What do you do on your farm?

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Just been having a ponder having browsed the Today At Work thread once again and am continually amazed by the variation of jobs and skills we all do on our different farms. No two farms are ever remotely the same!

Having spoken to members of the public previously, they just don't understand quite what we farmers do tucked away on our farms which got me thinking that I've never jotted down all the jobs I do myself. I've often wondered about keeping a short diary with a few bullet points each day of what I've been up to to look back on but I'm never disciplined enough (hence why I never get round to posting on T@W!).

Instead I thought I'd do it mind-map style. The screenshot below shows a quick 5 min summary of the jobs I've come up with. The link to the mindmap on the website I used is here: https://www.mindmeister.com/1200743874?t=Ycoprrc9nc

If anyone else fancies adding to the mind map with jobs they do (livestock section is something I'll leave to others!) please chip in by editing using the link above. It's fully editable and would be fascinating to see....and is something I'm sure the general public would be amazed by too. Something for Open Farm Sunday perhaps.


Mindmap.jpg
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
I was only thinking the other day - what exactly IS farming? What jobs can you say constitute actual farming? I guess cultivating a field, or planting a crop or harvesting it, or tending cattle, or making fodder for cattle would all qualify, but what about all the myriad other jobs we all have to do? Is hedgecutting farming? Or fixing a shed roof? Or doing paperwork? Or fixing fences? Or servicing/mending machinery? Fixing a water trough? Repairing a track? Digging out ditches? There are lots of jobs that if you did nothing but them you wouldn't be a farmer, so how come doing them occasionally counts as farming?

I always define farming as a series of often seemingly unconnected (largely practical) problems that all have to be solved in order for food to be produced.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
I was only thinking the other day - what exactly IS farming? What jobs can you say constitute actual farming? I guess cultivating a field, or planting a crop or harvesting it, or tending cattle, or making fodder for cattle would all qualify, but what about all the myriad other jobs we all have to do? Is hedgecutting farming? Or fixing a shed roof? Or doing paperwork? Or fixing fences? Or servicing/mending machinery? Fixing a water trough? Repairing a track? Digging out ditches? There are lots of jobs that if you did nothing but them you wouldn't be a farmer, so how come doing them occasionally counts as farming?

I always define farming as a series of often seemingly unconnected (largely practical) problems that all have to be solved in order for food to be produced.

Precisely.

...and then the government come along and have their say about subs etc. and only look at part of the picture, not all those extra bits that really make it what it is.

Put it another way....I could let my arable land out tomorrow.....but actually that would only save me the time/cost associated with the fieldwork, inputs etc.

Hedgecutting, fixing shed roofs, insuring everything, doing paperwork, maintaining things, etc. would all need doing and all cost....whether I produced a grain of wheat or let my neighbour or even contractors do it.
 

Beowulf

Member
Location
Scotland
I was only thinking the other day - what exactly IS farming? What jobs can you say constitute actual farming? I guess cultivating a field, or planting a crop or harvesting it, or tending cattle, or making fodder for cattle would all qualify, but what about all the myriad other jobs we all have to do? Is hedgecutting farming? Or fixing a shed roof? Or doing paperwork? Or fixing fences? Or servicing/mending machinery? Fixing a water trough? Repairing a track? Digging out ditches? There are lots of jobs that if you did nothing but them you wouldn't be a farmer, so how come doing them occasionally counts as farming?

I always define farming as a series of often seemingly unconnected (largely practical) problems that all have to be solved in order for food to be produced.

Would you still have to complete those tasks if you weren't growing crops or tending livestock? If the answer is yes, then it isn't farming.

Paperwork related to crops or livestock is still farming, but building maintenance isn't. Hedges would still have to be cut whether you farmed the land or not - is Mrs Smith in the village a farmer because she has her hedges trimmed once a year?

Likewise house repairs or mending the old Hilux. These are entirely incidental to farming, and a town-dweller who didn't farm would still have to maintain their home and car.

It's easy to fill your time with things that aren't related to farming in order to keep one's self busy, where a non-farmer would bring in a professional who would complete the task in half the time, leaving capacity for more productive things. That merely makes you a DIY enthusiast though, not necessarily a busy farmer.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
4 days making a new door for the cattle shed, 1 day drilling some wheat which included a couple of hours fitting new bearings to the power Harrow roller. To be honest I find making the door more interesting than drilling the wheat, so I suppose that makes me a DIY enthusiast.

The good thing about farming is that a lot of it isn't farming. Whereas when I was worked in a engineering design office you had your nose to grindstone all the time and it got quite tiresome and tedious. I have sympathy for folk who do real jobs. I did one for about 15 years then I returned to farming, half of which is messing about, but I like it on the whole. My neighbour always starts the week with shooting all day Monday. That's the way. I'm not that decadent but I like his style.
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
I was only thinking the other day - what exactly IS farming? What jobs can you say constitute actual farming? I guess cultivating a field, or planting a crop or harvesting it, or tending cattle, or making fodder for cattle would all qualify, but what about all the myriad other jobs we all have to do? Is hedgecutting farming? Or fixing a shed roof? Or doing paperwork? Or fixing fences? Or servicing/mending machinery? Fixing a water trough? Repairing a track? Digging out ditches? There are lots of jobs that if you did nothing but them you wouldn't be a farmer, so how come doing them occasionally counts as farming?

I always define farming as a series of often seemingly unconnected (largely practical) problems that all have to be solved in order for food to be produced.

I reckon farming is the interface between sunlight, air, water, soil, people and commercial economic activity. Or something along those lines.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
The whole point of taking on the DIY....roofing / plumbing / maintenance, is tradesmen charge £50 / hour plus. Farming earns less than £10 / hour at 1970's prices.
Why would you get tradesmen in at £50 / hour, to give you more time to earn £10 / hour ?:scratchhead:

If we had to get "tradesmen" in we would have been bust years ago. Best thing dad taught me as a farmer was how to weld.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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