Subsidies for not rearing pigs?

[Guest]

Something that has been seen before, but it tickled me so here it is again.

Apparently this guy's neighbour had just received £3,000 from the UK's Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs and he wants to know how he might do the same.




Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State,
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR


16 May 2007


Dear Secretary of State,

My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to join the "not rearing pigs" business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.

I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?

As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven't reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?

My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is - until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.

If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100?

I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?

Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don't rear?

I am also considering the "not milking cows" business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits.

I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.

Yours faithfully,



Nigel Johnson-Hill

[Amethyst]

Re: Subsidies for not rearing pigs?

sad isn't it really. The farming industry in this country is over productive and so the EU pay us not to produce so much to enable mainland europe a better market share. Much like the tax and benefits system, the more you earn cause you work hard and make sacrifices, the larger percentage you lose to subsidise those that havent worked as hard.

Encourage people, and farmers, businesses etc to be the best they can be.

No opinion here really.

[Guest]

Re: Subsidies for not rearing pigs?

It's what happens when you let politicians run anything. The whole country is in a mess. Labour have done what many predicted they would do back in 1997, they have ****ed it all up.

Take the NHS for example. This service has has enjoyed a tripling of it's budget in the last ten years yet is in financial ruin. It takes a special genius to triple state expenditure on health in 10 years to over £96bn, while simultaneously creating a financial crisis of such severity that hospitals are closing and thousands of nurses are losing their jobs.

That this Government has achieved what logic suggests should be impossible proves beyond doubt that if you throw enough incompetence at a project, no amount of money can balance the books.

I wonder if there is anything this government has done that it has not made a complete pigs ear of? Except wasting money of course, it is particularly skilled at that. If ministers showed as much diligence in running the country as they do in filling in their expense claims, then perhaps we would not have so many examples of failure to deliver the basic standards of health, education, and law and order.

I suppose it's too much to expect that they will all resign but they damn well should.

Never mind that anyway - our country has now finally abandoned any pretence to exist in its own right in the world or to run its own affairs.

We are to become just a small, subordinate part of this highly questionable new entity called the EU which is already in the process of changing our lives in ways which ten years ago would have seemed unthinkable.