SFI is NOT the answer

Homesy · Dec 10, 2023

I'm just doing mine. For grass farmers, you can almost get as much as the old payments, more in some cases. It's not so bad if adopt the correct options. The people who will lose out are the big arable farms with no hedges or marginal ground. They're probably super efficient anyhow.

Bury the Trash · Dec 10, 2023

oil barron said:
Builders, developers and Council planners aren’t really interested in the long term sustainability of UK farming. You would hope farmers are.

yes even the ones who sell of a field for 1 million £ or for house building. because that land really is "gone for ever "
( ever is a long time mind you

)

Jackov Altraids · Dec 10, 2023

I was told that for the first time, someone [I think from a supermarket] said on the radio, that the increase in the price of food was at least in part contributable by the removal of farm subsidy and that there were now NO payments for producing food in this country.
I've spent the last half hour trying to find it but have failed.
Why have the NFU never mentioned this? [as far as I know]

oil barron · Dec 10, 2023

spin cycle said:
the way I see it...

so why try?....get into sfi and give them what they want

Never give up. You’ll feel better for it.

Northern territory · Dec 10, 2023

Homesy said:
I'm just doing mine. For grass farmers, you can almost get as much as the old payments, more in some cases. It's not so bad if adopt the correct options. The people who will lose out are the big arable farms with no hedges or marginal ground. They're probably super efficient anyhow.

I can’t get anywhere near it without causing a lot of headaches. Do I want the hassle ? not really. If I was going into sfi I would bin the livestock

teslacoils · Dec 10, 2023

Jackov Altraids said:
I was told that for the first time, someone [I think from a supermarket] said on the radio, that the increase in the price of food was at least in part contributable by the removal of farm subsidy and that there were now NO payments for producing food in this country.
I've spent the last half hour trying to find it but have failed.
Why have the NFU never mentioned this? [as far as I know]

Many SFi options can be combined with food production. Swapping intensive leys for herbal leys; making management plans; not using insecticides etc.

On the face of it, wheat prices have gone back to pre-ukraine levels or thereabouts. While a new tractor or bank rates haven't. And the general public have all had close to ten percent pay rises to pay for it all.

I'm trying to stay in business in what looks a sh!t year and tough times. If the outlook for comvinables is grim, why not take a few years off? Because I certainly can't make as much profit from spring cereals, osr, beans etc.

Jackov Altraids · Dec 10, 2023

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/62/environmental-audit-committee/membership

This committee has recommended that food security is considered to be a 'public good'.
And that ELMS options should reflect that.

gone up the hill · Dec 10, 2023

Northern territory said:
I can’t get anywhere near it without causing a lot of headaches. Do I want the hassle ? not really. If I was going into sfi I would bin the livestock

Talking to several grass/livestock farmers yesterday and all had either applied or were going to apply for SFI, all said they will be cutting livestock numbers ( as they were fed up with such high costs/ low farm gate prices for stock ) to enable them to do the high paying SFI options like over wintered bird food!

If you do not have sheep the winter bird seed option at £480 hectare is a no brainer to do!

The Gov have made it clear that food production is irelevant and not needed ( quite what people will eat is another matter! ) in the UK anymore!

The full effects of no ££ support for UK food production will not be seen for 4/5 years time both on food prices in the shops and the supplier network at both ends of the supply chain to farmers.

DrWazzock · Dec 10, 2023

You have to ask yourself whether it’s a deliberate policy to run down U.K. agricultural production or an incidental side effect and what will happen as sectors fall below “critical” mass. We have already lost the one and only oilseed rape crushing plant in this region due to drop off in OSR production due to loss of seed dressings and resultant loss of crops. While we battle on to grow the crop, its a lot less attractive as an enterprise with much higher haulage costs to the two remaining crushers in Kent/Liverpool now miles away from what was the main growing area and of course they are well set up to crush imported oilseeds.
Personally I think we are where coal was in 1980. There will be denial that we are being run down but there will be (in fact already is) soft policy to run us down by regulating away our essential inputs such as chemical actives for example, environmental legislation, or as we see with RT, close us off from our markets unless we meet requirements that become evermore commercially impossible. In this new global corporate world, commodity production will be something for Ukraine and S America. Offsetting and biodiversity will the main U.K. land use but it will be controlled by natural capital corporates.
And the OP is right. Once processing capacity is lost it won’t return. Finished products will be imported. And it is already happening. It won’t be the case either that processing runs down in line with production. It will close down in big steps, such is the size of the plants, leaving many producers here with limited or flooded home markets and an unviable business accelerating the decline.
That’s probably a bit over gloomy but reflects my mood surrounded by sudden soils but I reckon it’s a possible worst case scenario unless somebody does something to value and prioritise home production.

Northern territory · Dec 10, 2023

gone up the hill said:
Talking to several grass/livestock farmers yesterday and all had either applied or were going to apply for SFI, all said they will be cutting livestock numbers ( as they were fed up with such high costs/ low farm gate prices for stock ) to enable them to do the high paying SFI options like over wintered bird food!

If you do not have sheep the winter bird seed option at £480 hectare is a no brainer to do!

The Gov have made it clear that food production is irelevant and not needed ( quite what people will eat is another matter! ) in the UK anymore!

The full effects of no ££ support for UK food production will not be seen for 4/5 years time both on food prices in the shops and the supplier network at both ends of the supply chain to farmers.

Don’t blame them but things like that don’t fit here with mixed arable, sheep and cattle. Certainly running things more extensively looks the future.

teslacoils · Dec 10, 2023

Jackov Altraids said:
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/62/environmental-audit-committee/membership

This committee has recommended that food security is considered to be a 'public good'.
And that ELMS options should reflect that.

Food security= tarrif free imports. The stuff that I grow, ie feed wheat, is 9 times out of ten, in healthy surplus. That's without subsidy. So I gesss that makes it secure.

onesiedale · Dec 10, 2023

Homesy said:
I'm just doing mine. For grass farmers, you can almost get as much as the old payments, more in some cases. It's not so bad if adopt the correct options. The people who will lose out are the big arable farms with no hedges or marginal ground. They're probably super efficient anyhow.

but a big arable farm with no hedges and marginal ground will have most to gain from other income streams such as BNG.

The threat of SFI is two fold;
short term it gives a lot of options to manage land differently, but probably worse, it sends out a blueprint to policy makers that it is the "correct way to manage land" and spin-offs will evolve such as BNG leaving farmland mothballed whilst the skillset of people in the industry and food system will disappear.

As said above; Abattoirs and vet practices are a classic example in SE England.

The Cartel are getting their way.

gone up the hill · Dec 10, 2023

Northern territory said:
Don’t blame them but things like that don’t fit here with mixed arable, sheep and cattle. Certainly running things more extensively looks the future.

What those farmers are doing is putting the land into SFI options and making the livestock farming fit around the SFI scheme, one for example is going to cut cattle numbers 50% and house them all at the end of July instead of October and then those grazing fields can go into the bird seed option, he feeds the cattle grain at grass anyway so they will do faster/ just as well be indoors, ( which of course then helps with the aim of all cattle being finished no later than 24 months old )

The biggest issue is if you are also in CS as its very hard to make both that and the SFI scheme work together!

spin cycle · Dec 10, 2023

Homesy said:
I'm just doing mine. For grass farmers, you can almost get as much as the old payments, more in some cases. It's not so bad if adopt the correct options. The people who will lose out are the big arable farms with no hedges or marginal ground. They're probably super efficient anyhow.

fair play for you to make it work....but i'dve thought ,for big arable operations, sfi is very attractive

i think the 'crunch' is going to be for the huge area contract farmed.....the equation is going to be squeezed...landowners won't have the infrastructure to do own sfi but won't stand the contract farmed cost...the contractor will loose ground so costs won't be able to be spread as well

possibly we'll see a type of 'sfi whole farm contractor' rise....if I were younger I'd be thinking along those lines

Northern territory · Dec 10, 2023

gone up the hill said:
What those farmers are doing is putting the land into SFI options and making the livestock farming fit around the SFI scheme, one for example is going to cut cattle numbers 50% and house them all at the end of July instead of October and then those grazing fields can go into the bird seed option, he feeds the cattle grain at grass anyway so they will do faster/ just as well be indoors, ( which of course then helps with the aim of all cattle being finished no later than 24 months old )

The biggest issue is if you are also in CS as its very hard to make both that and the SFI scheme work together!

Is that suckler cows or bought in stores

Bury the Trash · Dec 10, 2023

gone up the hill said:
quite what people will eat is another matter! ) in the UK anymore!

imported food of course same as now only more so.

gone up the hill said:
The full effects of no ££ support for UK food production will not be seen for 4/5 years time both on food prices in the shops and the supplier network at both ends of the supply chain to farmers.

also it would be a very bad thing to lose of more numbers (and owners )of abattoirs is of all the (local) knowledge skills that we all know is involved in the job, one in the same as countryman skills ,will be lost even more than they are now.

as recorded / advised in many @delilah posts of course .

gone up the hill · Dec 10, 2023

Bury the Trash said:
imported food of course same as now only more so.

also bad thing to loss of more numbers (and owners )of abattoirs is of all the (local) knowledge skills that we all know is involved in the job, one in the same as countryman skills ,will be lost even more than they are now.

as recorded (or advised )in many @delilah posts of course .

Yes but it will end up like the energy job, cheaper to import untill its not...

spin cycle · Dec 10, 2023

gone up the hill said:
What those farmers are doing is putting the land into SFI options and making the livestock farming fit around the SFI scheme, one for example is going to cut cattle numbers 50% and house them all at the end of July instead of October and then those grazing fields can go into the bird seed option, he feeds the cattle grain at grass anyway so they will do faster/ just as well be indoors, ( which of course then helps with the aim of all cattle being finished no later than 24 months old )

The biggest issue is if you are also in CS as its very hard to make both that and the SFI scheme work together!

I think the other problem with the grass seed for winter birds option is going to be ragwort

gone up the hill · Dec 10, 2023

Northern territory said:
Is that suckler cows or bought in stores

Bought in stirks taken to finished.

Like i say its harder with sheep and suckler cows to an extent.

But take the winter bird food option at nigh on £200 acre, to achieve that same net profit per acre from buying store lambs would mean you need to finish nigh on 20 lambs per acre in the winter months.

gone up the hill · Dec 10, 2023

spin cycle said:
I think the other problem with the grass seed for winter birds option is going to be ragwort

Cant be set up too early for sure but just early enough to get some seeded grass in it.

SFI is NOT the answer

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Up to 25%

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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