Your chance to help design ELMS

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
What used to pee me off the most about the inspections was that you never really got to know what was actually wrong. You would ask the inspector if there were any problems and say there weren’t any then at Christmas get a huge deduction for non compliance with greening requirements. You would then ring to find out what the reason was and nobody could ever tell you. Then 2 years later they paid out with no explanation. It was that sort of attitude that permanently dented my faith in DEFRA NE and the RPA. All sweetness and light at the roadshows when they want people to sign up, but a brick wall of silence when you need information from them. I’d never want to rely on them for much of my income again. They couldn’t care less about the size of your overdraft and the havoc they wreak on your finances with their arbitrary and opaque decisions.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
What used to pee me off the most about the inspections was that you never really got to know what was actually wrong. You would ask the inspector if there were any problems and say there weren’t any then at Christmas get a huge deduction for non compliance with greening requirements. You would then ring to find out what the reason was and nobody could ever tell you. Then 2 years later they paid out with no explanation. It was that sort of attitude that permanently dented my faith in DEFRA NE and the RPA. All sweetness and light at the roadshows when they want people to sign up, but a brick wall of silence when you need information from them. I’d never want to rely on them for much of my income again. They couldn’t care less about the size of your overdraft and the havoc they wreak on your finances with their arbitrary and opaque decisions.

At least you got your payment after 2 years....

My gripe was as with you, Inspector says "No problems" at the time...

18 months later... Told there was a shortfall in SF area. Impossible to prove or disprove otherwise, as there have been 2 crops since then. I asked for the Inspectors notes. None were kept.

Queried why if there was an alleged shorfall in area, why was it not reported on the day or within a few days so that a second inspection could have been made by myself with an Agent. No comment from NE/RPA....

Queried the Inspectors statement that I had "signed off the Report" News to me, as I was not even about when he came back to complete his 2nd day inspection. I asked for a record of this "signing off".... Guess what, it was not available!

Ho Hum!
 
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6 sets of environmental outcomes to spend the money on. Not one is food production. I hope farmers are taking note.


Quite.

Like all Uk industries our shite government spends most of it's time undermining the workers and promoting imports.

Case in point Oilseed Rape imports from the Ukraine grown using Neonicitinoids which are banned in the UK.

Time HMG was nipped in the bud .. they are of no use to me.


As an aside .. you vote Conservative but get Labour, Liberal and Green policies.

Who the hell voted for this BS ?
 
At least you got your payment after 2 years....

My gripe was as with you, Inspector says "No problems" at the time...

18 months later... Told there was a shortfall in SF area. Impossible to prove or disprove otherwise, as there have been 2 crops since then. I asked for the Inspectors notes. None were kept.

Queried why if there was an alleged shorfall in area, why was it not reported on the day or within a few days so that a second inspection could have been made by myself with an Agent. No comment froim NE/RPA....

Queried the Inspectors statement that I had "signed off the Report" News to me, as I was not even about when he came back to complete his 2nd day inspection. I asked for a record of this "signing off".... Guess what, it was not available!

Ho Hum!


It's a hiding to nothing.

Being assessed and made to jump by a group of people who's income and wages are not based on risk, the weather, pests and customers.
 
They couldnt because it would cost 230,700,000,000 just to buy the land let alone manage and implement as you say.

Our role is the governments puppet and they are hoping elms can become the strings to our limbs.


Quite .. the more bus bodies in HMG, the more managers are required, the more directors and the more "Taxes" are spent on the administration rather than the workers.

It's a self forefilling prophecy .. why the hell have we got these parasites in the first place ?
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
At least you got your payment after 2 years....

My gripe was as with you, Inspector says "No problems" at the time...

18 months later... Told there was a shortfall in SF area. Impossible to prove or disprove otherwise, as there have been 2 crops since then. I asked for the Inspectors notes. None were kept.

Queried why if there was an alleged shorfall in area, why was it not reported on the day or within a few days so that a second inspection could have been made by myself with an Agent. No comment froim NE/RPA....

Queried the Inspectors statement that I had "signed off the Report" News to me, as I was not even about when he came back to complete his 2nd day inspection. I asked for a record of this "signing off".... Guess what, it was not available!

Ho Hum!

I requested to see the inspector’s report. You would think it would be a simple matter to email it out. It was never forthcoming. No one person worked on my case. It just seemed to float in limbo and nobody knew anything about it. I’d be very wary of trusting such an organisation to roll out a complex new scheme. I envisage their systems will go into meltdown quite frankly, especially if relying on remote inspections. Thanks to that I even have roadside verges as land parcels: some designated as scrub, some as permanent pasture. I haven’t bothered correcting them as I never claim on them.
My recent RLE1 to show a new field boundary resulted in the boundary wrongly drawn despite clear and accurate scale drawing sent in. And these people are going to roll out schemes across the country. If they could enact the simplest most basic changes without screwing it up I’d have some faith in them, but in my experience they are just not up to it and never will be.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Quite.

Like all Uk industries our shite government spends most of it's time undermining the workers and promoting imports.

Case in point Oilseed Rape imports from the Ukraine grown using Neonicitinoids which are banned in the UK.

Time HMG was nipped in the bud .. they are of no use to me.


As an aside .. you vote Conservative but get Labour, Liberal and Green policies.

Who the hell voted for this BS ?

The electorate. The People have spoken! However small the majority
 
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steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
If they will pay me to grow flowers and tend butterflies and bumble bees thats what I best do. I dont know how many butterflies and bees it takes to make a meal but ha ho.

All fine and dandy, but...


David Kennedy and other DEFRA wallahs keep going on about outcomes. So how many butterflies or bumble bees will be required to hit the "outcome" that will then allow TPTB to release a modest sum of moolah to you???
 
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Victor

Member
Location
Devon
Looked at going into a environmental stewardship (or whatever its called now) and having looked at my hedges that couldn't be trimmed due to the wet autumn there is no way I can only cut hedges once every 3 years which you have to put some hedges in the scheme
It's ok for the farms with grass banks as hedges but the far more environmentally friendly hedges I have here imo aren't suitable for cutting once every 3 yrs so wont be applying this yr
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Booked to take part on the 30th.
The big question is why is it policy to pay farmers to stop farming? This effectively means do nothing and get paid, or try and do something, take a risk, work hard, buy and sell and don't get any government money and possibly make a loss as well?

Farming may not be profitable for farmers but there's a huge body of industry relying on the status quo who seem to do quite well out of it. Farmers might not be the big loser in all of this if it actually happens. Living in the middle of a nature reserve sounds quite appealing in some ways.

Makes you wonder how closely this has all been looked into...
 

Dave645

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
N Lincs
The big question is why is it policy to pay farmers to stop farming? This effectively means do nothing and get paid, or try and do something, take a risk, work hard, buy and sell and don't get any government money and possibly make a loss as well?

Farming may not be profitable for farmers but there's a huge body of industry relying on the status quo who seem to do quite well out of it. Farmers might not be the big loser in all of this if it actually happens. Living in the middle of a nature reserve sounds quite appealing in some ways.

Makes you wonder how closely this has all been looked into...
the short answer is world trade rules means no direct food production subs are allowed.
No farmer can be subsidised to grow a crop.

I will add direct sub ended with massive food mountains of stuff we were paid to produce regardless of demand.

what we actually need is help to target the right level of supply into the U.k market so we avoid the need for exports as much as possible and the need for imports for food we can grow in this country, abit like the 50% sugar cane sugar we are forced to import under the EU while or farmers can produce sugar beet just fine.
Promote British and have the British labels mean just that, not the mess we have now.

while the old marketing boards were not perfect with modern tech and some guidance we could improve local market prices without much effort, and this reduces farming reliance on sub. They should be less about control more about guidance.

This is not targeted at you or anyone, I will add, I think what most non farmers don’t factor in is the shear variability in production the weather can inflict on farming and the massive investments farming requires. The public’s experience for the most part is a 39hr a week jobs or set wages for set work, not many have experience working for a year and actually barely making a profit.
case in point this year a local farmer near me (isle of axholme) gambled on Winter Wheat late drilled and it didn’t work we didn’t get the frosts it needed, the fields just look like a grass with an odd few heads of wheat here and there.
I know they pay big rents for the land £270/ acre they get the sub. But even being a big farmer doesn’t mean a few hundred acres like that doesn’t take the shine off any years profits. Cost of rent, cost of seed, spray, and fert, that’s a big hit. It looked great until it didn’t put any heads up. . . .
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
the short answer is world trade rules means no direct food production subs are allowed.
No farmer can be subsidised to grow a crop.

I will add direct sub ended with massive food mountains of stuff we were paid to produce regardless of demand.

what we actually need is help to target the right level of supply into the U.k market so we avoid the need for exports as much as possible and the need for imports for food we can grow in this country, abit like the 50% sugar cane sugar we are forced to import under the EU while or farmers can produce sugar beet just fine.
Promote British and have the British labels mean just that, not the mess we have now.

while the old marketing boards were not perfect with modern tech and some guidance we could improve local market prices without much effort, and this reduces farming reliance on sub. They should be less about control more about guidance.

This is not targeted at you or anyone, I will add, I think what most non farmers don’t factor in is the shear variability in production the weather can inflict on farming and the massive investments farming requires. The public’s experience for the most part is a 39hr a week jobs or set wages for set work, not many have experience working for a year and actually barely making a profit.
case in point this year a local farmer near me (isle of axholme) gambled on Winter Wheat late drilled and it didn’t work we didn’t get the frosts it needed, the fields just look like a grass with an odd few heads of wheat here and there.
I know they pay big rents for the land £270/ acre they get the sub. But even being a big farmer doesn’t mean a few hundred acres like that doesn’t take the shine off any years profits. Cost of rent, cost of seed, spray, and fert, that’s a big hit. It looked great until it didn’t put any heads up. . . .
Yes I agree. The risky, unpredictable nature of the business is the hardest thing to cope with
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

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

  • 1,286
  • 1
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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