Quirks

From the cost of seed about tuppence each to putting the supermarket's bag on them tuppence each the average cost of growing a cauliflower is thirty nine pence. And the supermarket will pay the farmer 22 pence apiece for them.

But it's not that straightforward.

The farmer is the only one taking the risk. He has to give over his field for the growing to the harvest, plaster it with poisons two or three times a week and then pay labourers a day's wage to pick something like one thousand of them per day.

If he can't find good workers and if the weather or some pest or unforeseen problem occurs he takes an hit with no recompense.

The same thing has been going on in the dairy industry for decades, and it is true with lambs. A few years ago I was taking to a young man about it. He had paid 15 pounds apiece for a flock of young lambs and fed them for about five or six months and had to take nine pounds apiece for them at market or keep them indefinitely.

Farming used to be the worst job going for depression. They switched the chemical in the sheep dip from arsenic to orthophosphates and nearly all shepherds went down with Gulf War syndrome that remained undiagnosed for obvious reasons for decades.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen.

Want to know where they dumped all the Agent Orange left over from the Viet Nam war?

Just ask. It's no secret.