If we stripped out regulations then our businesses may not need gov support.
Not going to happen though!
New limits to SFI.
- Thread starter Yale
- Start date
Not going to happen though!
lloyd
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
Not just wealthy landowners though it very much suits large scaleThe fact is that if land was just left alone with no payments at all, it would revert to natural habitat. This idea that you have to pay farmers to rave it about every year, drill non native bird seed and other stuff is just a very thin veneer of a justification to continue paying wealthy landowners public money.
There are over winter covers hereabouts about to be mullered by heavy discs. That’s just great for Skylark nests isn’t it? They are safer nesting in my winter wheat.
contract cereal farmers where a proportion of the land is poor yielding.
And at the time available to all.
I'm sure in 12 or 18 months time, commodity prices will be very different, which will cast a different view on things.
Exactly 1600 quid per Ha for wheat today will be 2000 quid per Ha in 12 months and SFI is Circa 800 quid average therefore unless SFI averages over £1000 per Ha before costs the risks of either system are the same over 3 yrs...
gone up the hill
Member
- Location
- Devon
They are not regulated half as much as we are here, have access to cheap labour, NO Farm assurance rubbish/ no EA breathing down your back all the time/ do not get inspection after inspection and so the list goes on!
I bought one sheep the other day, came back with 5 sheets of A4 paperwork for it and then i still had to put the movement in the book when i got back and all that paperwork has to be kept for several years, do they have this rubbish in places like Ukraine ?
- Location
- Northumberland
But they would’ve got their applications in long ago.
Pulling the ladder up after themselves?
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
No you don't its money for old rope and you know it. There's no more risk in SFI that there was in BPS, the main risk is the RPA inspectors declaring you've done something contrary to the rules and wanting their money back. There's no business risk at all, so to pretend your SFI will be earned by the sweat of your brow is utterly mendacious. In many cases you'll be being paid for things you'd have been doing anyway, so how exactly is that 'earning' it?
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
J
what’s that paperwork cost you, a lot less than faffing about with one sheep. that bit of regulation is hardly the difference between profit and loss is it
- Location
- Derbyshire
It's pretty certain though, that these sort of applicants ^^ are not in the 1% club.
Presumably, the ones that have really spooked DEFRA are those entering upwards of 1k heatares.
The rules were clear, and nobody as broken any laws.
It is just disappointing that DEFRA did not listen to the warnings and free advice given to them from TFF.
In fact, when pushed hard on it, DEFRA repeatedly said it was not possible to cap applications
Last edited:
The Options aren't going to establish themselves?
Reducing risk was always an attraction of SFI, those in SFI won't be the beneficiaries when the wheat price rockets. That stands to reason, they've not taken the risk of growing a crop that on lower yielding ground isn't going to deliver a profit with commodity prices that are as dire as they are now.
If Mark Spencer is really worried about food supply and security, giving UK farmers a level playing field in terms of standards of production is what needs to happen. If a pesticide is unsafe to use in the UK then we shouldn't be eating imported produce plastered with it.
- Location
- Devon
J
what’s that paperwork cost you, a lot less than faffing about with one sheep. that bit of regulation is hardly the difference between profit and loss is it
It costs the industry.
The primary producer ultimately bears all such costs.
Last edited:
livestock 1
Member
I think his point is that we used to be able to get on and farm rather than all this that and the other which we all seem to spend a lot of time doing now. It’s all cost and it all reduces productivityJ
what’s that paperwork cost you, a lot less than faffing about with one sheep. that bit of regulation is hardly the difference between profit and loss is it
lloyd
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
Average price of buying a ha of land in Ukraine in jan 2024
is quoted at 900 euros ha so where is the value to the
UK tax payer in paying £853 ha for wild bird food for one year .?
Last edited:
livestock 1
Member
Because it helps him. Wonder if he set the rates when he was handing out all his advice
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
No they aren't but equally if something goes wrong you'll probably be able to claim that you did the work and it was only the weather/pests/whatever that stopped it working, and you'll get paid anyway. If your wheat crop fails you get SFA. So 'farming' SFI options is not really any more farming than set a side was. Its virtually guaranteed income.
If SFI was paying purely by results, then there would be some serious risk involved, and if you got the payment you would indeed have earned it. As it is its just a grant with some very easy hoops to jump through to get it. If the government offered house holders a generous payment in return for keeping their lawns mowed and their windows and doors painted would it be considered something that was difficult to achieve or an easily gained freebie?
The point is if your wheat crop doesn't fail and yields well and the price rises, perhaps on the back of a geopolitical event you could stand to profit substantially.
The SFI payment is being eroded by inflation as we type.
SFI options do need some effort and work, and will deliver public benefits.
If the UK public was 100% concerned about UK food self sufficiency they wouldn't buy so much imported produce and foods we cannot grow in the UK well.
I think a field of flowers with Bees and butterflies is appreciated more by the public than a Horsch Leeb spraying a 5 way mix at 16k on a field of wall to wall wheat.
It's where we are, if this was 1946 we'd be encouraged to plough, but in the UK food supply is not an issue (at the moment) and when it is, its the governments problem, not the farmers producing below cost of production for decades just to be there when needed.
livestock 1
Member
If what you said was right then that would mean that I am already delivering these ‘public goods’ and have been for ever then why aren’t they paying me for them?
The answer would surely mean that their intentions might be something different to what you think
So focus on productivity and stick 2 fingers up to the paperwork?
Probably because you will keep delivering them, whether they pay you or not.
livestock 1
Member
Won’t happen will it