The urge to grow

[som farmer]

most people need to maximise their income - relatively few can afford to give income away

If that's what they want, so be it.

2 blocks are from very wealthy people, who are certainly not naïve, they just dislike some of the grasping local big farmers, or how they treat the land, at least.

and to be honest, some farmers just take on extra acres, and rape them.

when the 50 acre block was sold, and FBT ended, we were about the only ones who didn't get a bill for 'dilapidations', or the modern term. 1 x 400 acres let, hadn't cut the hedges, cleaned the ditches, for years, land was wet, slurry spread, rutted the ground, hedges 20ft wide. That was a big, wealthy farm, pristine on their own ground.

who wants that ?

 

[Clive]

If that's what they want, so be it.

2 blocks are from very wealthy people, who are certainly not naïve, they just dislike some of the grasping local big farmers, or how they treat the land, at least.

and to be honest, some farmers just take on extra acres, and rape them.

when the 50 acre block was sold, and FBT ended, we were about the only ones who didn't get a bill for 'dilapidations', or the modern term. 1 x 400 acres let, hadn't cut the hedges, cleaned the ditches, for years, land was wet, slurry spread, rutted the ground, hedges 20ft wide. That was a big, wealthy farm, pristine on their own ground.

who wants that ?

agree 100% but sadly most just want / need the max rent

if i no longer wafted to farm myself i would just put the entire farm into sfi / cs using contractors to carry out actions required - it would improve the land and pay much better than £100/ac - this is the choice landlords now have

 

[livestock 1]

And yet you say you are often up at 3am and not having your tea until 10pm at night . That’s no way to live is it?
Sounds more like slavery to me and your health will suffer long term .

Depends, if you’ve been brought up into something similar you know nothing else to compare it to. When you’ve been doing something a long time it becomes the norm.
A lot of truth in what you are saying. With progress comes commitment you often have to make sacrifices to get further on in life

 

[crashbox]

Don't agree with that at all. When my parents moved here they had it much harder with 120 cows than I do now with 450 cows. They had to work all the time and by themselves most of this time. Now I can do by and large I can do what I want when I want. Scale has brought us freedom. Something comes up at short notice I can go and not have to worry about getting back to milk or having to feed anything.

Before someone pipes up. Rent the farm, no overdraft only debt is 0% finance deal on a merlo.

Sounds like you're running a great business,, fair play; I am inspired by growth and success stories.

The thrust of my post is simply that "not all farmers have an unbridled urge to grow".

I agree that scale helps you step back from the days to day activities, and focus on running the business.

 

[PI Stsker]

Really we’re our own worst enemy.
You install a bigger parlour to get though milking quicker; 3 months later you buy some more cows as you have the capacity to do them.

you have a bigger combine to give you the flexibility to hold off abit when not quite ready but then some land comes up for rent local so you go for it as you have the capacity.

but I do think growing somewhere is good, not necessarily in size but maybe in technological advances etc but ploughing zero profit back in to the Buisness is a quick way to run it in to the ground.
for example I have zero ambition to farm any more acres than I already am, how ever if I can change it so I’m not working as many hours or I can do things with out physically having to do them (automation) then that’s the road I will go down.

 

[Henarar]

most people need to maximise their income - relatively few can afford to give income away

they don't, they let to someone that will look after it yes they take a few quid less in the short term but it will cost them less and leave their asset in better shape in the long term, as I said not everyone is grabbing

 

[livestock 1]

Farming has cycles a bit like how an economy has cycles, they don’t work in line with each other but as a rule shortly after the economy has a hiccup and is on the way back up farming blooms in its own economy. How you are doing in your own business depends on what position you are in and how you handle it. The ones that play it safe and don’t invest are in a stronger position during the bad times but don’t benefit as much during the good times. Usually what I have seen is that the ones that haven’t expanded are actually going backwards without noticing it.

 

[ski]

I guess the questions are as follows:

If this is progress, why doesn't efficiency lead to more time for leisure rather than a treadmill of constant expansion?

If 1 can do the work of 7, what are the other 6 doing that is helping the whole community? Are they employed in increasing societal wealth or are they doing bulls**t bureaucratic jobs? And when AI's comes properly online, what then?

What leads someone farming 1200 acres to think to themselves, "You know what, 1500 acres is sustainable. If I only had 1500 acres, then I would be happy"?

And these incredibly driven people who believe that they are creating wealth by controlling more and more of it themselves, are they really improving everyone's lives or just their own? And what about their families? Do they have time for their children?

The philosophy underlying this drive is one of individualism. A strange philosophy to be adopted by an inherently tribal/communal animal and one that I believe that will be our species' undoing in time.

Yet this philosophy of individualism is only as old as farming and really only properly reached its full expression with the advent of modern neoliberalism. Humans have been on Earth for anything up to 3 million years. Sapiens for 200 thousand or so. Farming for 10 thousand, fossil fuel use for 250 years and neoliberalism for 40 ish years.

This philosophy isn't the only way to live.

In answer to the first question about efficiency, As I understand it, the economists say, technological advances drive efficiency and thereby drive down the cost of production. To stop goods becoming worth near zero you must have expansion of the money supply (more £'s in the economy) meaning the cost of goods appears to go up, or you have added features to goods. Think of photography, at its inception a total luxury and very expensive, getting progressively cheaper over the years, and by the time digital technology came along and did its thing to it, virtually worthless. They say that inflation must be the inverse of technological advance in order to maintain price. The recent history of low inflation and lowering prices was an aberration in time caused by the introduction of China's labour force to the world economy. When this effect stated to diminish we saw inflation come rushing back. It was predicted by many good economists that this would happen it was the timing that was harder to predict. This is why our agricultural products continue to get cheaper in real terms and drives the business model of expansion to be more efficient. I suppose that this system can not last indefinitely but can probably let for a very long time. Look at oil, back up to $100 a barrel and everybody's worrying, but with inflation $100 today only buys a fraction of what it would have bought just after the war. The reason oil is getting cheaper is that the technology is getting better at extracting from more difficult places. How long this can last I have no clue. Though it does shape my thinking, in so far as I can, I am not going to get hooked on the expansion model rather I will look for niches to exploit which brings totally different set of problems to solve (no easier I think) but does hold out the prospect of actually accumulating wealth if you can solves the problems associated with the model. Only when there are supply and demand imbalances can you get ahead with the standard model, and as we have seen they can be very short term and the more severe the supply demand imbalance the more quickly the market will try to correct it.

 

[Dan Powell]

In answer to the first question about efficiency, As I understand it, the economists say, technological advances drive efficiency and thereby drive down the cost of production. To stop goods becoming worth near zero you must have expansion of the money supply (more £'s in the economy) meaning the cost of goods appears to go up, or you have added features to goods. Think of photography, at its inception a total luxury and very expensive, getting progressively cheaper over the years, and by the time digital technology came along and did its thing to it, virtually worthless. They say that inflation must be the inverse of technological advance in order to maintain price. The recent history of low inflation and lowering prices was an aberration in time caused by the introduction of China's labour force to the world economy. When this effect stated to diminish we saw inflation come rushing back. It was predicted by many good economists that this would happen it was the timing that was harder to predict. This is why our agricultural products continue to get cheaper in real terms and drives the business model of expansion to be more efficient. I suppose that this system can not last indefinitely but can probably let for a very long time. Look at oil, back up to $100 a barrel and everybody's worrying, but with inflation $100 today only buys a fraction of what it would have bought just after the war. The reason oil is getting cheaper is that the technology is getting better at extracting from more difficult places. How long this can last I have no clue. Though it does shape my thinking, in so far as I can, I am not going to get hooked on the expansion model rather I will look for niches to exploit which brings totally different set of problems to solve (no easier I think) but does hold out the prospect of actually accumulating wealth if you can solves the problems associated with the model. Only when there are supply and demand imbalances can you get ahead with the standard model, and as we have seen they can be very short term and the more severe the supply demand imbalance the more quickly the market will try to correct it.

As far as I can tell, the best economists in the world are so obsessed by their economic models that they miss the fact that these models don't agree with the real world. How else do you explain the total clusterfudge they have made of managing economies? I would argue that the reason we have seen inflation on the scale we have seen it recently is all to do with the enormous increase in money supply due to worldwide quantitative easing after the 2008 financial crash and not much to do with Chinese labour supply.

 

[livestock 1]

As far as I can tell, the best economists in the world are so obsessed by their economic models that they miss the fact that these models don't agree with the real world. How else do you explain the total clusterfudge they have made of managing economies? I would argue that the reason we have seen inflation on the scale we have seen it recently is all to do with the enormous increase in money supply due to worldwide quantitative easing after the 2008 financial crash and not much to do with Chinese labour supply.

Every economy needs a base to build from. Eg steel coal oil agriculture ship building, I would class those all as base building blocks.
The government or successive governments have all based the economies on services and financial services. These types of businesses can only supply they are no use on their own. It’s a bit like the food chain those base businesses on their own aren’t worth much until they aren’t there and then there’s big trouble

 

[ski]

As far as I can tell, the best economists in the world are so obsessed by their economic models that they miss the fact that these models don't agree with the real world. How else do you explain the total clusterfudge they have made of managing economies? I would argue that the reason we have seen inflation on the scale we have seen it recently is all to do with the enormous increase in money supply due to worldwide quantitative easing after the 2008 financial crash and not much to do with Chinese labour supply.

The financial crash of 2008 was as you say not directly caused by the increase in the China Labour supply. However after China was admitted to the WTO by Bill Clinton in 2001 it lead to a remorseless lowering of labour costs to world goods, this was offset to some extent by easing banking regulations in the US causing a reduction in both moral hazard and real hazard by many lenders leading to more and more sophisticated lending schemes that were thought at the time to be the a great innovation but as you highlight proved otherwise. There is much academic thought that had China not been admitted to the WTO then 2008 would not have happened. That is not to say that something else even worse may have happened.

 

[czechmate]

I thank my Grandad every day for taking on the tenency of 65 acre in 1929

dont count your chickens; you might lose your memory in the next 6 years

 

[Dan Powell]

Every economy needs a base to build from. Eg steel coal oil agriculture ship building, I would class those all as base building blocks.
The government or successive governments have all based the economies on services and financial services. These types of businesses can only supply they are no use on their own. It’s a bit like the food chain those base businesses on their own aren’t worth much until they aren’t there and then there’s big trouble

Totally agree, except financial services does bring money into our economy. Other countries' money from which we skim a nice little slice.

 

[czechmate]

Depends, if you’ve been brought up into something similar you know nothing else to compare it to. When you’ve been doing something a long time it becomes the norm.
A lot of truth in what you are saying. With progress comes commitment you often have to make sacrifices to get further on in life

sorry, but it sounds awful. If I were in your position I would change jobs to something that paid properly

 

[livestock 1]

sorry, but it sounds awful. If I were in your position I would change jobs to something that paid properly

No one mentioned pay.

 

[livestock 1]

Totally agree, except financial services does bring money into our economy. Other countries' money from which we skim a nice little slice.

If you look at financial services for example, the government loves that part of our economy as it brings in so much tax revenue for them. What’s often forgotten is what’s built from those base businesses can be beneficial to this sector and is sadly missed especially when there’s a downturn

 

[Huno]

Totally agree, except financial services does bring money into our economy. Other countries' money from which we skim a nice little slice.

5% generally... the UK are masters at it!!

 

[4course]

Up to a point then things get too unwieldy. I’ll bet my costs of production aren’t any worse than Billy Bigballs who has just spent £500k on a new sprayer.

probably in fact almost certainly

 

[john63]

Currently farming 150 acres arable & 50 ewes alongside my elderly mother. Total area is 250 acres, with the remainder being grass/stewardship. We own it all apart from about 5 acres. Have fairly regular help from my wife and very occasional help from my siblings. I currently have an off-farm job 3 days/week and live 20 miles away. I'd like to farm full-time, but although it's profitable and always has been, we feel that there's not enough money in it to allow it. On the other hand, things always seem to be done late and there's never enough time do do all those little maintenance jobs.

The farm has been expanded from the original 40 acres to where it is now, by buying bits and pieces of land as they've come available over the years. We will hopefully have the opportunity to buy another 100 acres in the next 5-10years (we own half already collectively, but it's tenanted). We've always had the belief that we should try to expand - the tricky bit is would you buy it to expand to 350 acres or stay as you are? I guess that I've always imagined that increasing the land by 50% would allow enough extra income to enable full-time working, or would you just end up with twice as much work, but no extra income? You never really know unless you do it I guess?

Just some things to ponder over.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

Farming has cycles a bit like how an economy has cycles, they don’t work in line with each other but as a rule shortly after the economy has a hiccup and is on the way back up farming blooms in its own economy. How you are doing in your own business depends on what position you are in and how you handle it. The ones that play it safe and don’t invest are in a stronger position during the bad times but don’t benefit as much during the good times. Usually what I have seen is that the ones that haven’t expanded are actually going backwards without noticing it.

Businesses never stand still, they are either going backwards or forwards. Expansion can bring risk but pay off over time. The amount of risk you want to take is very much determined by age or whether there is another generation coming through. As I approach state retirement age, with no family interested, I am trying to work out the best way of still doing what I enjoy but have the minimum worries and stress. If family wanted to farm I would be investing and trying to expand the business.

I appreciate my business will be slipping backwards in the coming years but it doesn’t matter as I own most of the land, will have pensions and when I don’t want to do it anymore it can be let out. When I look back I don’t think I could handle the uncertainty and stress I could 30 years ago but get a strong feeling of satisfaction from knowing I’ve done well enough to help family, make us financially secure and done what I was told I could never do which is have a farm. I did not inherit to do this.

It’s the natural cycle of life, young people have more energy and ambition and have the future to look forward to, older people should have done that and be able to look back with some satisfaction.