Save Our Farms

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Who by?

I’m thinking not the government

Not ours.

Any society that hasn't become completely disconnected from agriculture and provision of food.

The modern world is getting used to being able to get virtually anything they want, delivered the next day. I'm afraid they have no comprehension of the lead times required to produce food and more significantly, to increase production.

You need agriculture to run at a surplus in the same way as a hospital needs to run with some empty beds.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
You need agriculture to run at a surplus in the same way as a hospital needs to run with some empty beds.

Exactly right. Sadly British policians have been told that "efficiency" means running at max capacity.

Unfortunately this "efficiency" can turn inefficient very quickly indeed when things change because there is no flexibility. Just like a farmer cutting 2000ac with a 20' combine and claiming to be efficient. Get a wet harvest and they only cut 40% of it, suddenly the cost savings of the past few years pail into insignificance compared to the losses in that one year.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I would not mind the gradual cutting of BPS in itself. Rents would have to adjust, etc. That’s life. It might even get farming running on a more realistic basis.
The slap in the face is the transfer of the cash saved by cutting BPS into schemes that are far less worthy than farming in my opinion. None of these rewilding schemes will generate enough profit to be a net gain to the taxman for example, so they won’t help pay for schools and hospitals etc, but what they will do, as we see already, is force some hardworking progressive livestock farmers off the land as landlords switch over to the environmental money. So it’s a loss of livelihoods, a loss of tax revenue, a loss of activity in the rural economy and a loss of food production security.
That’s the nub of it for me. The schemes provide an easy escape route for landlords, even a bonanza, but for tenants it really doesn’t look good even though they are and have to be some of the most efficient farmers in the land.
A gradual wind down of BPS without wholesale environmental schemes as an alternative, would have meant landlords were required to keep some kind of active farming operation going on the land and maybe share the pain of a rent reduction. The problem now is landlords have no incentive to keep an active farmer in place. It will be much easier for them to deal directly with DEFRA and hoover up a considerable sum for much less risk and effort.
As I’ve said before, subsidies discourage real enterprise, graft and efficiency.
And I’ve nothing against rewilding, nature reserves or carbon capture per se. You should be free to do as you like with your own land but why transfer the subsidy problem from one industry to another? Let’s rewilding, carbon capture and nature reserves pay their own way. We are told everybody wants them and consider them good value so let’s see how deep they will dig in their own pockets to pay for them. Break the subsidy cycle.
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
Looking at who is behind these schemes I’d say the LR scheme is a crafty way of kick starting the green investment banking sector with a large dollop of guaranteed annual income courtesy of the taxpayer.
Exactly this. My agronomist today was saying that a chap he knows sold one large block of land to buy another (better soil) the block he sold sold locally for good money and was then sold 2 months later to an American Company that is tasked with buying up uk land to re-wild/plant trees etc, apparently they have billions at their disposal for this purpose. Just a land grab via the backdoor.
 

DRC

Member
Exactly this. My agronomist today was saying that a chap he knows sold one large block of land to buy another (better soil) the block he sold sold locally for good money and was then sold 2 months later to an American Company that is tasked with buying up uk land to re-wild/plant trees etc, apparently they have billions at their disposal for this purpose. Just a land grab via the backdoor.
What price are these companies paying for land
 

DRC

Member
I would not mind the gradual cutting of BPS in itself. Rents would have to adjust, etc. That’s life. It might even get farming running on a more realistic basis.
The slap in the face is the transfer of the cash saved by cutting BPS into schemes that are far less worthy than farming in my opinion. None of these rewilding schemes will generate enough profit to be a net gain to the taxman for example, so they won’t help pay for schools and hospitals etc, but what they will do, as we see already, is force some hardworking progressive livestock farmers off the land as landlords switch over to the environmental money. So it’s a loss of livelihoods, a loss of tax revenue, a loss of activity in the rural economy and a loss of food production security.
That’s the nub of it for me. The schemes provide an easy escape route for landlords, even a bonanza, but for tenants it really doesn’t look good even though they are and have to be some of the most efficient farmers in the land.
A gradual wind down of BPS without wholesale environmental schemes as an alternative, would have meant landlords were required to keep some kind of active farming operation going on the land and maybe share the pain of a rent reduction. The problem now is landlords have no incentive to keep an active farmer in place. It will be much easier for them to deal directly with DEFRA and hoover up a considerable sum for much less risk and effort.
As I’ve said before, subsidies discourage real enterprise, graft and efficiency.
And I’ve nothing against rewilding, nature reserves or carbon capture per se. You should be free to do as you like with your own land but why transfer the subsidy problem from one industry to another? Let’s rewilding, carbon capture and nature reserves pay their own way. We are told everybody wants them and consider them good value so let’s see how deep they will dig in their own pockets to pay for them. Break the subsidy cycle.
Problem is alot of our competitors are subsidised. I don’t think the BPS was particularly expensive to the tax payer, and mostly got filtered down to other companies. Just should’ve been targeted more carefully to working farmers
 

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
One upon a time, there was something called the "Balance of Payments figure" which was announced on a regular basis. Our Glorious Leader and the Conservative Party don't think this has any relevance to modern economics...

But surely UKplc is better off if we grow out own food here and not overseas... When there was an Empire, there was a proper trade which could justify food imports, but now?
More info here than you can shake a stick at:

 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Exactly this. My agronomist today was saying that a chap he knows sold one large block of land to buy another (better soil) the block he sold sold locally for good money and was then sold 2 months later to an American Company that is tasked with buying up uk land to re-wild/plant trees etc, apparently they have billions at their disposal for this purpose. Just a land grab via the backdoor.
Is it an airline or carmaker?
that wants stopping
Tell the yanks yo go rewild their own land
 
We shouldve stayed in the EU a lot of farmers didnt realise how good we had it, we were farming on a level footing with the rest of europe, now when the uk subs go the irish will flood us with highly subsidised beef and upland farms in this country will be used for enviro schemes
 
We shouldve stayed in the EU a lot of farmers didnt realise how good we had it, we were farming on a level footing with the rest of europe, now when the uk subs go the irish will flood us with highly subsidised beef and upland farms in this country will be used for enviro schemes
It is thought that farmers were split somewhere near 50:50 over Brexit, so even if every single farmer had voted remain, there would still have been a majority for leave.
 

Pilatus

Member
Location
cotswolds
Exactly this. My agronomist today was saying that a chap he knows sold one large block of land to buy another (better soil) the block he sold sold locally for good money and was then sold 2 months later to an American Company that is tasked with buying up uk land to re-wild/plant trees etc, apparently they have billions at their disposal for this purpose. Just a land grab via the backdoor.
Off topic.
I was told that an 800 acre farm about 2-3mls west of your Swindon road land is coming on the market. If true it will be interesting to see who ends up buying it and for what price.
It will be really sad if such a level farm with good soil ends up being bought by an organisation that you mention :mad:
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,294
  • 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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