The cream of the crop
In the last half century, Ireland has changed almost beyond recognition.
Anyone who time travelled from 1960 to 2010 would hardly recognise the place. Just about every aspect of society has, for better or worse changed into something unrecognisable to our time traveller.
One thing definitely has not changed though.
The fucking farmers.
When it comes to moaning and whining, there is no one to match them. They are the greatest load of fucking whingers you could possibly meet. They are never fucking happy.
For the last few years we have had to put up with their crocodile tears as they wailed about the terrible weather. It was too wet, they cried. Crops are destroyed and it will be the worst harvest ever. We were regaled with images of tractors bogged down in mud, rotting potatoes and wind-flattened crops.
I was watching Sharon the News last night, and they were on again.
It is too dry, they are crying. We want rain. About two inches.
Is there such a thing as a happy farmer? It is always too dry or too wet; too cloudy or too sunny; too cold or too hot.
I remember some years ago, the agriculture industry was in some financial problems. The farmers of course wailed about this until we were sick of them. There was a budget, and just to shut the farmers up, they were given very generous tax breaks. At last, I thought, we are about to please the farmers. But no. The fuckers still moaned that the tax breaks weren’t good enough.
There is no doubt about it. When it comes to complaining, farmers really are the cream of the crop.
I just wish they would shut the fuck up.
Wankers.
I can tell you that it’s not just Irish farmers who endlessly fucking whinge about everything. Before I moved over to Northern Ireland a few months back, I lived in Wales and boy, do the farmers there moan and moan.
No wonder supermarkets buy so much of their food abroad – the farmers here are too busy relentlessly complaining to actually grow some grub.
It is an honour to be visited by The Grim Reaper! Welcome. What the fuck is it about farmers? I have never heard any other profession moan like them. Can you imagine electricians moaning that the electricity is too thick to run through their wires, or surgeons complaining that blood is too wet? They are at the mercy of the weather, and if they don’t realise that fact they should maybe rethink their occupation!
There are not many “farmers” left here. I wonder if it is the same in Europe. There are farm workers and there are massive corporations that own most of the farms. Could be General Motors or BP. Who knows.
I think we still do things the good old way here. Farms are passed down from father to son and they are still very much family businesses.
I thought BP had diversified into mariculture these days? Heh!
Its an astonishing sector of industry the old farming game. It must be the only industry in the world that (a) has never had a good year (b) one can pass on a business that makes aloss down three generations of a family and not one of them thinks that maybe they should do something different (c) are the biggest pack of money whores in Ireland.
The last I point out because I well recall the Farmers Union opposing Lisbon until they got a meeting with Ministers and then came out and announced they were now pro-Lisbon. It isn’t hard to work out what went on at that meeting- they demanded and received an assurance from FF that they would oppose any proposed reductions in EU farm subsidies in Brussels.
So the IFU demanded their forty pieces of silver. They’ll be looking for support some day from those of us who were against the Lisbon Treaty and I would suggest that they be offered a round ‘Fuck Off’.
Grandad, you got me on a bad day. Here goes;
Some farmers (particularly the small adn medium-sized ones) have my sympathy. I wouldn’t be a farmer for love nor money these days. They have very little control over their own destinies. They are dependent on the weather (which no-one can ultimately control, but there are plenty of industrialists out there who influence it in a negative way), and dependent on bureaucrats in Brussels who have rarely if ever stood in a farm.
As for the whinge / bitch / moan…………… pot / kettle / black
Its odd how anytime farmers are looking for support they are all ‘small’ farmers and striving to keep a rural tradition alive and so on.
And then when it comes to dealing with farmers on anything other than how much financial support they should get its always ‘no can do’.
Like I say- if you stop and analyse for a moment why farmers should be supported in a business thats too small to make money you might as well say the state and EU should pay fishermen to do nothing and keep mines open when there is no market for what is being mined.
If a shopkeeper in my area announced that the business his grandfather had founded was now not making any money but he wanted public money to keep the business open he’d be carted off to an asylum.
And yet farmers expect taxpayers ultimately to preserve a way of life for them that they say themselves is unsustainable.
And thats before we get to various issues like the farmers selling out on the Lisbon referendum- self interest all the way. Try preserving some other old traditions such as the protection of eagles and see how interested farmers are in tradition. If there’s a risk an eagle would take a lamb they’ll lay down poison.
I recall in the middle of the worst farming crisis in the eighties customs officials stopped a load on their way to Cheltenham and started confiscating any money above the permitted 10,000 punts you were allowed to carry out of the country and took large amounts off predominantly farmers on their way to the races.
The other point to make about farming in general is that the massive amount of landbanking and daft sites being rezoned in the property bubble was fed in the main by farmers- where are all the millions earned from selling plots with planning permission?
The land that all these ghost developments were built on didn’t appear magically overnight but were mostly owned by farmers and they got handsome money for the land. Was that taken into account against the state/EU support the farmer gets? If not why not?
If a PAYE worker gets a large bonus or taxable benefit of some kind it almost certainly will attract capital gains tax. Much of the land sold by farmers will have been sold through tax avoidance schemes and there were plenty of those knocking about.
The cure for all this is in the offing anyway- the next GATT trade talks will be discussing not whether to reduce agricultural subsidies in the EU and the United States but by how much and I predict that the days of the small farmer are certainly numbered now. Neither the US nor EU can afford to pay an industry to be non-productive. The Chinese won’t budge an inch unless both EU and US stop subsidising their farmers. That says ‘curtains’ to anything other than industrial/combine farming in the future.
Charmed – Complaining is good. I have even been known to do it once or twice myself. But when you spend your life complaining about things that are outside anyone’s control then you just become a perpetual whinger. I used to work in a job that involved a lot of outdoor work. My safety and comfort were dependant on the elements and God knows I had enough cause for complaint, but I didn’t – what was the point?