Buying retail, selling wholesale

[Kiwi Pete]

We have some reasonably big farms here that really do no better by any measure than the smaller farm.
@Clive once used an analogy with a ladder and its rungs while trying to explain this to the Boss Farmer - but it depends largely if you are on a rung or stretching out to one - when the earth moves.

If you are not making much headway, being twice as big will not help.
A cream separator can make as much money as who knows how many milking cows... even a bag or a bottle can

Buy retail, sell wholesale is roughly the crux - selling commodities in BULK needs to be bulk - why not go the other way?
A housewife doesn't want a lorry full of potatoes, she will buy a bag.
A bag is cheaper than an extra acre by a large amount.

The main reasons I sell some meat direct, other than I am good with a knife: one lamb makes me 3x the profit simply by NOT sending it with his mates to slaughter - and it takes 30 minutes to process, 15 minutes today, 15 tomorrow

The real shame of farming is modern farmers have a small skill set, and see no reason to learn. IMVHO.

 

[graham99]

Yes, partly, and so long as they can survive, it will always be thus. However, there are plenty of farmers that do other things to top up farm income: isn’t that also the case for many European farmers? Everyone can’t be niche producers, can they? The basic food staples will always be produce at a slim margin.

At the end of the day, some folks are happy to just plod along, and why not if they’re happy enough.

but if the farmer is taking a townie job how is the townie meant to by the farms produce

 

[graham99]

We have some reasonably big farms here that really do no better by any measure than the smaller farm.
@Clive once used an analogy with a ladder and its rungs while trying to explain this to the Boss Farmer - but it depends largely if you are on a rung or stretching out to one - when the earth moves.

If you are not making much headway, being twice as big will not help.
A cream separator can make as much money as who knows how many milking cows... even a bag or a bottle can

Buy retail, sell wholesale is roughly the crux - selling commodities in BULK needs to be bulk - why not go the other way?
A housewife doesn't want a lorry full of potatoes, she will buy a bag.
A bag is cheaper than an extra acre by a large amount.

The main reasons I sell some meat direct, other than I am good with a knife: one lamb makes me 3x the profit simply by NOT sending it with his mates to slaughter - and it takes 30 minutes to process, 15 minutes today, 15 tomorrow

The real shame of farming is modern farmers have a small skill set, and see no reason to learn. IMVHO.

remember down here no capital gains tax.
so as long as you can sell for more new zealand farming is solvent .
that also applys to houses in town.
and we are now at the point of only a few kiwi's rich enough to buy

 

[graham99]

As previously posted, many won't even entertain following the next steps in the journey for their beloved bovines and high welfare wheat - the power is urban, as you said - that scares most farmers back into repairing things with bale-band and muttering about fairness.

It is hard to explain relativity to a snail: even if you tell him "if you run over there, that music sounds much louder than it does over here".
The snail can not run, and the primary producer can not afford to invest in manufacturing or retail.
Most won't even fully learn how their ecosystem processes work (in their lifetime); preferring instead to believe rumours about it, and what that lecturer said at college.

Hardly a recipe for overwhelming success, I venture?

Getting things to grow is child's play - but all the death on agriculture's hands requires an adult and funding.

Polyculture lies beyond the imaginations of most farm CEOs, even though it is a self-improving and regenerative system the farmer chooses the other path, 9 times out of ten.
Thus the basic commodity price is not at fault, but the cost of production rising to meet the revenue is.

This model is in need of more tape.

the cop will be over.
if we put in place a tax system them meant we paid tax on gross

 

[graham99]

to be powerful in a demorcacy you need strength in numbers, thats one of the reasonsthe farming lobby in france is powerful, a generation a go most people who lived in the country had some connection with farming, thats the shame of how are farming has gone one large farming company farming many farms, where say 20yrs ago they all were farms in there own right, i do wonder where it will all end, they keep saying the larger farms have still got to get bigger to survive, but how big? big so only one farm in essex all the rest whats left either hobby farms, or country parks for the masses living in the thousands of new homes built on once farmed land? God help us if their was a national emergency like the last war?/

and thirty or more years the goves have been setting us against each other .
because a united population is hard to goven

 

[Kiwi Pete]

remember down here no capital gains tax.
so as long as you can sell for more new zealand farming is solvent .
that also applys to houses in town.
and we are now at the point of only a few kiwi's rich enough to buy

The same underlying theme also applies though - the opportunity to save, to invest, to rapidly grow the nest egg is, and was the same for all as a youngster. Just not as "fun".
The have-nots actually have quite a lot, they just haven't yet seen it as such.
Investing in booze and cars and digital devices is not cheap either, when my mates were doing that I saw the flaw in the plan.

It is difficult to really feel sorry for those who put it all down to "luck" when it is financial illiteracy, lack of discipline, and lack of foresight that is equally culpable.

As we see on the Dyson threads, anyone can come up with one good idea and follow through with it - but plenty like to simply chop it off at the knees and term any success as "luck" - some players just make better moves.

the cop will be over.
if we put in place a tax system them meant we paid tax on gross

There are two seperate taxation formats: one for individuals, one for corporate entities

I don't know how discouraging profitable businesses actually benefits anyone in the economy?
By contrast EU Ag is terribly overinvested and overinflated at the cost of the primary producers' take

Again, these tax laws were written by business for business, by bankers for bankers; if farmers prefer by default to act, think, and work like employees then that is their issue and their prerogative.
They missed a trick.

Any entrepreneurial tendencies are 'risky' but extremely vital to economy and trade - if every CEO and COO was too busy being 'hands on' to actually work on their business then socialism is their best bet.

"Work hard, study hard, get a good steady job....." what bullsh!t!
What happened to "do your research, examine your weaknesses, invest wisely when young and manage risks...." if teachers knew, they wouldn't need to be teaching at 55.

 

[Turra farmer]

I’m sure there must be ways to set it

Not simple but neither is a sub system

Everyone's cop is different , savills did an interesting article June 2017 showing a 30 percent variation for arable farms on machinery and labour costs alone

 

[Clive]

Everyone's cop is different , savills did an interesting article June 2017 showing a 30 percent variation for arable farms on machinery and labour costs alone

So set it at an efficient or average level that is achievable. It might encourage those with high cops to get more efficient

Certainly no worse a system than a sub based on how many acres you farm that’s for sure