Farm Subsidies......expand or GET OUT???

Bossfarmer said:

fair enough, so you have expanded

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Yes. Said I had in first commend.

Bossfarmer said:

of course, but it can still increase to the required target

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Is it sensible or sustainable?

Bossfarmer said:

noone can, so output must of course be INCREASED not decreased

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What if the farm just employs 2 people, full time.
You can keep borrowing, keep expanding and try to stay ahead.

Or

What if you decrease so that it is full time for one person.
In most cases, scaling back reduces costs more than it decreases turnover, so you are more profitable.
The 2 people can then share the 1 full time role or 1 can work elsewhere.
That isn't subsidising the farm, that is better management of your assets.

Jackov Altraids said:

What if the farm just employs 2 people, full time.
You can keep borrowing, keep expanding and try to stay ahead.

Or

What if you decrease so that it is full time for one person.
In most cases, scaling back reduces costs more than it decreases turnover, so you are more profitable.
The 2 people can then share the 1 full time role or 1 can work elsewhere.
That isn't subsidising the farm, that is better management of your assets.

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My sentiments exactly.

PI Stsker said:

You’re not grasping what I’m saying. There is no minimum size farm; but if you’re not big enough to sustain the lifestyle you want then it’s clear there’s the answer (not big enough) Good luck with your diversification. Your case is a prime example of being sucked in to the government trap of diversification means you can continue to produce cheap food. All off the back of enjoying farming, and feeling stuck doing so.

Assuming I’m in a high and mighty castle born in to a situation I can support multiple generations is abut crute.

in your case if you enjoy farming so much if it were me I’d probably rent the lot out, put in some units and go self employed working for someone else cherry picking the jobs I want to do… you’d be in a much better situation.

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If my cost of production of a ton of barley is the same as my neighbour how is that subsidising food production? Because I can't produce enough to live off the profit entirely (size of farm) I should give it over to the neighbour, who would then produce barley for the same cost per ton?

Jackov Altraids said:

What if the farm just employs 2 people, full time.
You can keep borrowing, keep expanding and try to stay ahead.

Or

What if you decrease so that it is full time for one person.
In most cases, scaling back reduces costs more than it decreases turnover, so you are more profitable.
The 2 people can then share the 1 full time role or 1 can work elsewhere.
That isn't subsidising the farm, that is better management of your assets.

Click to expand...

Unpopular probably but going the no till route here the last 6/7 years (cultivate for spring crops or if there’s a genuine reason) has both cut our overheads significantly and allowed us to do a joint venture doubling in size without having to add much kit (a tractor and sprayer). Been able to keep output the same, which we know from various land agents etc we deal with.
the plan has done what it was supposed to have done, but at current prices and cost of new machinery it doesn’t make me very excited.

hoff135 said:

I wonder how much you will be able to get, some of the crazy rents won't be sustainable with out bps.

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In the world of dairy I suspect the hard line is around £300/acre for rent. I don't know this for certain and it will vary according to the region but I suspect if you had 100 acres of reasonable dirt with reasonable access and let someone plough it or do what they wanted you could get £300/acre around here.

Sam Partridge said:

If my cost of production of a ton of barley is the same as my neighbour how is that subsidising food production? Because I can't produce enough to live off the profit entirely (size of farm) I should give it over to the neighbour, who would then produce barley for the same cost per ton?

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I don't think the comment was aimed in that direction. The comment started off by saying there is no hard limit on the ultimate size of a farm except where income is concerned. You could be the most cost-effective barley grower in the land, but that's a moot point if you only have 10 acres and it nets you £1000 a year in gross profit because no one could live on that.

In this scenario, what is the point of developing another, secondary business, that pays your income, say £30,000 a year, whilst continuing to produce barley and make another £1000 on top?

The ultimate enemy of all farm product is oversupply. If people continue to pump product into the marketplace, because of inheritance tax laws or because they want to lose money farming or because they have another business propping it up, they are in fact ignoring all market signals when the price is low.

When Mr Mercedes GmbH encounters a situation where he finds there is a lot of stock on his forecourts and he can't sell cars fast enough, he cuts the supply of his cars and doesn't make as many. When stock is flying out the door and no dealer is carrying much stock, he puts on another shift in the factory, pays the manufacturing team more money in overtime and pumps out more cars; he makes hay whilst the sun shines.

In agriculture you have people who don't listen to market signals and pump out cars anyway, then moan like arsh hole that cars are worthless and no one is buying them and that imported cars are cheaper.

What is worse, is that too many people are making cars and have no clue how much a car actually costs them to make, no idea how to market them to the actual consumer and instead carry on as they always have done, building cars, without having any intention to ever change what they are doing. And even worse, some of the folk doing this expect the government to continue paying them to endlessly manufacture cars because the government/EU have always done that, because cars are important or some other similarly bone-idle or inane excuse.

None of it makes any sense. In reality the bulk of the industry will be far better off with no government funny money involved. All it does is distort the marketplace and subsidise people who simply shouldn't be making cars.

ollie989898 said:

I don't think the comment was aimed in that direction. The comment started off by saying there is no hard limit on the ultimate size of a farm except where income is concerned. You could be the most cost-effective barley grower in the land, but that's a moot point if you only have 10 acres and it nets you £1000 a year in gross profit because no one could live on that.

In this scenario, what is the point of developing another, secondary business, that pays your income, say £30,000 a year, whilst continuing to produce barley and make another £1000 on top?

The ultimate enemy of all farm product is oversupply. If people continue to pump product into the marketplace, because of inheritance tax laws or because they want to lose money farming or because they have another business propping it up, they are in fact ignoring all market signals when the price is low.

When Mr Mercedes GmbH encounters a situation where he finds there is a lot of stock on his forecourts and he can't sell cars fast enough, he cuts the supply of his cars and doesn't make as many. When stock is flying out the door and no dealer is carrying much stock, he puts on another shift in the factory, pays the manufacturing team more money in overtime and pumps out more cars; he makes hay whilst the sun shines.

In agriculture you have people who don't listen to market signals and pump out cars anyway, then moan like arsh hole that cars are worthless and no one is buying them and that imported cars are cheaper.

What is worse, is that too many people are making cars and have no clue how much a car actually costs them to make, no idea how to market them to the actual consumer and instead carry on as they always have done, building cars, without having any intention to ever change what they are doing. And even worse, some of the folk doing this expect the government to continue paying them to endlessly manufacture cars because the government/EU have always done that, because cars are important.

None of it makes any sense. In reality the bulk of the industry will be far better off with no government funny money involved. All it does is distort the marketplace and subsidise people who simply shouldn't be making cars.

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This is why the nfu are anti business and anti farming. The president recently promised to keep supplying cheap food to the population.

ajd132 said:

This is why the nfu are anti business and anti farming. The president recently promised to keep supplying cheap food to the population.

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And farmers pay into nfu !! Unbelievable they are a disaster !!

ajd132 said:

This is why the nfu are anti business and anti farming. The president recently promised to keep supplying cheap food to the population.

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I am going to hazard a guess here, but I would be willing to suggest that the NFU is staffed by people who either:

1. Quite like being important and that's a nice salary and pension thanks, can I have a go in slot X next please, oh chair of the AIC, wowsers, yes please?

or

2. Are living in UK agriculture PLC only the 1950's version.


Many years ago, I a telephone conversation with one farmer who I did not really know but somehow we got on to the subject of the NFU as it was around the time of the milk protests and farmers were blockading the factories at Bridgewater, etc. I will never forget the absolute acidity in his voice when he said: 'Mr X is our county NFU chairman, anyone who knows his farm would tell you it is a complete fudge-hole*'. To this day those words ring in my mind. If that is the truth of it, then what hope have ordinary grass roots farmers got? If you've got careerists at the helm they are hardly going to be too motivated to rock any boat and surely, any serious farmer would never have the time to fudge about playing musical chairs?

*paraphrased for reasons of civility and palatability.

Bossfarmer said:

Given the fact that subsidy goes straight to the bottom line(net profit) how does everyone plan to replace this? im not asking can you "survive" without it, simply how will you replace it? or will you just accept that you will make less money? given the fact the general populations minimum wage grows over time this may not be a good time to reduce profits, the fact this will affect every single farming business with land it could be worth discussion

After much thought the plan here is to increase cow numbers up from 200-300 over 5 years by swapping a char bull for a sim to breed a lot more replacements, push calves harder to sell younger, continue to improve pastures and i have a agreed to rent some grazing land and shed off a neighbour also, he is dispersing, ive also agreed to do all the arable work on his land for him at contractor rates and a straw for dung swap is the plan, 150 acres, this income is to help with machinery payments on my own farm, this may or may not work we shall see

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Well I unbelievably believe the same as that Dutch bloke in the Netherlands that did all right in their last elections, time to get rid of those stupid EU regulations and end subsidies!!!!

ollie989898 said:

I am going to hazard a guess here, but I would be willing to suggest that the NFU is staffed by people who either:

1. Quite like being important and that's a nice salary and pension thanks, can I have a go in slot X next please, oh chair of the AIC, wowsers, yes please?

or

2. Are living in UK agriculture PLC only the 1950's version.


Many years ago, I a telephone conversation with one farmer who I did not really know but somehow we got on to the subject of the NFU as it was around the time of the milk protests and farmers were blockading the factories at Bridgewater, etc. I will never forget the absolute acidity in his voice when he said: 'Mr X is our county NFU chairman, anyone who knows his farm would tell you it is a complete fudge-hole*'. To this day those words ring in my mind. If that is the truth of it, then what hope have ordinary grass roots farmers got? If you've got careerists at the helm they are hardly going to be too motivated to rock any boat and surely, any serious farmer would never have the time to fudge about playing musical chairs?

*paraphrased for reasons of civility and palatability.

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Could you please translate that into into Australian???
Over here that's a bit easier to understand than "english".

FonterraFarmer said:

Could you please translate that into into Australian???
Over here that's a bit easier to understand than "english".

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The implied message in the comment was: 'how in the fudge can this person be representing other farmers at county level when his farm is a bloody great mess and he is still farming as we did in the 1950's?'

If someone is supposedly helping to direct an entire industry, they should surely have a very good grasp of that industry and be very very good at it technically and commercially, not be a duffer whose mindset is decades out of date?

I’d say going by and landrover/fendt threads on the forum, if those ones “made do” with a rav4 and a New Holland, they wouldn’t notice the missing bps

warksfarmer said:

So you think subsiding Farming with alternative income streams just do somebody can carry on farming is good business?

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If it puts other farmers out of business, it will be possible to expand.

ie In bad times big farmer loses so much money he needs to sell some land to clear debts.

Part time farmer only loses a small amount, but because the day job pays, he can afford to spend more on renting or buying land than his farming neighbours.

900 acres arable on my own 11 months of the year. Last thing I would do is take on more land. Already a diverse business and will continue to expand that side, so I can keep growing crops which I enjoy and pay my salary. The diversifications pay for the nice things in life and increase the asset value. Will wring every last penny out of mid tier and Sfi I can.

Spud said:

So the hoppers rotten and you've replaced the discs and tines, but it's cost you nowt to keep

Think you need a new calculator ord lad, it seems yours has gone bozwonk

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If I got a bigger calculator could I make bigger profits then ?

digger64 said:

If I got a bigger calculator could I make bigger profits then ?

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No