragmatism. They can only se as far ahead as the next election and conduct themselves accordingly, even - EVEN - if it means the total collapse of the economy. It's as bad as that.

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  2. A sad reflection on a failed Brexit. Explain why we, with enough sheep to feed each and everyone one of us, should go across the world for more lamb. And I never liked their butter either.

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    1. Well, as Derek helpfully points out below, we have had a long-standing and highly successful agreement with New Zealand regarding lamb for years. My original question still stands.

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  3. It's hard to see how a trade deal with New Zealand would offset the damage to other British exports.
    Have you ever bought any of those little twinpacks of steamed puddings called "Auntie's puddings". They are perfect for an individual serving and my dad loves them. I was horrified when I read the small print that tells that they are made in New Zealand. I wonder how the cost of transport and packaging compares with the cost of manufacture.

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    1. And this at a time when we are supposed to be heading toward a 1.5% carbon emission reduction in a few years. It's a joke, and it's a joke at our expense.

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  4. Looking more widely, why have we stopped producing more of our own everything?

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    1. That needs a wider answer, but I blame short-term ambitions.We are protecting the giants for some bloody reason.

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  5. While I can't answer your first paragraph, it's worth noting that these trade deals have been going on for a considerable amount of time. In the book "Life in Kent at the turn of the Century" it's worth noting that "the last quarter of the nineteenth century was remarkable for the great changes which took place in British farming. The policy of Free Trade adopted by the government allowed the imports of vast quantities of food which led to a general fall in commodity price levels. Wheat which had sold at 55s. a quarter in the early 1870's plummeted to a mere 28s. by the late 1890's. Sheep farming suffered from the more developed foreign trade in frozen lamb.

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    1. You're right there, Derek. You haven't even come close to thinking about the question in the first line. In fact, I don't know where you are going with this tired old regurgitation of well known historical facts.

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    2. Surely if you was intelligent enough to be aware of the "well known historical facts" that I tried to help you with, then you should of also been intelligent enough to work out the answer to your original question. You let your animosity get in the way of rationale.

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    3. Listen Derek. I want to ask you one more question before I wash my hands of you completely. Are you unhappy? I mean personally unhappy, not generally or socially unhappy. If so, I will try to be much kinder to you than I have been in the past, but you have to remember that I am a flawed human too - extremely flawed - and I too tend to take out my frustrations on people who hold opposite views to my own.

      Having said that, if you say that you are not unhappy or unduly lonely, then I will revert to my old self by telling you to fuck off as usual.

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    4. A strange reply but I'll humour you. I am perfectly personally happy. The one main thing that winds me up in this blogging lark is people that refuse to accept that there are other opinions other than the ones that they have written. People that seem only able to receive comments from people that are patting them on the back and saying how wonderful they are.

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    5. If that is true it is true for everyone, including you. What you wrote in the comment at the top was not an opinion. I don't know what it was or what you were trying to say with it. If you meant that there has always been upsets and fluctuations associated with trade deals throughout history, then you missed the point of this post. If you came to the conclusion that this post was yet another bit of moaning about Brexit, then you are obviously on the defensive again and treating it as a personal opinion which contradicts your own. You could not answer the original question which was how the deal between the UK and New Zealand benefits the UK, so you go off on a rambling history lesson which you think could justify the deal made by the government who pushed Brexit through. I think you are far too keen to give Boris a pat on the back, but that is just my opinion.

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  6. Supply chains are going to reset. Quality and local purchasing takes second place to cost for most people. That said, cost is generally rising across the board. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

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    1. 'A bumpy ride' is how our most despicable unelected cabinet minister described the inevitable unfolding of the events constituting what we now know to be the worst economic perfect storm in history. I cannot tell you what I think about all this without using extremely unparliamentary language.

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  7. I lon since ceased to try and understand trade deals Tom

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    1. They used to make some sort of sense, but there is so much covert subterfuge going on now that the only thing that I am 100% sure of is that since Brexit, there have been no deals struck which are truly in the interest of Great Britain. We have been weakened beyond the worst expectations. the Conservative Party and its most vociferous supporters - only recently - used to say that what singled out the true Conservative from a Socialist was sensible pragmatism. What happened to that?

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  8. There is no benefit to the UK of a trade deal with NZ; you're just treading water. Do you understand Polexit? Can you hook up with them, beneficially?

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    1. I am not even sure that I know what Polexit is. Is it Poland leaving the EU? Anyway, we have made the Poles feel so unwelcome now that they wouldn't want to come back even if they could, let alone strike beneficial trade deals with us. G.B. is the most unpopular country off the continent now.

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  9. In reply to your first paragraph, trade deals don't hit the ground running. They give a basis for free trade between the countries involved without so much red tape. This deal, if you read the detail, has a lesser import figure on New Zealand lamb than comes here currently (we import 39,500 tonnes of New Zealand lamb now and figure in the new trade deal is actually 35,000). The deal will help with the Pacific Partnership in the future if we want to join it although I am not sure how good this is at present. I would say that it would be better to encourage trade deals to establish themselves and give them a few years to bed down before passing judgement and trying to estimate the £sd. I hope the deal is concluded satisfactorily. It is wrong to say Brexit has failed before it has begun in my opinion.

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    1. Yes I see what you mean, but it says something that we have to form a defensive alliance with countries on the other side of the world when historically both world wars were fought - in the main - in our back yard. The Pacific Partnership has more to do with the U.S. than it does to us. The euro was coined to protect us against the mighty dollar and for a while it worked. Now we are weak and so is the U.S. Brexit cannot fail without a total collapse (and that is possible), but I cannot imagine anyone actually believing it has got off to a good start. We have lost all credibility in the eyes of the world and it will take a long time to get it back - in my opinion.

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    2. I don't see that the we have lost credibility in the world. That sounds like something coming out of media claptrap to me. We can judge in 10 years time. Negative energy is unfortunately very strong in its pull. I don't what the defensive alliance is exactly, I am thinking of trading partnerships simplified in trade deals. We could just as easily have traded under world trade rules and got ourselves up and running outside the EU at least three years ago. Sadly that was not seen as a viable option so we are only just starting.

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    3. I wish I had as rosy a picture of the future as you and Boris, but I think I will be long dead by the time you are eventually proved to be anything other than optimistic. There is something hysterical about people guarding themselves against negative energy by whipping themselves into a positive frenzy. It's like whistling when you are scared of the dark. With regard to Britain losing its credibility, beggars tend to receive compassion (at best) before they receive respect. It is hard to respect someone who has wilfully destroyed their own life.

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    4. Well I'm not having to whip myself into a positive frenzy and nothing has been destroyed.

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  10. An interesting exchange of comments between Tom and Rachel, which is how it should be. I have to agree with Rachel's explanations and she has expressed them far more eloquently than I could of.

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