Any Future.

[Chae1]

I cant see rents falling either and are much more likely to increase substantially.I wouldnt like to be negotiating a 3 year rent review now,with record sheep prices,cattle at 400p,wheat at £200/t,and milk at 30p. How the hell are you going to justify a rent reduction? There is still huge competition for land,either rent short or long term,or to buy.

Which tells you something?

Plenty people are optimistic about the future of agriculture.

If the op is doubting the future of agriculture. Move over. There will be a queue of people lining up to take over.

 

[Brisel]

Are you really being serious? If i told my landlord or agent to pay me to graze their land,they would tell me i was mad,laugh in my face,and tell me to F off. If i gave the land up,there would be at least two dozen offers of rent(and probably higher than what i was paying) before i drove back home from their office.

Even if the landlord had a ELMS option on the grass worth £130/acre that needed managing?

 

[midlandslad]

BPS has allowed many a poor business to continue trading. I spend a lot of time looking at farm accounts and I see it all from farmers who you wouldn’t trust with a £1 to those who make very impressive returns.

Total area farmed or cows milked does not mean more profit, far from it. I have seen 400 acre combinable crop farms making more ££ than ,000 acre estates.

What the industry needs is the right people doing the farming and hopefully a thinning out of those on the gravy train is the way forward.

 

[Anymulewilldo]

I feel you are absolutely correct, we have always had change, Ive been involved in agriculture from being a 11year old cleaning out pigs for 5 shillings a week. I have seen so many people worry about the future until the future gets here and then they find it is not too bad.

This is why I spend very little time thinking about the future. I make plans and have a rough idea where I want too be in 10/20 years time. But I’m 30 and am happy too take issues as they arrive and if I see them coming try and steer around them. No use worrying about things I can’t do squat about. That sort of thing gets a man down and takes you too a bad place...

 

[DRC]

Yes, if you are prepared to adapt to the changing business we are in. Stand still and you will be overtaken. We are at the beginning of the biggest period of change in UK agriculture since the end of WW2. That is either an opportunity or a threat, depending on whether your glass is half empty or half full.

I’ve never quite understood the term, stand still or you will be go backwards or be overtaken.
I prefer the don’t be a busy fool analogy .
Why pay over the odds for ground to make more work

 

[Brisel]

I’ve never quite understood the term, stand still or you will be go backwards or be overtaken.
I prefer the don’t be a busy fool analogy .
Why pay over the odds for ground to make more work

Two different meanings. If you choose to keep doing the same thing, you'll have to learn to live on less. No one is forcing anyone to claim anything but payments from the Treasury underwrites farming lifestyles at the moment. How would you word that in the context of this topic? Is there a future without BPS and the current farm model?

 

[DRC]

Two different meanings. If you choose to keep doing the same thing, you'll have to learn to live on less. No one is forcing anyone to claim anything but payments from the Treasury underwrites farming lifestyles at the moment. How would you word that in the context of this topic? Is there a future without BPS and the current farm model?

I’m sure you will be able to access Elms without agreeing to go all no till. It’ll just be part of it .
I also don’t think Elms will come anywhere near replacing BPS, so savings will need to be made elsewhere, with rent reductions etc, but I’m not sure buying an expensive direct drill when I can get ploughing done for around £22 acre with consistent yields will make economic sense .
live got miles of hedges here for instance, which might score more highly than direct drilling.

 

[Brisel]

I was thinking more widely than no till, but you're right about BPS not being replaced by ELMS.

 

[digger64]

Rents are going to be a tricky one. Landlords & agents saw BPS as underwriting the rent. Hopefully they will understand that the associated costs of ELMS are far higher. I've got 3 awkward conversations to have with landlords agents in the next 2 years as I tell them that the rents will fall. ELMS just muddies the waters.

Do you not see less stock as well as less crops overall? I can see a day where stock owners are paid to graze in order to help manage the sward for ELMS, not the other way around.

Yes definately ,less of all products , without taking employment else where off farm I cant see how reducing herd size is the way forward but it is innevitable as things stand at the moment regardless of prices it looks like a nightmare coming to life there is less and less land .
When the SFP came in the local agent thought the grass lettings would be like a dutch auction with regard to ESA grazing , that never happened though .
I dont see prescriptive grazing working as there are 12 months in a year were is this location that you can place your stock out of sight and mind could we inject them to make them hibernate ?

 

[Yonlass]

It is that i agree but im finding it harder and harder lately to find any motivation to carry on in the job. Its all i ever wanted to do since i was 4yrs old when i had my first pedal tractor.

Is it not the post-Christmas, shite weather, feeling your age (I'm catching you up), Covid , home-schooling (if you've got kids), self-isolating AGAIN (if you've got kids), cycle that we're in?
Bit of sun and some Spring jobs under your belt....

This is why I spend very little time thinking about the future. I make plans and have a rough idea where I want too be in 10/20 years time. But I’m 30 and am happy too take issues as they arrive and if I see them coming try and steer around them. No use worrying about things I can’t do squat about. That sort of thing gets a man down and takes you too a bad place...

I agree (apart from being 30 ).
My husband always says "failing to plan is planning to fail", so I tend to leave it to him He's the 'bigger picture" man.....I follow up and fill in the details, so we complement each other, hopefully
With 4 kids, I'm not as farm obsessed as I maybe once was I work week by week or maybe month by month. After a flirtation with PND I try to be happy with what I've achieved rather than what I still have to do....

 

[digger64]

Yes, but it only covers costs, it doesn't leave any room for carpet slipper farmers.

really

 

[Anymulewilldo]

Is it not the post-Christmas, shite weather, feeling your age (I'm catching you up), Covid , home-schooling (if you've got kids), self-isolating AGAIN (if you've got kids), cycle that we're in?
Bit of sun and some Spring jobs under your belt....




I agree (apart from being 30 ).
My husband always says "failing to plan is planning to fail", so I tend to leave it to him He's the 'bigger picture" man.....I follow up and fill in the details, so we complement each other, hopefully
With 4 kids, I'm not as farm obsessed as I maybe once was I work week by week or maybe month by month. After a flirtation with PND I try to be happy with what I've achieved rather than what I still have to do....

I was once told that plans are what people make instead of thinking. It made me smile so I followed it. I know too many people who plan too the n’th degree and when something in the early plan fails or something unexpected crops up they go too pieces. I take it all in my stride and keep going. Being good at prioritising helps!

 

[digger64]

Even if the landlord had a ELMS option on the grass worth £130/acre that needed managing?

The only way that rental levels will reflect the productive value of the land is to remove ALL payments from EVERYBODY .

 

[Yonlass]

I was once told that plans are what people make instead of thinking. It made me smile so I followed it. I know too many people who plan too the n’th degree and when something in the early plan fails or something unexpected crops up they go too pieces. I take it all in my stride and keep going. Being good at prioritising helps!

Exactly. Do what has to be done, and anything else is a bonus

 

[JP1]

I started with nothing and I've got most of it left

Never had a grant or any sub of any description

Very content with my lot and I've enjoyed the journey and my career(s) along the way

Yes I've had more material rewards outside of ag but it's ag that has my soul and where I'm happiest

 

[digger64]

Cherrington didnt stay a tenant for very long! He hated the Landlord/Tenant system and bought his own land as soon as he was able. Timing was on his side though,as he started out in the very nadir of the depression.

It was more the methods and thinking than the politics I was interested in , but without the landlord /tenant system he wouldnt have got anywhere .

 

[beefandsleep]

I emphasise with the sentiment of the original post. Sometimes you feel like throwing the whole thing in when the entire system seems to be constantly searching for ways to make it harder to farm or screw you out of whatever profit is left in the job. Little things however do give you immense satisfaction and briefly make you feel it all worthwhile.
I’ve just been seeing to a 3day old calf that has a broken leg, I’ve took it off the cow and will try to rear it myself. It’s probably futile as the break is very high up near it’s shoulder and we couldn’t cast it sufficiently to fully immobilise it. I just managed to get it to drink a litre and a half of milk after 2 days of trying, all the effort seems worth it now, only a couple of weeks till complete heartbreak now hey?
Having said that we had a Mother’s Day meal with my parents tonight and father was asking the kids if they wanted to be farmers like daddy. I said that I hoped they didn’t because I can’t see a future in it for them. Another 10-15 years I think all the enjoyment will finally be sucked out of it.

 

[Anymulewilldo]

I think there is light at the end of the tunnel. But it will get worse before it gets better. We will just have to adapt as we always have done.

But I’m not FA, won’t be for the foreseeable either, don’t have any enviro schemes, don’t apply for the grant schemes, we do claim a small amount of BPS but TBH I can earn that contracting in the summer months when our sheep numbers are just ticking over. I’m a big believer that the job is as hard as we make it. And we run a fair head of stock for the size of unit.

Plus I’m hoping like hell that the boy wants to be a sheep farmer just like his dad...

 

[digger64]

Batten the hatches down. Get rid of debt, stop buying anything that is not absolutely essential and on the other side there will be opportunities for the brave. We are already in high inflation with interest rates to follow. Bear in mind govt has borrowed already at low rates and needs inflation to reduce the bill for covid.

what do people buy thats not essential in farming ?

 

[Hilly]

BPS has allowed many a poor business to continue trading. I spend a lot of time looking at farm accounts and I see it all from farmers who you wouldn’t trust with a £1 to those who make very impressive returns.

Total area farmed or cows milked does not mean more profit, far from it. I have seen 400 acre combinable crop farms making more ££ than ,000 acre estates.

What the industry needs is the right people doing the farming and hopefully a thinning out of those on the gravy train is the way forward.

Best post so far , spot on !