Farming without subsidies

turbo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
lincs
The reason I am asking is I woke up early today and put the tv on,it was border force Australia and they don’t seem to allow any food products in but are quite happy to export it,i just wondered how easy it is to export to them.ps I know you are in New Zealand just seeing if it the same
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
Ive spent alot of my life growing expanding farming thinking how to do more make more etc in farming , recently find myself giving up on growing farming and going into other things farming returns are pish poor for level of investment and the for the work involved.
I saw the limitations as a youngster, and was soon diversifying.
Curiously, i still see myself as a farmer before anything else, but in ££ terms, what I've loaded on a box and sent out the gate is a very small % of what cash has gone through my fingers. (It has swallowed a disproportionate amount of my waking hours though)
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
The reason I am asking is I woke up early today and put the tv on,it was border force Australia and they don’t seem to allow any food products in but are quite happy to export it,i just wondered how easy it is to export to them.ps I know you are in New Zealand just seeing if it the same
The TV programme Border force Australia covers the ports and Airports their role is to prevent illegal importation of goods into Australia, those goods could bring disease into the country devastating the agricultural sector. It is easy to export to them if you go through legal channels.
 

turbo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
lincs
The TV programme Border force Australia covers the ports and Airports their role is to prevent illegal importation of goods into Australia, those goods could bring disease into the country devastating the agricultural sector. It is easy to export to them if you go through legal channels.
Ok thanks,I just googled it and they only import a very small amount and one piece I read talked of a 30% drop in Australia’s beef prices if the restrictions on imports are to be lifted
 

Hilly

Member
I saw the limitations as a youngster, and was soon diversifying.
Curiously, i still see myself as a farmer before anything else, but in ££ terms, what I've loaded on a box and sent out the gate is a very small % of what cash has gone through my fingers. (It has swallowed a disproportionate amount of my waking hours though)
Ive always been a full time farmer so any diversification has been investment rather than anything that takes time and work as farming is time consuming thing to do and i want to dedicate all my time to it, if i had a diversifcation project that took time and work and it paid better than farming i think i would chuck the farming in and do that tbh but i havent so wont lol
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
Ive always been a full time farmer so any diversification has been investment rather than anything that takes time and work as farming is time consuming thing to do and i want to dedicate all my time to it, if i had a diversifcation project that took time and work and it paid better than farming i think i would chuck the farming in and do that tbh but i havent so wont lol

It's hard to put my finger on just how it's grown.

I was very ambitious as a yoof, growing up on a big tenanted hill holding.
I could see there were only so many ways to fulfil my ambitions within farming, while at the same time the parentals did a lot of equine stuff which hemmed in farming ops.
The steadily slackening profit to be made out of pushing livestock was another factor - long before FMD the writing was on the wall.
When I was leaving skool, the livestock on a tenanted farm was an asset to borrow against and retire on, whereas it's steadily became less and less in real terms.
My eldest has started a graduate job in gov for a salary equivalent to about 15-20% of the livestock value on 1500 acres....
as things are going, her salary will increase, and the stock will continue to devalue......that's sobering.

I'm blessed to be able to see it for what it is, and instead of driving at higher yields/prices, I've simply allowed the various diversification to grow, and farm with barely one eye on it.
Post fmd we never restocked more than inhand land would reasonably carry, so no more chasing tack and spring grass, or housing sheep on bought in fodder etc.

looking at your own situation, does the farming model have to swallow as much time?
would a simplification leave you time to look at better paid sideline?
Is the 'investment' near at hand, or remote (IE, city, not Hebrides)
(it's easy fixing other peoples problems!)

We've always tried to work up outside jobs that will fit around farming commitments - which isn't always best, but if you're going to play livestock, you can hardly put it second.
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
So did you get paid foot and mouth compensation?
You were lucky, the rest of us got sod all.

sorry?
What did you just say?
Yes, I was 'lucky', i got compensation for perfectly healthy stock shot in front of me in a contiguous cull in 2001.
One herd of cows lost in their entirety had been in my family for a century (they were effectively my grannies dowry)....how much were they worth?

I can tell you with my hand on my heart that I'd give you every penny of it today if you could take away the hurt it caused.

I'm sorry you feel hard done by.
Those who didn't get culled, and held onto their stock despite the temptation of claiming they were out of grub and cashing in....they have my respect.
But I'd be careful with your use of the word 'lucky' on this topic.
 
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Had a quick look. In the last decade 80% of farmers received less tha $1000 a yr.
with the top 10% avg $31000 dollars. It appears big business gets the vast amount of the money.

The subs being discussed above are particular to trump. He stumped up extra money last autumn when the trade war began and he had to placate farmers for the drop in soya prices.
 
.........i was young and green once...........Regarding milk supply,"twas ever thus" before 1933 and after 1994.If the MMB was still in existance,every single milk producer in the country would be getting 35p-40p litre,and the f*cking supermarkets would have been forced to pay a fair price for all milk they bought,right across the board.We still have the highest consumption of liquid milk anywhere in the World.We should have the highest price,and would have were it not for the supermarkets selling it as a loss leader.

Oh god, spare us.

Tell me now, why on Earth ANY product or service should have a government bloody quango of all things, to control the price of it?

Don't you see that if you do this for milk, any number of muppets will pipe up wanting a price guarantee mechanism? Next it will be Cornish clotted cream ice cream, then a market price guarantee for Nissan Micras, then bloody rolled mild steel, then car insurance... and so on.

There is utterly no need for the government to control the price of anything. Why should the UK have the highest price of liquid milk at the farm gate in the world? Just tell me why? As in other sectors, there is a wide range in the cost of production across farms, for whatever reason I know not but why in the hell does the government need to interfere with the marketplace in any way? To do so only costs the tax payer money and forces the consumer to accept a higher price for a product than would otherwise be the case.

Supermarkets sell milk as a loss leader? News to me; I am yet to buy milk for less than it is leaving the farm gate for, more to the point, so long as the farmer is getting paid for it, what odds does it make what the supermarkets do with it?
 

jendan

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Oh god, spare us.

Tell me now, why on Earth ANY product or service should have a government bloody quango of all things, to control the price of it?

Don't you see that if you do this for milk, any number of muppets will pipe up wanting a price guarantee mechanism? Next it will be Cornish clotted cream ice cream, then a market price guarantee for Nissan Micras, then bloody rolled mild steel, then car insurance... and so on.

There is utterly no need for the government to control the price of anything. Why should the UK have the highest price of liquid milk at the farm gate in the world? Just tell me why? As in other sectors, there is a wide range in the cost of production across farms, for whatever reason I know not but why in the hell does the government need to interfere with the marketplace in any way? To do so only costs the tax payer money and forces the consumer to accept a higher price for a product than would otherwise be the case.

Supermarkets sell milk as a loss leader? News to me; I am yet to buy milk for less than it is leaving the farm gate for, more to the point, so long as the farmer is getting paid for it, what odds does it make what the supermarkets do with it?
As always,your post is complete tripe.Why did the Government of the day feel the need to set the MMB up in 1933?
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
As always,your post is complete tripe.Why did the Government of the day feel the need to set the MMB up in 1933?
1933 was almost 90 years ago, who knows what the government of the day were thinking, maybe they set up the MMB because farmers of the day were inept and incapable of organising themselves.
I do know that once the MMB was disbanded the efficiencies of milk collection and my milk price increased overnight, within less than 24 hours.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
1933 was almost 90 years ago, who knows what the government of the day were thinking, maybe they set up the MMB because farmers of the day were inept and incapable of organising themselves.
I do know that once the MMB was disbanded the efficiencies of milk collection and my milk price increased overnight, within less than 24 hours.

Grandad farmed through the 1930's in Scotland in a dairy farm. He was on the edge of town and was adept at building his contacts for selling his milk (partly through the church!). He received a lower price when the MMB was formed but he said that the folks up country got a better deal and he didn't begrudge them that.
 

jendan

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
1933 was almost 90 years ago, who knows what the government of the day were thinking, maybe they set up the MMB because farmers of the day were inept and incapable of organising themselves.
I do know that once the MMB was disbanded the efficiencies of milk collection and my milk price increased overnight, within less than 24 hours.
I have had this conversation with you before,so dont want to go over old ground.The Dairies of the day were completely abusing their position,in much the same way as the supermarkets are doing today.
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
Grandad farmed through the 1930's in Scotland in a dairy farm. He was on the edge of town and was adept at building his contacts for selling his milk (partly through the church!). He received a lower price when the MMB was formed but he said that the folks up country got a better deal and he didn't begrudge them that.
I actually agree with the concept of pool pricing, it would be preferable for this to be on a voluntary basis via producer owned co ops than via legislation aka MMB,
Perhaps if your Grandfather had gone to see the farmers up country and suggested they band together to counteract the power of the processors then farmers could have had the best of both worlds.
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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

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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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