For many years We have raised Christmas Chickens. We buy birds from commercial growers who supply Supermarkets and we grow them on for family, friends and the personal tables of local butchers, and owners of some restaurants. We do, however, improve the diet of our birds by taking them off antibiotic pellets and giving them daily apples, grapes, maize, wheat and by letting them free range on grass for a few hours. Towards Christmas we then add milk to their options. They do, of course, continue to have balanced mineral and vitamins in pellet form, but without the antibiotic of the commercial birds. The largest bird we ever grew was a cockerel of 10.6 kg (23.5lbs) long leg. But the majority of birds are in the 5-8 kg (11- 17lb).
This type of bird is selectively bred to put on weight, and so we watch them carefully so that they do not ‘go off their legs.’ This can happen when they put on more weight than their young skeletons can carry.
When we began, the supermarkets were selling birds at about 82 days of age having been raised from day old. However, the industry and laboratories which supply day old chicks to the growers, have changed things to the point where birds are now a commodity at the supermarket’s specified weight in just 28 days. This may explain why chicken now has little flavour and texture akin to putty.
How does this come about? Basically, it is because individual customers choose the cheapest commodity they see on the shelf. The sum total of each decision is the force that drives the shop, and thus its entire supply chain to take whatever steps necessary to reduce costs near to the price the customer has chosen.
Individual decisions, when grouped together will lead to huge changes. I remember a speech made by Harold Wilson in about 1967. “We in Britain should’ he said, ‘give the Textile Industry to the third world because it was the right thing to do.” The speech, which was dubbed the, ‘White Heat of the Technological Revolution,’ sticks in my mind because I was an up-and-coming technologist managing my first factory of 200 people at the time, and so I wondered what the future held for the folk I employed.
At that time, M&S bought 100% of its products from British Companies, but within fifteen years it was 50% and falling fast. The same went for every other retailer. From carpets to socks, from blankets to towels it all went. However, what Wilson and his Oxbridge economists did not say was that hundreds of engineering companies in the supply chain who made the machines which made the products also closed. Nor did they think that, although the textile products themselves were being made in Portugal, Turkey, India, China and Iran. France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany retained their textile engineering capability.
Talking of individual decisions and grouping them together, reminds me of last year’s TV campaign to get us to install smart meters. Why, I wondered, should Politicians, Campaigners, Generators, and Power distributors jointly tell us what to do. What is in it for them I wonder. Is it important or is there something they are not telling us?
For example, they could have told us that, in January 2022 all legal contracts between the power generators and electricity distributors will change radically. From that date all electricity will be priced and sold in half hour packages.
Smart meters will allow the industry to charge a household varying prices by the hour. When the wind drops and the sun doesn’t shine, or rough seas shut down the turbines, or a nuclear reactor goes off-line. prices to the distributor will rise.by half hourly slots. The system will aggregate total data and know exactly the best times to raise and lower prices according to generating capacity. Your smart meter will allow the industry to decide whether, or not to group it with others who can be switched off when demand is greater than supply. It is also probable that future politicians will have the data to tell companies what rates to charge for certain groups of people. On the up-side the OAP winter fuel allowance can be given to the appropriate household via the smart meter, but the down-side is that households in some rateable groups can be charged more.
This whole Smart Meter issue is supposedly about controlling production to meet demand without shortfall or over-production. However, smart meters won’t tell consumers the cost or times of the peaks, and so we won’t know when to switch off when prices go up to, say 49 pence per Kilowatt hour (pkWh) or down to 12pkWh. What they will do however is enable the authorities to exercise greater control over a householders life..
Because I am naturally sceptical about those who take our money and tell us what is good for us, I shall avoid the meter until they are honest and tell us truth about the meters and the benefits to them. However, as prices are set to rise dramatically over the next few years, and politicians always feel a need to say something, the ‘not so smart’ meter will be an easy option.
To conclude, I feel like the preacher who said, “But, I’ve gone on long enough. What else can I say.”
‘Amen.’ cried a voice at the back.
View from the Pew 