The Disappearance of the All Round Farmer

Goweresque · Oct 22, 2017

DrWazzock said:
By 1990 we had nothing but combinable crops after gradually divesting ourselves of sheep cattle and sugar beet as the old folks health declined. By 2005 the soils were lifeless, yields were declining and problems like blackgrass and cranesbill were increasing. Since then we have gradually brought the sheep and cattle back, and this year the beet has returned. It's not been easy but if feels like a more balanced system. The cattle use the straw and produce muck. The sheep and cattle complement one another with regard to grazing. The sheep eat the beet tops. A lot less land stands idle over winter. Wider rotation limits opportunity for blackgrass. Soil structure is improving. We have retrieved skills that would have otherwise been lost to us. We aren't experts or specialists but we can ask for help, delegate or do a bit of training. It feels more like a full time job now rather than a mad rush for harvest and drilling then hours in the sprayer. The bottom line might not be a fortune but it's more stable. Less eggs in more baskets, less boom and bust.

I know this run counter to the present trend. I am not really bothered how others run their businesses nor am I telling people how they should work. I am just commenting on what I think we lose as farmers and farm businesses when we polarise into specialisms.

Thing is I don't disagree with you that arable farms need to get more livestock into their rotations if they can, where I disagree is that I don't think arable farmers should try and keep livestock themselves. I think the future will be symbiotic business relationships whereby the livestock owner and keeper works in conjunction with the arable farmer, and each continues his or her specialism, but on the same farm.

Goweresque · Oct 22, 2017

DrWazzock said:
Some of the most successful old farmers here could spot a plough making a high furrow while driving past in their car. They would stop, go over and sort out the problem without any fuss to help the lad do a level job. They were respected for their knowledge and hands on approach. They still exist here and there but that kind of thing isn't fashionable any more. Reliance on contractors and consultants, land agents and specialists has reduced many farmers to nothing more than owners of land. Many are probably happy with that which is fine but we have deskilled in that respect and lost touch with the job.

Thats entirely true of society, thats what economic progress does, it makes people specialise. You don't have one man building one car, and making all the bits himself, you have one man fitting one part (each made in a specialist factory) to each car constantly. Yes, a man who could build a car from scratch would be incredibly skilled, but the car would cost what a Rolls Royce does.

Bossfarmer · Oct 22, 2017

Forage Trader said:
Weather pattern has changed farming .to risky to grow arable here in the West. I used to grow 200 acres wheat and barley . I grew 6 acre this year an it's lost rotting in the field

whats your average annual rainfall?

Bossfarmer · Oct 22, 2017

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).

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.

not true really i think the opposite could be true in that you will get more use out the kit you have i.e you will prob need a forklift and tractors whether its arable or cattle your doing, so your using them all year i.e not just using the tractors at sowing time/harvest but silage time too/mucking courts in the winter,likewise your not just loading grain lorries/drill with forklift but feeding cattle in the winter too, also your labour is more evenly spread throughout the year??

Bossfarmer · Oct 22, 2017

7610 super q said:
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.

more like the supermarkets get your facts straight

7610 super q · Oct 22, 2017

Bossfarmer said:
more like the supermarkets get your facts straight

Ah yes, and the supermarkets. Thanks for reminding me.......

Bossfarmer · Oct 22, 2017

7610 super q said:
Ah yes, and the supermarkets. Thanks for reminding me.......

they are the main problem and without subs will crush us

7610 super q · Oct 22, 2017

Bossfarmer said:
they are the main problem and without subs will crush us

It's because of subs that they've got away with paying f**k all for produce for the last 30 years.

Bossfarmer · Oct 22, 2017

7610 super q said:
It's because of subs that they've got away with paying fudge all for produce for the last 30 years.

no theyd just import cheaper food if we didnt have the subs

Kevtherev · Oct 22, 2017

Farming moves in patterns with the times.
Less staff nowadays and a lot of the large farms are heavily reliant on contractors.
Still quite a few farmers that do everything ‘in house’ so to speak.

Selectamatic · Oct 22, 2017

My father is a All Round Farmer, or he was in his heyday.

He knows how to plough, he can spot a good bullock or ram, he can weld or take an engine to bits before rebuilding it, he knows how to make good hay, and when to cut a field of wheat. He is not scared to grab hold in a shovel, broom or pitchfork. He takes pride in his work, whatever that may be.

He has no idea what NVZ is, or how to fill in forms, or how to operate GPS.

It does not matter these days, as he is not a farmer as such, but if he were, I bet he would need to get someone to help him with aspects of the more 'modern' stuff.

digger64 · Oct 22, 2017

capfits said:
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.

I've never understood the logic in selling good barley then feeding rubbish ?

Bruce Almighty · Oct 22, 2017

We have a mixed farm & there aren't many like us around here.
We have lots of eggs in lots of baskets. I think the reason we make it work is because it is nearly all family labour & we enjoy our work.

I milk 100 cows, my brother feeds & beds them & looks after 50 followers.
We have a weekend relief milker.
We used to rear beef X calves & sell as stores but stopped that because of the TB risk & being overstocked - this was the start of the sheep.
My wife & my mother feed the calves & mother does the books, I do the physical records & farm assurance etc
We do our own grass silage together with my cousin who has beef cattle & arable in the next village.

We have 100 ewes, my 16 yr old son runs them & he has just taken on the contract shepherding of a 250 ewe flock in the next village. We help him when he needs help. He plans to increase our flock as more grazing becomes available

We have 250 ac combinable crops and contract farm a further 350 ac combinables on 2 nearby farms. (Wheat rape & oats) The 3 of us do the work along with a regular part time tractor driver. I do a lot of the running about while the other 3 keep the tractors moving. I'd like to do more field work but somebody has to stop & do the milking.

We have a lot of machinery (2 of most things) but it is all bought & paid for. Eg Trailers are used for grain carting, silage carting & muck carting.
We use contractors for maize drilling & harvesting and most of the baling also hedge cutting.
We also have a milk round & a paper round (my wife's job)

My nephews are young but very keen. Like my son, I think they will have great opportunities in 20 odd years time as there are very few young people on farms around here & we are all getting older !

beltbreaker · Oct 22, 2017

digger64 said:
I've never understood the logic in selling good barley then feeding rubbish ?

It's not a case of buying rubbish. Up here we aim to sell Barley below 1.65%N and rejected barley is often over that so for instance an extra £40/t in my pocket plus higher protein barley. If my barley is rejected then so be it.

I have to say I am in agreement with @capfits I think we still have a lot of guys who are good all rounders some big some small.

My FIL is a crofter, has a tidy flock of Cheviot sheep, good quality cattle and a small deer farm. Makes a tidy job of it. What happens in the future I dont know.

Arable is really a piece of pee, for most it's listen to the agronomist as to what and when to drill at what rate with which dressing, when to spread fert, spray and often harvest. The marketing is often done by someone else too. Timings, and growing it in the wrong area are what screw it for many.

My take is that people have more to do, and take the eye off the ball or become less motivated so standards slip and enterprises fall by the way side.

Certainly here, a mixed farm is advantageous to our business, the cattle help maintain the soil with the muck and utilise the grass where we can't grow crops, sheep keep the grass tidy and we are profitable.

Sheeponfire · Oct 22, 2017

static said:
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.

I kinda have to agree... a bit!

Not sure I want to though....

Nearly · Oct 22, 2017

I'm an all round peasant farmer. Dad was a stockman. I calved and milked from being able to walk.
I've enough experience to run 30 suclkers and grow my 100 acres of corn without breaking sweat.
Next generation may just rent it all out and get a real job.

Happy · Oct 22, 2017

digger64 said:
I've never understood the logic in selling good barley then feeding rubbish ?

Sold all my barley this year for malting to average £158/t
Bought 3 lorry loads rejected at malting for low germination back in at £115/t.

£3700 better of at the end of it seems fairly logical to me.

mixed breed · Oct 22, 2017

We're mixed DIY farmers, milk, arable, sheep and beef (if you count the few black and white bulls we try to fatten) Plenty of muck for the arable land = plenty of corn and straw for the stock. Apart from balancer nuts, some bag-muck for hungrier fields, and sprays we are pretty much self sufficient. It is hard work and you often wonder if you should just concentrate on one thing, but they each play a part and bring in money at different times so cash flow is good, plus it's rare for everything to be crap. Last year with milk below 18p I was glad I had lambs and the beef animals to sell at rent time.

hendrebc · Oct 22, 2017

Goweresque said:
Thing is I don't disagree with you that arable farms need to get more livestock into their rotations if they can, where I disagree is that I don't think arable farmers should try and keep livestock themselves. I think the future will be symbiotic business relationships whereby the livestock owner and keeper works in conjunction with the arable farmer, and each continues his or her specialism, but on the same farm.

I think there is good potential for arable farms to take on a lot of store hill lambs over winter grazing cover crops to grow the lambs on to fatten in late winter early spring. On man could look after a lot of lambs behind electric wire with a good mobile handling setup. Same with outwintering spring calving cows or ewes before lambing. Both would be wintered cheaply and give the livestock farm a chance to grow some grass ready for ewes or cows for just before and after lambing or calving. Like a b+b for the stock with a contract shepard/cowman doing all the feeding and checking them. Would take a lot of working out how it would be done but would benefit both sides if done well.

DrWazzock · Oct 22, 2017

Goweresque said:
Thats entirely true of society, thats what economic progress does, it makes people specialise. You don't have one man building one car, and making all the bits himself, you have one man fitting one part (each made in a specialist factory) to each car constantly. Yes, a man who could build a car from scratch would be incredibly skilled, but the car would cost what a Rolls Royce does.

Farms have always had specialist workers especially so a hundred or so years ago. But the successful farmer could pull the specialisms together because he had a reasonable knowledge of each specialism and maybe even some hands on experience. He was able to successfully integrate a wide range of specialisms into a balanced system, just as a good industrial manager does to manufacture a quality product like a car.

Nowadays we have the specialists themselves running farms. They specialise in combinable crops for example and they try to make the whole farm fit their personal favourite specialism and end up with an unbalanced farm then moan like hell when it's inevitably overrun by blackgrass or slugs or low OM and the chemicals won't work anymore.

Doesn't really bother me. Just an observation.

The Disappearance of the All Round Farmer

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