- Location
- Ceredigion
Headage Payments were the Nitram of expansion and did a lot of damage to smaller farms
End of the Road for Small Livestock Farms?
- Thread starter Frank-the-Wool
- Start date
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
Yup , I’d fight tooth and nail against going back to that it was a disaster.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Hi, Neilo. You make a valid observation.
I work in Agriculture. Not as a farmer. On both sides of my family were farm workers, not farmers, although my father did have a bit of land as a county council smallholder - now amalgamated into a larger holding.
I am the last person anywhere within my cousins or any nephews nieces with any direct involvement with Agriculture. I speak occasionally with my nephews and nieces and there children - none have any connection with Agriculture at all - and no idea about food production. Irrelevant to the thread, so apologies, but just thought would make the observation.
In space of one generation my family has left Agriculture. And if I had had a better idea 42 years ago I would have selected another degree course than Agriculture! But I nor my tutors knew no better at the time, after all I came from a family of farm workers and county council smallholders - surely Agriculture was the obvious option - especially in the late 70s drive to more production.
Hey ho.
How was headage awful, no bloody paperwork or endless interference or environmental rules, simply a nice ministry chap turning up with prior notice to count a few cows & sheep, compared with what we are lumbered with now it was heaven in comparison! All it needs is a limit on numbers.
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
If you don’t understand by now you never will , I ain’t entering an argument about the past or something that isn’t going to happen anyway so jog on eh but take it from one who farmed extensively through both systems headage did more harm than any good .
Chae1
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
Still get headage payments in Scotland. Beef calf scheme pays roughly £100/hd per calf.
Suckler bred cattle used to get a premium for their meat,now it’s just beef as everyone in the food chain is wanting that extra dollar off .Sadly it’s the start of food chain that pays the price not the end .Why does everyone think it’s only small farms that need the subs, wait until those lottery chqs stop falling in the letter box in December .I bet a lot of small farms will somehow make their small amount up.Time all this sub money went on everything,turbines don’t get me going.EU money for expansion of all business let’s face it the bigger you are the bigger the chq,why knock small business or farmers most have not had the chance to access all grants,subs.
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
Hardly enough to encourage folk into mass production tho is it .
- Location
- Fife
Seems to me the death knell for small farms started when headage payments stopped & you were then payed for each acre you claimed on, easy money if you were rich, the only people who disliked headage payments were the greedy buggers who stuffed their farms with ever more stock just for the payments.
With a cap on numbers we would be free to farm as we wish, & small chaps would be able to at least have a chance. Anyone who thinks what we have just had or going to get is better than headage is walking into a nightmare!
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
If big is efficient, why do they need subsidy?
The unlimited payment of iacs and bps and to a lesser extrnt sfp has encouraged estates to empty out tenants and become “ farmers” which in history has never worked and will fail again.
The countryside has emptied at a frightening rate in the last twenty years which could have been lessened if support was tapered off as the eu originally intended but vetoed by uk govt
- Location
- Essex
Don't try and pretend that the cap has done nothing but harm to farmers, consumers or the environment.
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
Cap has provided cheap food, avoided famine, and in europe it has kept farmers on the land.
In the uk with our fuked up land system, it has driven farmers off the land
Bossfarmer
Member
- Location
- between Perth and Inverness
only if theres a margin other wise the bigger you are the more you loose, yes at current grain prices no when it was £90/t
- Location
- Essex
Yes but as above, it has allowed recreational production which ultimately has benefitted everyone else in the supply chain (including the inputs side) except farmers.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
And people save nothing to ge them through lean times?
There has never been a bigger demand on rural housing here albeit not by people involved with agriculture. Things change and if people own land why cant they farm it themselves, if you dont like it then buy your own farm!
flyonthewall
Member
The other point is look at the multiplier effects of even the smallest suckler farmer. They buy seed and fertiliser, steel for barns, use builders for repairing property and roofs, fence posts and wire for fencing, machinery dealers for tractors and implements and vets for routine tb testing and other non routine stock problems. In my view it amounts to economic vandalism to the countryside and to a section of society that should be appreciated for putting good food on the table. To rub it in an Aus trade agreement shows you the contempt this government have towards us. I get the argument of enlarging farms to gain economies of scale, unfortunately for most dairy farmers this has proven to be just a method of survival, most of the general public prefer to see their food produced on small scale by farmers who care for other matters other than just the bottom line. We shouldn’t be thrown under the Brexit bus like this.
Bossfarmer
Member
- Location
- between Perth and Inverness
this is the dillusion many farmers were under voting for brexit, convieniently forgetting the rise of the supermarkets the last 30 years keeping farm prices on the floor while our costs rise the only thing thats kept many going is the sub
- Location
- Ceredigion
Is it capped