I'm afraid contractors aren't the answer. In fact, the smaller you are, the less contractors want anything to do with you, and the more gear you have to own.
Can we all carry on farming?
- Thread starter mountfarm
- Start date
- Location
- Northumberland
A mix of owned,AHA,and contract farmed? How many seasonal help do you need at harvest?
Daniel
Member
- Location
- Mildenhall, Suffolk
Now that you have plebs, sorry, a 'team' to do the work can you reassure us that you've exchanged the indie band look in favour of striding round the fields in brogues and a tie?
Farmerwilson
Member
- Location
- Cambs
i see a post yesterday from a farmer in ukraine that had just finished fert spreading for the day.. 3,700 hectares was covered
For us mostly fbt and cfa, some owned (bank). Then I manage a place which is owned by a family and we are sharing machinery and labour essentially running it all as one unit.
I am not on his level yet. I have to the agronomy and other wretched things like that.
- Location
- Northumberland
Does 1 Lexion do all 5000 acres?
No, there is an older John Deere combine too. In theory it should, another neighbour does that area with one. But to be honest with a lot of quality crops premiums to protect and super high grain prices we won’t go down that road yet.
serf
Member
- Location
- warwickshire
What's he do after dinner
Ivorbiggun
Member
- Location
- Norfolk
You survived when it was £150 and you will do at £200, why do farmers always moan, you’ve been doing it so long no one listens anymore. As I said earlier haven’t seen many of you on a bike yet, mostly 4x4’s and most nearly new.
Tarw Coch
Member
- Location
- Bottom of Wats Dyke
Plenty of folk out there all flash and no cash, some of them live in towns and villages, some on farms, unless you get to see their finances you really haven’t a clue how well or not anyone is doing
As for the 4x4’s, many of us use them off road in all sorts of weather as well as for towing trailers, what do you suggest we should use to tow 3.5 tons legally and safely?
Perhaps you’d like to show some figures so we can see how well you make it pay
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Yawn!
betweenthelines
Member
- Location
- southwest
Your trouble is not that input costs are going up. It's that you seem unable to get out of a high inputs mindset.
Every input has a point at which it becomes unviable, you just have to work out where that point is with current prices.
50 units of fertilizer show a much better cost v benefit gain than higher levels, the same applies to chemicals. You just have to find the sweet spot.
almost impossible to budget right now or agree what maybe a viable rent or CFA charge etc
capital requirement though the roof / risk levels higher than ever regardless of margin
probably just had the most profitable farming year of my career to date and current year could be as good yet beyond that i have no idea how or even if it will work under current circumstances !
strange times to say the least !
capital requirement though the roof / risk levels higher than ever regardless of margin
probably just had the most profitable farming year of my career to date and current year could be as good yet beyond that i have no idea how or even if it will work under current circumstances !
strange times to say the least !
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Me thinks in comming years,people are going to get hungry, because I am not taking any more squeeze ing, I am sure as hell, not alone on that opinion, sod it I say let them go hungry.
Agree, its a weird position to be in. the only thing i can unequivocally say is i am pleased we pulled our finger out of arse and started zero tilling properly a few years ago, to the point where we are now really comfortable with the system. I simply could not afford the fuel, labour and more frequent machinery replacements/repairs of a min till/rotational plough system. That’s one of the few things we can control which can save us a lot of money.
fuel bills for a tillage system would be utterly unviable here now ……… and that’s on boys land
honestly don’t know how some outfits are making anything worth the risk
Exciting times for farming though, high input prices should really see some interesting innovation and science happen that goes beyond developing new chemicals etc which just break in a few years
Looked at a calf rearing enterprise this Spring after finding a decent number of calves at sensible money.
The cost of milk powder and starter feed alone has meant it's a total non-starter. Will be building up forage stocks over the next 6-8 months. With inputs going through the roof is there actually going to be much forage going spare heading into Winter 22/23? Heading into winter with half full silage stacks just how many animals will come on to the market and who will buy them? With a full forage stack to go at my options are much bigger to house baby calves, weaned calves up to bigger stores.
We cropped out the entire farm last year and began reseeding in the autumn. This springs seeds are bought and paid for - this Autumns aren't. Depending on sentiment some of it might be out wintering of some sort. It's a proper bag of all sorts species wise. We're a dry farm so no amount of Nitram will make it rain so we've gone for some older species such as fetch plus clover which we have always grown.
It's going to be a helluva ride. My very simplistic budget shows us wiping our face including the subs and including paying the mortgage. It could go either way so I'm just keeping my powder dry and wait for the right opportunity to present itself.
The cost of milk powder and starter feed alone has meant it's a total non-starter. Will be building up forage stocks over the next 6-8 months. With inputs going through the roof is there actually going to be much forage going spare heading into Winter 22/23? Heading into winter with half full silage stacks just how many animals will come on to the market and who will buy them? With a full forage stack to go at my options are much bigger to house baby calves, weaned calves up to bigger stores.
We cropped out the entire farm last year and began reseeding in the autumn. This springs seeds are bought and paid for - this Autumns aren't. Depending on sentiment some of it might be out wintering of some sort. It's a proper bag of all sorts species wise. We're a dry farm so no amount of Nitram will make it rain so we've gone for some older species such as fetch plus clover which we have always grown.
It's going to be a helluva ride. My very simplistic budget shows us wiping our face including the subs and including paying the mortgage. It could go either way so I'm just keeping my powder dry and wait for the right opportunity to present itself.