The on-going up hill battle that is agriculture.....

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
I really would love to believe I could pull into a field of damp chopped barley straw and set it to work. But I can't see the front row of discs achieving very much or the trash flowing through legs a foot apart, or the tines not creating loose clods unless the conditions were maybe absolutely perfect.
We have managed to block a 3 leg flat lifter here with legs a metre apart. There is no "boiling" action with a tine in sand, and no resistance for a disc to cut anything against. The unidrill manages because it can "run over" a tree branch without blocking and spit it out the back. Anything with tines turns into a rake.
I am always open to new ideas, but my patience has been severely tested.
Bale the straw. problem solved.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
But why should it be so, that all the milk processors want higher and higher standards, which all incur costs, sometimes big costs and the only way we can realistically do it is to get into the endless spiral with the bank. Surely the produce we all strive so hard to get as nice a quality as we can for them, should provide enough profit to then improve the infastructure further.

Or at the very least, a shiny new Fendt:ROFLMAO:

The mechanic is marketing and retailing his services direct to the consumer. You have several other people doing that for you, all of which take a cut.

Shorten the chain between you and the consumer, and you'll capture more of the retail value of your produce.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
The mechanic is marketing and retailing his services direct to the consumer. You have several other people doing that for you, all of which take a cut.

Shorten the chain between you and the consumer, and you'll capture more of the retail value of your produce.
Yes you can't argue with that but its a bit tricky if you are flat out producing agricultural commodities. I would either need to employ a shopkeeper or farmworker to try and set this up and/or let out/give up most of my farm. As I could probably produce some high value crops on 20ac and retail them successfully but the other 500 would be a little tricky. Most of the farms i know locally who have a successful farm shop end up letting out most of the farm. Difficult to be both a farmer and a processor/shopkeeper. You need to specialise.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Yes you can't argue with that but its a bit tricky if you are flat out producing agricultural commodities. I would either need to employ a shopkeeper or farmworker to try and set this up and/or let out/give up most of my farm. As I could probably produce some high value crops on 20ac and retail them successfully but the other 500 would be a little tricky. Most of the farms i know locally who have a successful farm shop end up letting out most of the farm. Difficult to be both a farmer and a processor/shopkeeper. You need to specialise.

Yes I'd agree with most of that.


Why don't you and a group of neighbours cooperate on such a venture. You could call it a cooperative?
 

Granite Farmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Yes I'd agree with most of that.


Why don't you and a group of neighbours cooperate on such a venture. You could call it a cooperative?

I used to go to NFU meetings as basically say the above but it would get shat on. What is comes down to is farmers want more money but will not put there neck on the line to get it. It would seem that the industry would sooner be a victim because being a victim is easy.
 

hoff135

Member
Location
scotland
Problem i have is i have almost no end of off farm work that pays better that working at home. However the continuous tie of livestock and maintenance of things on the farm limits the amount of time doing other work. You can only take so many shortcuts.

I've ended up in a situation where I'm off doing work in the digger for someone else and paying someone to come i to do fencing at home at the same time.
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
I was in an organic veg co-op in the late 80's and 90's. I found the same folk tended to get their crops moved first. :unsure: Whilst other folk were left to grease machinery and repair 1 ton boxes.:unsure:

Nice idea though..........
 
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Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
It's all well and good saying get closer to the customer, but it's not possible to be all things to everybody. Too many things to focus on reduces the attention to detail, standards slip, so greater scale is required to justify more people to do things properly, then corporate requirements and policy take hold etc etc.

A wise man told me many years ago "Do what you do best, and do it better" Good advice. As is 'If it doesn't work, change it'; and 'It won't fix itself' Madness is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Personally the idea of a one man band doesn't appeal. If in 20yrs time this farm is a 21/2 man farm, I want to be the half a man, not the silly old bugger struggling on 85hrs a week scrabbling about for casual labour to work knackered kit.
That said, I have little ambition to farm half of Yorkshire, and be on the treadmill of big shiny. Its a funny thing is scale - I'm all for growing my business, but don't want the baby turning into a monster.

I'm right with the OP on the cost of tackle - 25yrs ago we bought tractors new and traded them at 4yo. Now we're buying them at 2-3yrs old and keeping them 5yrs/til reliability declines.

The staff thing is a difficult one. Having been through a period like the op describes a while back, I appreciate a more settled team now. Contracting (and spud growing) is always going to demand big hours at times, some love it, some hate it. Some people stay in jobs a long time, some will always move on after a couple of years, we're all different.
 
I read that as silver shear bolts and was going to ask about coming metal detecting!

Ditto! ;)

Mind you, spent a couple of days in deepest North Wales last week and found a missing piece of a small tractor gearbox casing and two George III copper coins; all of which were handed over to the land owner.

I just can't understand why more of you folks don't invest in a decent metal detector but having said that, most detectorists will help out for free.

Happy to see this post removed, if any feel that it is too far off topic.

Chris 👍
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Problem i have is i have almost no end of off farm work that pays better that working at home.

And this gap will only continue to widen. Prices and wages within the wider economy rise inexorably, while agricultural prices stagnate. Minimum wage is now just under £9/hr. Within a few years it'll be £10/hr. How many farmers make £10/hr per hour worked? Farming is rapidly becoming a poverty line occupation for many (poverty being defined these days as a certain percentage of average incomes).
 

hoff135

Member
Location
scotland
And this gap will only continue to widen. Prices and wages within the wider economy rise inexorably, while agricultural prices stagnate. Minimum wage is now just under £9/hr. Within a few years it'll be £10/hr. How many farmers make £10/hr per hour worked? Farming is rapidly becoming a poverty line occupation for many (poverty being defined these days as a certain percentage of average incomes).

I've spent quite a lot of time and money trying to make things more efficient so I had more time to run an off farm business. But there is only so much you can do.

Divide the income from the farm by the hours and im not making minimum wage doing it.
 

hoff135

Member
Location
scotland
But that is your choice, most employees havnt the same commitment or loyalty as the owner. Like I said before, when they see what their counterparts are earning and for the 40hr week, it's not hard to see why they see better opportunities elsewhere.

Yes it is. But its not easy to say sell it or put the sheep off when its been in the family for 200 years
 

Andrew_Ni

Member
Location
Seaforde Co.Down
Yes it is. But its not easy to say sell it or put the sheep off when its been in the family for 200 years
Never suggested to sell it, but in the case of dairy. So long as the morning and evening milking and the other essential work is carried out, the rest of the day is your own. The long day is putting in time between milkings. Yes there are long busy days when you dont stop e.g silage, tb test etc. But for many farmers they know nothing else, unfortunately for many they havnt got much of a life away from the farm and they have only themselves to blame.
 

hoff135

Member
Location
scotland
Never suggested to sell it, but in the case of dairy. So long as the morning and evening milking and the other essential work is carried out, the rest of the day is your own. The long day is putting in time between milkings. Yes there are long busy days when you dont stop e.g silage, tb test etc. But for many farmers they know nothing else, unfortunately for many they havnt got much of a life away from the farm and they have only themselves to blame.

I'm sure with the right setup a part time livestock farm can provide a decent hourly wage. I have some grazing 3 miles away and some more a mile away. Today has consisted of running round trying to catch joint ill lambs in some pretty difficult hill terrain and feeding most sheep as its been so cold.

Over the course of the year I do all the work including clipping.

There may well be a case for giving up the rented ground and freeing up time for other work
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 80 42.1%
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    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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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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