There your into a national service idea in effect as part of citizenship but you can't just force it without providing the means.
Force every 16-18 year old not in training who lives in the countryside to work for a month on a farm for minimum wage....and what do you do for the people who live in the City?
You can't discriminate like that.
Uni is seen as a right of passage by almost everybody, get out from under your folks and 'live'. 90% of the courses are bullshit, prepare very few for a job and haven't done for years it's just a good excuse to get laid and pissed unless you are extremely focused and take courses designed to further the career you want.
To really spark a youth movement on farming, it has to be rebranded so it becomes the idea of a right of passage, camping, earning whilst you do it, the facilities are there etc.
Most farmers also make shit loads from not growing anything these days thanks to useless EU subsidy and all that crap. Had they mostly run the business better and grown years ago (and yes I also understand the dumb restrictions our fucktards in Gov put on them that no other EU country does!) most farms would actually thrive.
Problem is most farms won't modernise and frankly love the subsidy and prefer cash in hand, and in today's society that no longer works.
This is why immigrant workers are brilliant, they really can earn more in this country in a week than they could in a month. They don't have the backup system so the culture is different.
Can't change our culture, without changing the culture and reprioritising beliefs as people grow up. A lot of kids don't do paper rounds, don't muck in gardening, schools sell off the playing fields so being out in the sun as opposed to on a computer is new for too many. Grow up hanging on a street corner, or in a bedroom on line and you won't naturally consider outside work.
When was the last time anybody on here went strawberry picking? Pick what you can eat, and also get a bit of cash - in hand - no invoice - no tax?
I haven't. I grow my own.
Society has changed too much and again, as previously mentioned Badge mate, you're generalising. We should be like Australia and force both 16 year old and 60 year old who are unemployed to do a few months hard manual labour because you don't make the distinction - what about people with health problems, asthma, allegies, hayfever even - expect them to hit the targets?
What it does show absolutely though is that whenever you look at something that we all feel is wrong, there is no single answer. It's entwinned with multiple other things that could be equally to blame and need to be addressed as well.
But let's not overplay things and talk about thousands upon thousands of manual picking jobs when it comes to farming. Most machines operate on a 6 tops basis when they aren't fully automated such as Leek picking.
Per farm of size we might be talking at best 50 workers, and yes that shouldn't be sniffed at, and those willing to take the job should have their benefits frozen other than any top up portion they are entited to, from the day they begin, and then restarted immediately the day it ends without the lag over period and all the crap about whether it means they are doing 'enough' hours for it to qualify as a proper part time job and not an excuse to remain on benefits.
That way everyone wins, the taxpayer is saved money for a period, business can maximise revenue, the individual gets some pride back etc.
As said before on here, or another thread...to be honest the best way forward would be to explode the whole system and start from scratch because it cannot cope with the changes to society, work patterns, and so on.
It would also be nice for poverty to mean poverty and not whether you have access to a PS3. Maybe money could then be focused properly, as well as education.
With the money the Treasury theives from everyone I think it's a disgrace we have food banks in the country. But hey, they refubish their offices, re-stuff snakes and some MP's continue to get turned down for expenses claims...what do they care?
