"Meaty price rises will give UK farmers rare boost" !
Well if not the farmer someone is making plenty out of meat prices.Fresh meat is extortionate at present,especially lamb and beef.
The farmers seem to be doing okay from agricultural grants and subsidies, if not from direct sales. There was an eye-opening website that obtained the farming subsidy data using FOIA requests.
http://farmsubsidy.org/HMG closed down our access to the data, after some embarrassing disclosures about the aristocratic friends of Cameron. One toff was scrounging £3.5m p.a. in all manner of agricultural grants and subsidies. He's no doubt still on the scrounge, but that is now hidden from us.
It's all about control. The City has bullied the Crown into relinquishing its last vestiges of control over food speculators. In a very rare move, the British Crown flexed its muscle by
Royal Prerogative Order in Council and dissolved the Canadian Wheat Board and the Australian Wheat Board.
Since the 1930s, those two state-controlled bodies have set the price of corn in Australia and Canada, ensuring that a) farmers got a fair price and b) consumers weren't ripped off. In effect the Boards kept a lid on grain speculators. The Wheat Boards also had a remit of maintaining grain stockpiles for food security.
The Canadian prairie lands produce 30% of the entire world's wheat supply. From August 2012, Canadian grain pricing will be in the hands of a cartel of just four giant corporations: Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus and ADM.. Expect grain prices (and bread prices) to "go massive".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Wheat_Boardhttp://www.vancouversun.com/business/fp/yourmoney/Canadian+Wheat+Board+dealt+blow+Manitoba+judge/6209946/story.htmlEven the cheaper cuts..stewing,braising etc are mega expensive........£8 a kilo for braising beef.. 
, and the same for shoulder of lamb on the bone.
Too true :-( And many of those "cheaper cuts", like lamb shanks, are now marketed as a delicacy and sold at a premium!
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price-comparison/Fresh_Meat/Tesco_Lamb_Leg_Shanks.htmlGood grief! Two lamb shanks for £10 ?!
The market price of a 40kg new season lamb is only £80 (91p/lb). Yet in the supermarket, even frozen NZ whole leg is £3.81/lb. There's clearly a juicy profit in there for someone.. Just not sure it's the farmer.. Raising an animal for 18 months for £80 doesn't sound like a great way to make money..
http://www.hccmpw.org.uk/marketprices/WeeklyGBAverageMarket.aspxcheers, a
