Wellytrack
Member
as l see it, we are all running faster, on that hamster wheel, but getting less profit, for doing it.
UK farming, as in some other countries, has become a highly mechanised industry, and efficient.
Compared to many other countries, the opposite is the reality. To many farmers here, the SFP, is a must, many in the eastern parts of the EU, it is just a huge windfall, but they are classed as 'backward' farmers, still using horses as well, old /smaller kit etc.
Whose to say which way is the best living, l rather think it's them, the pressures on farmers here, is heavy, on them ?
We have been encouraged, bribed, or ordered, to produce large quantities of cheap food, the more produced, the lower the return, to actually achieve better prices, output must fall, not increased, to, 'spread the cost', unfortunately, to the guvs relief, that policy goes right against our natural instincts, however, the price of fert, and other imputs, might actually achieve that.
More modern machines have enabled more work to be done. Truth is most farmers will think they are better by selling an extra 400k litres of milk from an extra 50 cows on the same home farm - but take on another 40 acres of land. That land could be in 3 blocks spread over 10 miles. The ambition will rarely stop there.
300 cow farms are the new 100 cow farms of the late 90’s.
If you have the good fortune to have a 400 acre farm for those 300 plus followers that’s great.
Such is the dog eat dog fervour for land those numbers will be on 200 or less with grass and maize drew in, poo and poop drew out.
Back in my dads day a local piggery had a Nuffield 1060 and a Yellow Fleming 550 tanker, the driver clothed in a ‘Great Coat’ carting $hit every single day. It never stopped. The piggery however did and is long but a distance memory and before my time.
They piggery that replaced it is now 10 times it’s size and a contractor now takes care of the waste between the NVZ periods of February to October. It’s run better and cleaner now than it ever was, such is progress and it would be impossible without investment, at this level it’s often unwise for a farm to buy into wearing tackle like that.