Best Time In Recent History To Farm ?

[bluebell]

When if you had the choice would you like to have been able to farm, would it be the period from the war years to the 1970s or would you fancy the time in history like a the farm portrayed in the film far from the madding crowd, by thomas hardy, answers comments and reasons please. or dare i say your quite happy at this present time?

 

[bluebell]

Should have been BEST TIME not PEST TIME, but hey how that would even suit, im a farmer im a pest to other country living neighbours?

 

[chaffcutter]

I concluded that my father’s farming lifetime was a golden age from 1946 through the time when all food was in short supply, through guaranteed prices right up to the involvement of the eec as was. Grants for drainage, buildings etc. He was only on a small farm but anyone on a fair scale couldn’t help but make a lot of money in that period.

 

[upnortheast]

1970`s to 1990`s Able to make money, pay a bit of tax, put buildings up, replace fences, drainage. Buy another farm, all on very modest borrowings.
Something called the FHDS was a big help, Grant rates between 40 - 70% for most cap exp
Increased production was welcomed.
Nothing been quite the same since F & M disease time. IMO

 

[bluebell]

reading the book 70 summers by the late tony harman, who farmed in chesham it was about the years before the 2nd world war and the struggles farmers faced? even the fact that many acres of land was abandoned and unfarmed ? that changed in an instant when war was immenent, even he said his bank manager who a few years earlier called his loan in wanted to be his friend ? that and the prosperity after the war and the rapid changes driven by the disperate need for food?

 

[chaffcutter]

That was a period when some operators took over big areas just to keep them in gaec as we know it now. John Cherringtons book ‘On the smell of an oily rag’ is a good read of those times

 

[Derrick Hughes]

I should say the 70ts but then a lot of farmers of today dont know what hard work is and still do ok , so perhaps not

 

[Yale]

In 30 years time folk will look back and say,‘at least you could scrape a living in the 20’s’.

 

[CornishRanger]

In 30 years time folk will look back and say,‘at least you could scrape a living in the 20’s’.

Or will they say at least you could scrape a living off 500/1000 acres (depending where and what you farm) same as we say now 30 years ago you could make a living off 200/500 acres.

Any time before the mid 90's (and BSE) seems good to me, but that said I wasn't actually farming then so maybe its rose tinted glasses

 

[Exfarmer]

70’s to mid 90’s were a wonderful period for farming , even with some crazy interest rates and rampant inflation.
anyone who was prepared to put their back into it and keep up with the times made a lot of money, real money not just the inflation of land values which has made some farmers very rich today without really having sone any work. While tenant farmers can only watch in envy. Although to be fair some tenants are making good money provided they are happy to do an awful lot of work for it

 

[primmiemoo]

Just after the Black Death fizzled out.

The Moos were never richer.

 

[MrNoo]

70's-90's although only born in 70, remember mid 70's onwards. The weather seemed much better, always seemed to have more time to do the job and we had 3 people working here, stubble burning too. My father said he had never ever made so much money in that early period, he quite often recounted that he was offered £144/t for WW and he then had whatever payment that came from the eec on top.
Life certainly had a more rural feel to it, more of a community unlike how it is now. But I am sure as you say, in 30 years time they'll be saying we were living in the best time, SFP etc etc.

 

[Smith31]

Many will disagree but....

Without any shadow of a doubt now is the best time to farm, one man can manage 500+ acres, interest rates are at rock bottom, we get subs, no rates, red diesel, we have full control with regards to what we wish to produce and who we wish to sell too.

Simple things like mobile phones and online hourly updated weather forecasts alone are a game changer for most of us.

 

[v8willy]

Many will disagree but....

Without any shadow of a doubt now is the best time to farm, one man can manage 500+ acres, interest rates are at rock bottom, we get subs, no rates, red diesel, we have full control woth regards to what we wish to produce and who we wish to sell too.

Simple things like mobile phones and online hourly updated weather forecasts alone are a game changer for most of us.

Agree with most of that, up to the weather forecasts bit, problem now is you "know" it's going to rain at lunchtime tomorrow & you have 150 acres of grass lying, time to pull your hair out & annoy your staff or contractor, & the contractor has 20 customers ringing him constantly in the same boat.....& maybe be no rain anyway.
Before mobile phones & internet weather you did what you thought right & whatever happened, happened.



It was always better back then, doesn't seem to matter when "then" was, except maybe the Eighties was it when the cost of borrowing was high?

 

[Derrick Hughes]

One observation i would make . I have never seen so few farms up for sale since 1964 about as far back as i can remember. Now using the yardstick ,if you hate the job or going bust you sell up then today is the best time to farm , even though they moan its the worst . 20 ton of basic slag in small bags to unload in the morning by hand . That will stop the moaning !!

 

[KMA]

I'm guessing it started around 1946 and finished in 1978 when the effects of BSE really kicked in and killed the export of breeding heifers stone dead knocking over £1000/head of between the Feb and October sales, thanks dairy boys for feeding very young calves MBM, since then Chernobyl - radiation testing lambs before you could move them off the hill, F&M and increasing legislation and utterly misguided interference. Loved and took a pride in working with Cattle and to a lesser extent sheep, training my dogs but glad to be retired and out of it.

 

[yellowbelly]

From a purely £.s.d. point of view, it must have been that point in time (somewhere in the 1970's) when the price of what we were producing doubled.

Wheat had been £20/ton for years, then in a short space of time it was £30 - then the next thing you knew it was £60/ton
That all happened before the price of inputs 'magically' followed in it's wake and all the red tape was invented.

It coincided with 2 mega years for potatoes too - you never saw so many new tractors and combines sold round here.

It didn't last long but ask anybody today if they'd like to double the price of wheat and I bet they'd snap your hand off.

 

[Exfarmer]

I'm guessing it started around 1946 and finished in 1978 when the effects of BSE really kicked in and killed the export of breeding heifers stone dead knocking over £1000/head of between the Feb and October sales, thanks dairy boys for feeding very young calves MBM, since then Chernobyl - radiation testing lambs before you could move them off the hill, F&M and increasing legislation and utterly misguided interference. Loved and took a pride in working with Cattle and to a lesser extent sheep, training my dogs but glad to be retired and out of it.

I think your dates are wrong, BSE only kicked in late 80’s.
The rendering temperatures were lowered about 1980.
It had been a legal requirement to include a certain proportion of MBM in feed to cut the import bill for proteins

 

[Hfd Cattle]

1996 was the BSE year .....I ,with my brother, just bought all of my dad's cows off him . Within a week they were virtually worthless......dads comments ..."that's Farming boy , you will get used to it ! "
Best farming years I reckon were the 70s. Dad made a fortune......not that he spent it on us kids though !!
We just had to help him earn it !!

 

[fgc325j]

When if you had the choice would you like to have been able to farm, would it be the period from the war years to the 1970s or would you fancy the time in history like a the farm portrayed in the film far from the madding crowd, by thomas hardy, answers comments and reasons please. or dare i say your quite happy at this present time?

For myself, farming a small dairy/beef farm, i distinctly remember the few years between Milk Marque coming into existence,
and then BSE knocking the stuffing out of the beef game, as being a time when the bank balance was growing very healthily.
After MMRQ was split up in 1998 the price of milk dropped like breeze block, the export for beef didn't re-open till 2007, and
that was when the price of milk recovered to the low20's p/litre. The last 10 years! - i think that we are definitely still below
early- mid 90's levels, but for anyone who started 20 years ago, in 2000, or soon after, today's price for milk and meat are
an improvement from those levels, and consequently do not know what old f***s like me are talking about
Nb- when i started doing costings to expand, interest rates were 18%.
Ps - New years resolution- stop posting up items about how good things were back when i was young
pps - i remember ads in the FW in the early/mid 70's for Jaguar cars, soo! it must have been good back then