If you see a farmer in tears then it will either be tears of laughter over Theresa Villiers’s speech at the Oxford Farming Conference or perhaps they are upset, for farmers do get upset by this type of thing, over ASDA’s advert for vegetarian food.
This is a strange advert because the message is not obvious until the very end – I guess that is clever. But it is another supermarket chain looking to promote that part of its stock that is plant-based (or meat-free would be a better phrase since most cows might claim to be plant-based).
The NFU doesn’t seem to believe that it’s OK to eat plant-based food despite the fact that plants are often grown by farmers. Why do the suppliers in a state-subsidised food production system feel that they can not only take our money but also tell us what to spend it on?
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Did everyone get the same YouTube videos at the top after running the ASDA ad? I had ‘Remove a Stump, Cheaply and Effectively’ and for some reason I watched it. It’s crazy, the guy evidently doesn’t even know how to sharpen a chainsaw let alone use one, and it’s bonkers in all sorts of other ways. Some of the 3725 comments (it’s had 5 million views) are splendidly drole.
I think the suggested videos depend on whether you are signed into google/youtube & reflect a mix of your own watch history & what they want you to watch. I also get a lot of tree-felling stuff, but maybe that’s because I am a fan of Barefoot Axe Girl and also watch a lot of log-splitting machinery home-builds from Transylvanian farmers who regard H&S as very optional. Also a lot of tree-felling fail videos. Yes there’s an element of Schadenfreude but other peep’s misery can help you avoid injury and property damage doing things you can’t really rehearse.
The NFU seems to oppose anything that might threaten the big farming combines that they mostly represent. A very reactionary and antediluvian organisation.
What a terrible advert. It’s things like this that make me glad I don’t watch TV anymore. Are ASDA suggesting that you can either eat meat or eat vegetables with no compromise between the two? The supermarket are happy to compromise on quality, ethics and environmental standards to sell cheap stuff. My local store recently chopped down all the trees in the carpark and replaced them with some sort of rubberised fake woodchip instead. I’m trying to find out if they’re in breach of some sort of planning obligation to maintain the landscaping of the area. A local birder told me it was the first place he saw waxwings but with no trees now they won’t be back.