The farmer forced to bin 300 tonnes of strawberries because of Brexit paperwork
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/the-farmer-forced-to-bin-300-tonnes-of-strawberries-because-of-brexit-paperwork/
Posted by noobcoder2
The farmer forced to bin 300 tonnes of strawberries because of Brexit paperwork
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/the-farmer-forced-to-bin-300-tonnes-of-strawberries-because-of-brexit-paperwork/
Posted by noobcoder2
34 Comments
The nerve of Badenoch getting involved on this article.
While I grant she wasn’t leading at the time, it was her party that made a total mess of sorting out the post-Brexit border issues. They literally did *nothing* despite having several years to sort it.
Sell it to Asia and all the other promised markets. there is so much facepalm in Brexit and farmers who believed Brexit when their biggest market and seasonal workforce was European.
Feed them to the leopards and they might not eat ALL your face, just most of it
Is this one of those Brexit benefits I heard so much about?
If the fruit is going to rot anywhere it is going to rot here damn it.
That’s at least 3 weeks worth of strawberries in my household. Damn toddlers.
This was last August not this year, presumably he’s either got it in hand or sorted out another market for this year.
Also keep in mind this new paperwork only came into force last April so hopefully that won’t be an issue eighteen months on.
Frankly if he’s not sorted himself out within a year I have no sympathy for him, and I usually support the uk farmers.
Periodic reminder that “*Farmers voted for Brexit so they deserve everything they get*” is a lazy oversimplification of reality.
Farmers were used as a talking point by pro-Brexit politicians, but in reality the vote share for ‘Leave’ among farmers was only slightly higher than the general population.
[This contemporaneous poll put the split at 54:46](https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/farmer-support-brexit-strong-ever-fw-poll-reveals), while the general population voted for Brexit at a rate of 52:48.
[Farming industry groups campaigned against Brexit at the time](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36078112), particularly [British Soft Fruits](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/20/brexit-farm-labour-shortages-fruit-vegetable-harvests-national-farmers-union) whose chairman said in 2016
> “It would be a total disaster if British strawberries and other berries disappeared, but that is what is at stake,”
“The UK’s leading berry farmer has told LBC he has been forced to let hundreds of tonnes of strawberries rot in fields because of Brexit red tape – and warned UK shoppers should expect shortages and soaring food prices.”
Surely, the top berry farmer in this country struggling to sell his food abroad would cause an oversupply of them in the market pushing our prices down
>let 300 tonnes of British strawberries bound for Europe rot
He could have sold the strawberries in Britain but chose to let it rot and now he wants a pity party.
From reading this it sounds more like someone screwed up on the paperwork and now angry at the rules.
If you’re the leading berry farmer, I’d expect you had a handle of the paperwork as it’s a core element of your business security.
I would far rather he sold his strawberries to us Brits, the Spanish stuff at this time of year is tasteless and I simply don’t buy it.
Brixit, worst ideas ever. Yet Labour do nothing about moving back, because of the Red Wall racists in the North, and other idiots still think Farage still has some kind of credibility, and will save us. Like Farage cares about poor people!
I guess Strawberry Fields aren’t forever after all.
Why do there never seem to be any redundancies in place? I can’t sell it in my chosen place so they must rot. What happened to those pick your own weekends, or companies like Oddbox, which were meant to stop this sort of thing.
I thought the idea of fruit rotting in fields was pro-EU lies.
Wonder how long it takes to flog 300tn of them by the side of the road in a layby.
Make all that cash vanish.. write off the losses.. win win.
Why the fuck would you deliberately grow 300 tonnes of anything destined for a market you’re not automatically enabled to sell in? I mean he should move to France or Ireland if he wants to do that.
My groceries came yesterday w/ strawberries from France. Fine by me. Farmers here in Britain can have sourpuss faces like this guy because well I don’t give a toss. You know why? Well remember the big tractor protests a couple months ago… they weren’t protesting about paperwork or trade restrictions. No, they were protesting because they didn’t agree with inheritance tax reform. Greedy idiots.
“Kemi Badenoch told LBC the UK needs to do “everything we can to reduce trade barriers” with the EU”
**everything**? Good news Kemi! There’s only one thing that we need to do!
> Tim Chambers, the owner of WB Chambers Farms in Kent, said Brexit border delays had left him with “no choice” but to let 300 tonnes of British strawberries bound for Europe rot in his fields last summer.
Why waste them instead of donate to the people of the UK? People would be happy to eat strawberries instead of letting them rot.
Weird article. Doesn’t say whether the farmer voted for Brexit or not.
How do we know if this isn’t just *a price worth paying* for someone who *knew what he was voting for*?
Not news if so.
I lived on a farm in the UK for years (now I’m in the US) but it boggles the mind how farmers thought Brexit was a good idea mainly because of the subsidies they received.
Although, the newspapers at the time were selling brexit as ‘all the money we contribute to the EU could be spent on the NHS’. If only that had been true!
I don’t understand why a farmer would let all those strawberries rot…sell to the UK markets and if that isn’t possible offer to the public, as ‘pick your own’. Giving them away for free would be better than to see them rot!
From the article
He said: “There was a market for them, but we couldn’t get the fruit there quickly enough because of paperwork and delays.
He also warned UK shoppers should expect shortages and soaring food prices.
So while there wasn’t an EU market, there was apparently a UK market which he chose not to supply.
While what he really means is that since brexit it isn’t so easy the get cheap labour and paying people properly eats into the profits too much.
>Conservative Leader and prominent Brexit-backer Kemi Badenoch told LBC the UK needs to do “everything we can to reduce trade barriers” with the EU,
I wonder if that includes joining the Single Market, or even the EU?
>She added: “With the trade tariffs that President Trump is putting on the EU, the EU should be looking to reduce trade barriers with the UK.
Trump’s tariffs affect EU exports to the USA, so maybe the EU will want to export more to the UK, but that doesn’t seem relevant to the UK’s tory-imposed problems exporting to the EU.
Blame it on the MPs in power after the people voted leave. They squabled and squabled and rejected and rejected. Immediately we voted Cameron should have said OK we join EEA and once we were in then if the Euro haters wanted out they could have lobbied for a further vote.
I know it’s not every farmer but farmers are well known for being Brexiteers and very often putting up posters supporting even the Tories or Reform.
Cry me a river.
So there are 300 tons of strawberries that can’t go to the EU and we should expect shortages in the UK as a result? Something doesn’t add up here.
How do the people of GB see leaving the EU? Genuinely curious? Is it a success? Disaster?
Then why not grow stuff he can sell in the UK? Hasn’t he heard of food miles?
Brexit-backer Kemi Badenoch told LBC the UK needs to do “everything we can to reduce trade barriers” with the EU
The fucking _audacity_
> Ms Badenoch recalled her time as Business Secretary, and said the time to “re-visit” a deal with the EU is “this year”.
So close to an epiphany, and yet so far…
Misleading title. Farmer would be able to just eat it by themselves instead of binning them
Any news outlet that publishes a story like this without asking the obvious question “Did you vote for Brexit?” isn’t worthy of the name.
If I don’t know how the victim voted, how am I supposed to know wether to sympathise, or to laugh my socks off?
Meanwhile we’re importing shite Spanish strawberries.
Fuck that get all the locals round to take them away