The Disappearance of the All Round Farmer

Ours used to be a mixed farm, like a lot more, I think the main reasons it's not now are, labour, suitability of the buildings we used for animals and at the time they were dropped, the income from them.

We still have grass, some of our land it's the only good crop for it......despite not needing fodder we have a lot, that we sell as a good income.
Would we return to livestock for me the answer is no, that as much a lifestyle choice as a business one, I can see the advantages of livestock, but my wife would kill me if I tied up my time with them, does that mean I would not consider it, no but it would have to stand up on its own and that includes any investment in buildings it may need, I am not blind to its advantages, but as a one man band smallish farmer (275 acres)it's not something I would rush into. Even without my wife's objections. Who works herself outside the farm.
A farm near me is the opposite, he is dropping his arable area in favour of livestock, and is now renting out a large portion of his land as he just wants to concentrate on his livestock, he just farms the land that he needs for feed.
I do agree the farmers actual likes and dislikes, effect their choices, past just the cash flow economics of things.

I think also having no real contact with the livestock side of farming isolates you from the money side of it, who would you even ask if it would make sense to restart, a livestock enterprise. i can ask neighbours but they can only tell you so much and what the market is like at that given time not what it will be like a year from now as your animals are ready for market. Like everything in farming it has its ups and downs.
I cannot see me retraining to pickup the needed skills to restart with livestock or employing someone to do it for me, 30 years ago my farm would have supported an employee to look after the livestock side, and provide the needed skills.

I think that's the bottom line now skills and labour, 30 years ago you could have both even on a small farm now unless it's you providing both it doesn't happen.

Goweresque said:

There's a reason people specialise, its more efficient. If you have arable crops, you need arable kit, and arable buildings. If you have livestock you need livestock kit and livestock buildings. On a small to medium sized farm that means you need double the amount of kit (and maintain and replace it) to farm an area that you could do with half as much kit if you went for just arable or just livestock.

My father used to grow a field or two of barley to mill for his stock, he ran an old Ransomes combine to cut it. Every year he'd spend ages getting the thing ready to use, and more time fixing it when it broke down, in the end he realised it was cheaper (and a lot less hassle) to buy grain in from an arable neighbour. Specialisation really is cheaper.

(As an aside the Ransomes combine sat in the yard for years, one day a chap turned up having seen it from the road asking if he could buy it for export, for parts. Bits of it ended up going to Timbuctoo in Africa where they were still using them to harvest something or other. The front wheels I still have, my father fitted the axle to a Kidd rotaspreader, in what could have been the first every large wheeled spreader, at the time (70s) they all had small wheels that sank into the mud).

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No, on a small to medium farm you use contractors for arable, you don't buy more kit. You want arable as it enables a ley rotation, gives you grain and straw for your livestock and somewhere to spread muck when you don't want to put it on grassland as well as a bit of risk diversification and added interest. All you need is somewhere to store as much of the grain as you are going to feed. But the problem is then the contractors don't want to faff around doing 50 acres of combinable cropping.

DrWazzock said:

I think a good farmer puts personal preferences aside and does what's best for the farm.

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No.

A 'good farmer' does what the farm does best.

Why make a crap job of growing crops at 1000 ft, or producing livestock at 50 ft?
There is a cost to complexity, and some times it's wise to know what enterprises are worth the time and effort, and which are a drag on the business. If you have 6 enterprises and you rank them in order of profitability, do you really need to struggle on with number 5 and 6 (loss making???).

Besides, each of us is a specialist in our own field (pun intended), few of us are talented enough to excel across all enterprises, and if we are honest, we'll admit that the best mixed farmers through the ages employed specialist cattlemen and shepherds and ploughmen, they didn't f**k about trying to pretend that they were Superman, while spreading themselves too thinly and making a half arsed job of the lot.

Jack of all trades, master of none springs to mind.

Princess Pooper said:

No, on a small to medium farm you use contractors for arable, you don't buy more kit. You want arable as it enables a ley rotation, gives you grain and straw for your livestock and somewhere to spread muck when you don't want to put it on grassland as well as a bit of risk diversification and added interest. All you need is somewhere to store as much of the grain as you are going to feed. But the problem is then the contractors don't want to faff around doing 50 acres of combinable cropping.

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Exactly as a small acreage customer you're always at the bottom of the contractors list. And in a bad year you end up with a disaster. Thats the problem with farming - its so weather related, you need jobs done when they need doing, and that means having your own kit. My sister and BiL have been trying to grow a few acres of oats each year for their own use, each year getting the combining contractor to come when the weather is right is a nightmare, because everyone is screaming for him at the same time. I think they're giving it up as a bad job from here on and will buy it in.

That's just the way it is.
Long gone are the 100 acre mixed farms employing 3 old duffers from the local village who took pride in their work. They'd be entering ploughing and hedging competitions, whilst the farmer entered his turnips in a crop competition...

Now it's all about the subsidy........

The CAP and that ghastly phrase " economies of scale " have ruined UK agriculture.

The mixed farming idea can work, but you have to have units of each that could work as stand alone businesses. And then its hardly different really to having two independent neighbours, each specialising in one or the other.

Don't forget fencing - arable farms don't need it, if you want to turn one back to mixed you'd have to fence the lot from scratch and thats not cheap.

DrWazzock said:

What is really needed are people who understand stock and arable crops and who can integrate them successfully into a balanced system, or what I'd call good old fashioned proper farming by good old fashioned proper farmers.

We have lost sight of farms as balanced systems and have become too narrowly focussed IMO.

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This is not what is needed. What is needed is simply more dosh for those farmers actually on the coal-face of growing food. While the public sector lounges about receiving or expecting an above-inflation pay rise for invisible productivity gains, just think what that means - if almost half the "working" population, and the entire number receiving state pensions and benefits see their income rise above inflation every year, and we know that UK productivitiy is almost stagnant, that means a good number of folk are making nothing each year, and seeing their income decrease after inflation.

The rose-tinted view of farming looks back to day when a decent living was made from a small, rented mixed farm. Those days seem to be gone. Those farmers will continue to disappear. Stock will intensify in the main apart from those creating an end product. Farms will get bigger apart from those making their own organic spelt flour. Jobs will focus. Red tape will increase. There will be more people monitoring us, and stricter penalties applied to us. The future for UK farming is an ageing and reducing number of folk working more and more land for less and less per acre. Eventualy the total number of DEFRA / land agents / landlords / EA / RT / etc will actually outnumber farmers and farm workers, and then we will relalise that the attitude to farming here is the same as in countries like Hong Kong and just turn into a shady service-dominated economy which imports all their food. That is how it will be. There is no getting around this.

DrWazzock said:

I am not saying the "all round farmer" has to be an expert at every job, but if he recognises that he must sometimes grass down and perhaps let it for livestock then he is doing better for his farm and business than somebody who says they won't have stock because they "don't like them" and continue chasing diminishing returns on land that isn't suitable for continuous arable.

It's not a simple situation but the point I am making is that you can't always farm according to your personal aptitudes and preferences, you have to farm according to the needs of your farm and soil type.

I don't like sheep, but have had to accept them for the benefit of the farm and business.

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Eh???, yes they do! Someone who isn't an expert is by definition an amateur!
You're not an all-round farmer in the slightest, you're just an arable farmer with a grazing tenant.
You might as well delete the thread as it's now meaningless.

Goweresque said:

Exactly as a small acreage customer you're always at the bottom of the contractors list. And in a bad year you end up with a disaster. Thats the problem with farming - its so weather related, you need jobs done when they need doing, and that means having your own kit. My sister and BiL have been trying to grow a few acres of oats each year for their own use, each year getting the combining contractor to come when the weather is right is a nightmare, because everyone is screaming for him at the same time. I think they're giving it up as a bad job from here on and will buy it in.

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As a farmer and contractor, the speed of paying the bill has a greater effect on speed of service/priority than the size of the job ever has.

Spud said:

As a farmer and contractor, the speed of paying the bill has a greater effect on speed of service/priority than the size of the job ever has.

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Which is why we sometimes (voluntarily) pay the contractor as they leave the yard and we always pay on time!

Goweresque said:

The mixed farming idea can work, but you have to have units of each that could work as stand alone businesses...

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Not sure about that, our sheep and cattle compliment one another and were chosen to do so, if I didn't have the sheep I'd be spending far more to keep up the grass, and if I didn't have cattle I'd not have such healthy sheep, meaning more expense and work. Down the line we'll have arable too, it will benefit from the livestock and benefit them. We're grass only, so the grain and excess straw will provide an extra income - I've also got a syndicate who want to shoot over it, another income option, but I don't want that here. All that written, we are only small at the moment and will never be more than middle sized even once the stock numbers are up to size, so economies are different for us.

I think up here in Scotland there are great many all round family farms. I think the guys that have specialised in producing either crops are livestock are the once that suffer the slings and arrows of weather and market vagries.

This year is a classic example why being all rounder works. Good harvest area with livestock, punt the malting cereal and buy distressed grain from elsewhere, boom £50 a ton margin.
Specialised cereal producer distressed grain equal despair and they have my empathy.
Again specialised livestock buying in straw at £100/ton will hurt like hell. All round producer plays canny game an eeks out straw for the winter.
Sure there is an element of luck but luck does not just happen, it is managed in strategically.

You will also find on these all round family farms each member has a responsibility for certain part be it cereals, cattle or sheep but everyone else is skilled enough to fill the gaps to certain degree. They also have the shared dependence on success.

Personally I think the all round farmer is the growing business in this area, they can see the longer game and manage accordingly.

DrWazzock said:

I am not expecting hill farms to start out in combinable crops. I am just saying the all arable wheat OSR rotation has had its day on a lot of land in this area. Well and truly had its day.

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Its infinitely easier for a stockman to incorporate arable than vice versa. There are far more arable contractors out there than folk with the skills, ability and time to look after livestock.
Years ago, when farms employed more men, there was a sort of natural succession, it was easier to pass skills between men, so there were always people who knew how to do all the different jobs that there is on a mixed farm. Not everyone has a stockmans eye.

Sure, there are opportunities and possibilities for people to get on the ladder much easier in stock than arable, and I generalise, but you get my point.

I am the only one here able to do every job, and operate every machine that we have. I need to be able to do that as the constant (boss) to be able to train staff, or step in in times of illness, days off or whatever. Invariably, the regular operator of a specific machine might be better at working it than I, and so he should be, he's had more practice!

I'd find it difficult starting up an enterprise whereby I am totally reliant on the skills and expertise of a specific member of staff (ie something I wasn't good at myself) - in such a situation, I'd far prefer a share farming agreement or similar.