You may think that bartering has no place in the modern world, that everything has a value and therefore a price, that a pound of bacon could not be bought for a couple of dozen eggs, and anyway that would be confusing (what’s the going rate, what about the change?). Money is easier. Well yes, but it’s not as much fun.
I’ve been toying forever with the notion of getting some cattle, but with so much going on in our lives and on the farm they always seem a step too far. But I can and do swap my pork for wondrous Devon Ruby beef. Everyone is happy, the food mileage is miniscule and there is something satisfyingly simple about swapping your excess produce for something equally but differently mouth-watering.
And then there’s the brawn part of the equation. For years we’d given time and labour to help friends build stables, erect barns, make hay, drench sheep. Now, with multiple projects always on the go we are on the receiving end; roofs cover voids, brick walls rise from the ground and sheep mustered in a spirit of well-honed teamwork.
We’ve exchanged protein for brain power and artistry on more than one occasion; want a farm logo designed and have as much artistic flair as a camel? Dangling a juicy joint of prime lamb can be a fine temptation to a designer.
Gardeners and smallholders are bartering for all they’re worth these days. Have a glut of raspberries but a failed chilli crop? Swap jam for relish. Determined to try a bit of goat (meat or milk, cheese or butter) before you decide to buy some Anglo-Nubians of your own? Those sheets of unused corrugated tin might be just the ticket for your friendly neighbourhood goat keeper. Need a drake, got a spare duck? Look through the small ads and make a few calls and you’re sorted.
A pal once told me that there was nothing interesting or cheering in looking at a fiver lying on a heap of straw, but a couple of softly snoring weaners was a different prospect altogether. In the same vein, I’m convinced that bartering things animal, vegetable and mineral just feels better, more rewarding, than buying stuff with a fistful of readies.
At the moment we’re bartering logs for blacksmithing lessons and I wonder just how imaginative we can get in a non-currency economy. I wait, fancifully, for the day I can pay my council tax in meat, cover my fuel bills with labour and eggs, and exchange access to grazing for tax owed. I’d swap a bale of hay for a couple of litres of diesel any day.
But even the natural process of barter comes under the beady peepers of the tax man, and if you are registered for VAT both parties must account for VAT on the amounts you would each have paid for the goods or services as if there had been no barter and they had been paid for with money. Just reading those lines from HMRC makes me depressed. Trust them to take all the fun out of it.
Published in The Landsman October/November 2010 Issue 22
