Do Scottish suckler farmers need support??? Here are the figures

Bojangles

Member
Location
Scotland
what exactly are the opportunitites and upside unless you dont currently have a farm and want to get a cheap one off someone who has been forced to quit? all i can see is £60/cow coming off the figures quoted in the first post, yes some of my neighbours may drop out and i may get an opportunity to expand but i dont necessarily want that, may be forced to though the only way the figures could stack up is for 400 cow herd type scale with no outside labour and thats a lot of work/ requires investment in large efficient set up

But you are using figures from the current position with farmers using their current systems. Unless you have a fortune teller up the A9 how do you know what the trade will be. Most people can’t predict the fat price from one week to another let alone 4 Years in advance.
I agree with a lot of what you say but there is opportunity out there that doesn’t involve getting a cheap farm off some poor bugger who went bust.
The way I see it is the government has given you 4 Years to come up with a plan and get ready for what will come. Good opportunity for sons and daughters or ourselves to go and have a look at what others are doing in Scotland and the rest of the world.
That’s 4 Years to come up with a new idea and start to transition towards it. it’s bloody lucky we have a 4 year safety net and who is to say that you will not receive any support after then.
The truth is you, me and everyone else has been dealt a hand and now we have to play it as best we can
 

turbo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
lincs
I've no intention of "going into sheep" as such. I'm not expert on their husbandry & have enough to do with the arable, estate projects & environmental schemes. I got rid of the sucklers because they took excessive resources for an enterprise that made a small loss. Whilst mixed farming is best for the land there is a danger of being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. We chose to specialise in arable and environmental schemes & the grazing is currently let to a local dairy farmer who has been able to expand without having to buy or take a tenancy on more land.

The likely plan will be to find a specialist who will provide the sheep & management. We'll provide the land, fence it then look at a joint venture or grazing licence as appropriate. I currently have a local shepherd grazing my turnips - he, like a few more enterprising TFF members, is a self made person who gets no direct subsidy. He runs a low overhead system & doesn't complain about the state of the world. There are a few more like him that don't have the emotional baggage that comes from a lifetime of taxpayer support that some seem to carry.

You have a fair point about the exchange rate & trade deal. A lack of BPS is one thing but a tariff barrier & strong £ would really mess things up for extensive land based grazing livestock (and arable too). There is much to be sorted here and in Westminster/Brussels so this is not an advert for a grazing partner right now! Fencing a couple of thousand acres won't be cheap, nor will installing the water supplies but we'd do a bit each year or just keep it cheap & stay with electric fencing plus bowsers.
Do you think that fencing and water supply could be provided by the government via the stewardship schemes,a lot of land around here was done under the old hls so it's been done before!
 
But you are using figures from the current position with farmers using their current systems. Unless you have a fortune teller up the A9 how do you know what the trade will be. Most people can’t predict the fat price from one week to another let alone 4 Years in advance.
I agree with a lot of what you say but there is opportunity out there that doesn’t involve getting a cheap farm off some poor bugger who went bust.
The way I see it is the government has given you 4 Years to come up with a plan and get ready for what will come. Good opportunity for sons and daughters or ourselves to go and have a look at what others are doing in Scotland and the rest of the world.
That’s 4 Years to come up with a new idea and start to transition towards it. it’s bloody lucky we have a 4 year safety net and who is to say that you will not receive any support after then.
The truth is you, me and everyone else has been dealt a hand and now we have to play it as best we can
ut you are using figures from the current position with farmers using their current systems. Unless you have a fortune teller up the A9 how do you know what the trade will be. Most people can’t predict the fat price from one week to another let alone 4 Years in advance.

well put it this way once the price goes above a certain level on the shelves people start buying something else this was starting to happen a couple years back when the fat price went to £4.20 so the price hasnt ot much potential to increase and costs are rising all the time, machinery/fert/fuel/labour are on the increase so you tell me what the upside is when you rip away £60/cow out the net profit and how to fill that gap, bearing in mind thats out your NET PROFIT not your turnover very difficult when youve already been trying to fine tune your efficiency the last 10 years
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
But you are using figures from the current position with farmers using their current systems. Unless you have a fortune teller up the A9 how do you know what the trade will be. Most people can’t predict the fat price from one week to another let alone 4 Years in advance.
I agree with a lot of what you say but there is opportunity out there that doesn’t involve getting a cheap farm off some poor bugger who went bust.
The way I see it is the government has given you 4 Years to come up with a plan and get ready for what will come. Good opportunity for sons and daughters or ourselves to go and have a look at what others are doing in Scotland and the rest of the world.
That’s 4 Years to come up with a new idea and start to transition towards it. it’s bloody lucky we have a 4 year safety net and who is to say that you will not receive any support after then.
The truth is you, me and everyone else has been dealt a hand and now we have to play it as best we can
There's no hope for boss. We've been round in circles for the last 6 months and the only thing he will except is subsidy must be increased so he can compete on a global market. Unless your agreeing with him your wasting your breath trying to explain that there might be other ways or things to look at.
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
mabye they should pile into dairy or sheep and cause some overproduction, mess those sectors up?
No maybe they need to change their management, breed, timing of sales, yes wintering options, machinery costs lots of little things that can be changed if their not set in their ways of ' I keep large continental cows in sheds because tesco want cheap beef' mentality.
 

Bojangles

Member
Location
Scotland
ut you are using figures from the current position with farmers using their current systems. Unless you have a fortune teller up the A9 how do you know what the trade will be. Most people can’t predict the fat price from one week to another let alone 4 Years in advance.

well put it this way once the price goes above a certain level on the shelves people start buying something else this was starting to happen a couple years back when the fat price went to £4.20 so the price hasnt ot much potential to increase and costs are rising all the time, machinery/fert/fuel/labour are on the increase so you tell me what the upside is when you rip away £60/cow out the net profit and how to fill that gap, bearing in mind thats out your NET PROFIT not your turnover very difficult when youve already been trying to fine tune your efficiency the last 10 years


I agree and yes i remember the problems it caused when it was that high and yes £60 a head is a huge loss.
I also understand that you have been striving to make your herd the best it can be under the system that we have had and for that I respect your position as many have not done so. All I am saying is there ain’t one of us on here who can change what’s coming. Home farm is set to loose a sizeable chunk of profit and if I could I would keep it but the inevitable will happen eventually and I would rather it happened on my watch than my son or daughters. At least then I will know if we can stand on our own feet. It is coming and at least you and I are young enough to spend the next 10 Years trying to fine tune a new system that works.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
You'd be surprised at how small that critical mass is. The abbatoir capacity is the current problem, with long distances between an ever decreasing number of plants.
Good excuse to form a co-op and build your own ones (y)
A fantastic opportunity in fact, golden, imagine taking control of processing marketing and exporting all that beautiful beef !!
It will then limit the excuses to the weather and production costs, because any fool knows the main beneficiary at present are the processors and supermarkets.
I bet their profit is far and above boss's £110k sub cheque...

There is the upside, someone with a few smarts will do it in a few years if not before.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
its coming from ireland obviously

It is the biggest net exporter [by value/volume or both] of beef in the EU and the 5th biggest in the world. Exports in 2013 amounted to 470,000 tonnes worth over €2.1 billion. ... The United Kingdom remains the dominant export market for Irish beef, representing 53% of exports or 250,000 tonne

Yes, but you keep saying they will flood the UK. If the UK is currently 53% of their exports, obviously 47% goes to other markets. If UK beef production stopped & the Irish were to fill the gap, how could they increase production to such an extent to " flood " the market, while still servicing their existing markets. I just don't get where all this extra beef is going to come from ?
Maybe an opportunity for enterprising UK beef producers :)
Anyway, as has been pointed out, the public don't buy beef now, its all chicken. It's cheap, popular, British & going to be your biggest competitor.
NOT Irish / NZ / US / South American or Australian beef
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Good excuse to form a co-op and build your own ones (y)
A fantastic opportunity in fact, golden, imagine taking control of processing marketing and exporting all that beautiful beef !!
It will then limit the excuses to the weather and production costs, because any fool knows the main beneficiary at present are the processors and supermarkets.
I bet their profit is far and above boss's £110k sub cheque...

There is the upside, someone with a few smarts will do it in a few years if not before.

Good points eloquently stated, but you have to remember, that no matter what the solution or opportunity may be, there always seems to be a problem . . .

Hey, maybe that's it. Just like water going down a drain spins the opposite in the northern hemisphere, everything works in reverse . . .
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
I was just sitting waiting for an appointment and something dawned on me.

These Scottish suckler cow farmers need to take some responsibility for their business's. Its their management and costs that mean they don't make any/much profit. You would think they would be looking at and experimenting all sorts of different ideas/options if they genuinely wanted to continue keeping sucklers and remain viable.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
I was just sitting waiting for an appointment and something dawned on me.

These Scottish suckler cow farmers need to take some responsibility for their business's. Its their management and costs that mean they don't make any/much profit. You would think they would be looking at and experimenting all sorts of different ideas/options if they genuinely wanted to continue keeping sucklers and remain viable.

YES
YES
 

bumkin

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
pembrokeshire
View attachment 623986
I do know they do something.
My own belief is that they could do a lot more.
that was a god read(y) that lot started off when they thought home food production was important ,they were very aware of the balance of payments, now the N F U is an insurance company with a few people running around westminster trying to look important
 

bumkin

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
pembrokeshire
Exactly - why the actual.fudge would you still be listening to the likes of the AHDB NFU and the rest?
What do they actually do for you, other than spread propaganda to support their own positions and maintain the status quo?
The status quo is broken, the industrial "just add drugs and fertilise" model is broken, the sales and marketing is broken, in many cases the reward is gone from farming for the current generation and the next generation isn't keen to take the baton...
Truly lamentable.

I say some bright sparks could get around a table and say " fudge this, let's do better for our farmers and take control " but the unfortunate fact of the matter is - control.
The government wants control of agriculture, they don't trust you with it?
And they use all these tools to achieve it, just as farmers use their own tools to inflict their will on the landscape.

I fear it is about at the point of a standoff.
Shame some of the big guns for e.g. Dyson or those on the rich list wouldn't stump up the cash to set you free from your chains to the gov't - one of the big dairy tycoons here managed to set up his own dairy processing facility (Grant Patterson, Gardians, if you want to Google it) so it is a feasible thing to do.

But your gov't is toying with you, little soundbites from Gove is almost admission of guilt as to the fact it has been going on for a century and hasn't had the positive spin-off for the environment.

Yes, you have a massive domestic population and lots of hedge miles; but these are advantages!
The current model turns this massive advantage into disadvantage - I have a 4 acre field with horrible access, last thing on my mind is to try to get a plough or a combine in there!

I'd love to find a better way to help the situation than banging away on here, but you are soon going to have to start boycotting and taking action a la French farmer protests.
Sitting on your hands, taking the kings shilling and grumbling has not worked in the last century, time to act while you have your chance to dictate terms - the future generations will wonder why nobody did!!
well said!
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
The range of financial performance figures is staggering. This is from the industry itself as well. You can't tell me that continuing to use public money to continue the present state of affairs is worthwhile or in the collective best interests of the industry, that is madness.
That slice is still absolutely vital to the rural economy though.
Even if the farmers aren't benefiting, their community is, the support industries are, haulage firms, it has a massive flow-on effect.
Unfortunately to keep all that going would require almost immediate action - can you see it happening while there is still area payments?
Every drop of it is used to compete with the neighbours, never to pool the resource and use it to build a big abattoir... then you could extend the middle digit to the EUROP grid and be fair about it.
Alternatives need to be adopted as of 2015 not wait until 2025 and then say "oh sh!t, my animals don't fatten off grass, bugger, we're gone" all this takes time to arrange, and it appears folk are still looking towards the gov't to tell them what to do, because it always has done

But you are completely correct, you don't see a range like that over here because the bottom half are out of business (and have been for decades)
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
that was a god read(y) that lot started off when they thought home food production was important ,they were very aware of the balance of payments, now the N F U is an insurance company with a few people running around westminster trying to look important
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?attachments/murdoch-1995-sociologia_ruralis-pdf.622734/
Was a very interesting piece of reading, I especially liked the term "governmentality" and it reinforced my perception that the whole system is designed to keep the primary producer too well controlled to approach things from a different paradigm, which is how it seems for an oddball like myself on the forum- most of my suggestions seem to trigger a squad of spitfires to gun it down.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Good excuse to form a co-op and build your own ones (y)
A fantastic opportunity in fact, golden, imagine taking control of processing marketing and exporting all that beautiful beef !!
It will then limit the excuses to the weather and production costs, because any fool knows the main beneficiary at present are the processors and supermarkets.
I bet their profit is far and above boss's £110k sub cheque...

There is the upside, someone with a few smarts will do it in a few years if not before.

Farmer co-ops have a bit of a chequered history here. Lots of dairy ones have gone bust & one or two grain ones have as well. The problem we've had has been as the co-op has grown, the farmers who run it aren't always really good enough to make the transition to corporate managers/directors. For that you need proper suits - the growing pains of a business that started out as a means of farmers working together then needs proper management. Some of the successful ones has incorporated, floated and are now a long way from the founding farmers e.g. Dairy Crest. The ironic bit is that those farmers then sold the shares to put cash back into their marginal farms and are seeing the added value go to other shareholders, not them! The co-ops that are still farmer owned are mostly in other EU countries. Arla, Kerrygold, Union Invivo. The farmer owners of those are now taking a dividend out of British farmers! :banghead:

Farmer co-op abbatoirs? Hmm. Nice idea but if a profit driven business can't make slaughtering livestock pay for themselves I fail to see how a bunch of farmers can do it very differently unless they are prepared to subsidise it by accepting a lower price per head to boost the books of the abbatoir! I think farmers would be better buying into an existing successful venture. If you can't beat them, join them or buy them! I bought Tesco shares in the 1990s which did so well they paid for my Masters degree - ironic for a firm that specialised at capturing as much added value as possible...
 

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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