How they manage to sell things like eggs and milk at the prices they do must cripple the farmers.
To survive on an egg producing farm, a producer requires
two 1020sq/m holding units, each packed with 8000 hens. These are free range with pop holes for the hens to go outside if they so wish. (providing the farmer lets them out. Not all of them do)
Each holding unit will cost about 130k so it's a massive investment and commitment.
When you build the first one, its only capable of paying off the debt on its self, which takes about 5 years.
Mean time the producer will have another job in order to survive and pay the bills. When the second one is built (providing the planners, poultry processors and the bank give you the go ahead) things get easier and the third, fourth and so on.
Takes about 2 hours per day to gather the eggs in one holding unit.
An auto egg packer costs 20k and many are going down this route.
Farming is a dying industry in the UK. Theres only 150,000 farmers left and most are age 60 or over. A hundred years ago there were ten times as many with half the mouths to feed.
Oil drives the current situation and when that runs out(as it will) there will be havoc.
One calorie of food requires 10 calories of oil to be burned to produce it in our modern world.
