'Current subsidies are funding in-efficient farming' - Micheal Gove (Chat away)

[topground]

In the same way that Cameron had issues when he visited the flooded Somerset levels I suspect Mr Gove would have to send out a flunky to buy him some Hunter wellingtons before he visits my operation to tell me how to become more efficient.
I am not clear what his definition of efficient would mean to a suckler herd with low cost over wintering, a tight spring calvng pattern and low replacement rate with no debt. The stores sell well. The minimal kit is old but it works ( a bit like me) , the buildings are pole barns and tin. And I make a profit without taking into account any BPS payment.
My business is made less efficient by influences and policy over which I have no control.

Mr Gove could help me by puttng wildlife that are vectors of Tuberculosis on general licence. That way I can deal with the source of infection that means my business has trading restrictions and additional non productive activity imposed on it which reduces efficiency.
How else could I, together with Mr Gove, make my business more efficient?

 

[Bossfarmer]

And Michael Gove's statement would be wrong how exactly?

https://fullfact.org/economy/farming-subsidies-uk/

The average UK farm made £39k profit in 2014/15. Made up of on average £28.3k of subsidy (BPS and enviro schemes), £2.1k of actual agricultural profits, and the remainder from diversification. Thats the average across the board, there's variations in different sectors etc. By definition of average that means half will be doing worse than that - making losses on their actual agricultural activities (but still getting the same BPS of course as thats fixed per acre). Details in graph below:

View attachment 620530

So its blatantly obvious that BPS is allowing a good third or more of the agricultural sector to keep farming when it would stop without the subsidy, as they're losing cash every year on their farming activities.

I cannot see how a viable self sustaining agricultural sector can emerge while such a large amount of production is being dumped onto the market at a production loss.

food production is largely a loss making activity across the world due to the publics demand for cheap food, this is why just about every nation supports its own farmers and your graphs only highlight the importance of doing so

 

[Goweresque]

food production is largely a loss making activity across the world due to the publics demand for cheap food, this is why just about every nation supports its own farmers and your graphs only highlight the importance of doing so

Thats just not true. Vast swathes of world food production are unsubsidised or very lightly subsidised and make a primary profit. And at lower COP than the UK. Russia, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina etc etc etc.

 

[ollie989898]

food production is largely a loss making activity across the world due to the publics demand for cheap food, this is why just about every nation supports its own farmers and your graphs only highlight the importance of doing so

You need to get out more and I mean visit at least 3 other countries involved in food production in a big way. I have never read such a crock of sh!t on any forum ever and believe me I use a fair variety of em. Sorry old chum but you are so wrong I don't even know what wonky wheel-barrow prize you possibly qualify for.

There is a veritable ship load of money being made in food production out there in the big wide world. You think mankind churns out millions of tonnes of every kind of grains, meat, cheese, veg, fruit, juice, oils, powders and all of it is because folk are desperate to be involved in some get poor-quick loss making activity?

If you genuinely believe what you have written you are beyond redemption.

 

[Farmer Roy]

You need to get out more and I mean visit at least 3 other countries involved in food production in a big way. I have never read such a crock of sh!t on any forum ever and believe me I use a fair variety of em. Sorry old chum but you are so wrong I don't even know what wonky wheel-barrow prize you possibly qualify for.

There is a veritable ship load of money being made in food production out there in the big wide world. You think mankind churns out millions of tonnes of every kind of grains, meat, cheese, veg, fruit, juice, oils, powders and all of it is because folk are desperate to be involved in some get poor-quick loss making activity?

If you genuinely believe what you have written you are beyond redemption.

love it, just love it

I am SO glad that it is a local who has said this, see, its not just us foreigners

 

[wasted years]

You need to get out more and I mean visit at least 3 other countries involved in food production in a big way. I have never read such a crock of sh!t on any forum ever and believe me I use a fair variety of em. Sorry old chum but you are so wrong I don't even know what wonky wheel-barrow prize you possibly qualify for.

There is a veritable ship load of money being made in food production out there in the big wide world. You think mankind churns out millions of tonnes of every kind of grains, meat, cheese, veg, fruit, juice, oils, powders and all of it is because folk are desperate to be involved in some get poor-quick loss making activity?

If you genuinely believe what you have written you are beyond redemption.

Well the EU has the Cap, the USA has the farm bill, Canada protects its Ag industry, which countries are you saying make shed loads with no Govt spending interference at all?

 

[Against_the_grain]

The difference between ourselves and these countries though is what makes agriculture profitable in its own right. It's either cheap labour or vast areas of land or both over which to spread fixed costs. I guess the exception to that rule woukd be nz.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

No it isn't. What you are assuming is that the 'more efficient' producers always produce more from the same amount of land. Some for sure. But its also possible to be be 'more efficient' by producing less, but at a lower cost, so your profit is greater.

Efficiency is about cost of production, not getting the maximum amount of grain from a 10 acre field regardless of cost.

If I produce 2t/acre of wheat but my costs are £100, i'm in a better position to the man who produces 3t/acre but whose costs are £250/acre. He produced more, but I was more efficient (cost per tonne of production £50 vs £83). I also made slightly more overall profit (with grain at £140/t), and I had less capital at risk in the ground too.

This is farming blind spot. It's been living in the post war 'produce more at all costs' mentality for so long that it only measures 'efficiency' in output per acre. Its forgotten entirely about the profit margin on its operations, because the taxpayer has always supplied a healthy one at the end of the year.

Its entirely possible UK food production could halve eventually as a result of these changes, yet at the end of it everyone still in the industry will be making a profit, because they're farming larger areas more extensively, producing less but at far lower COP.

Should have been a builder....

You never hear folk talk much about inputs per output unless it's moaning about prices of said inputs.

There was an experiment in the mid 1600s where 200 pounds of soil grew a 200 pound tree and the soil only lost about 2 pounds of weight in doing so.

So the fact of the matter is : plants are grown mostly from sunshine, carbon dioxide, and water.
Animals are similarly efficient - grazing animals that is.

It's only mankind that has made systems inefficient by trying to cheat them, if 99.6% of inputs can be free yet 'farmers' are going hard=going home then I'm glad I'm a rancher not a farmer.

Race to the bottom IMO - "progressive" in any other industry would simply be called "addicted"

Anyway, what is efficiency and what does Gove know about it?

I'm very inefficient but get by ok.
I waste time, I mow grass back into the soil, I walk around hitting thistles with a grubber and scratch the bullocks with the handle.
(Glad we don't have a Mr Gove here, or I'd dig him out by the roots and leave him upside down on his hole, thanks for coming up, now you return to from whence thou camest...)

 

[Farmer Roy]

bloody irritating foreign trolls

 

[Kiwi Pete]

bloody irritating foreign trolls

Probably.

Sure - I could list a bunch of examples of little differences that I see on here that i wouldn't dream of doing but folk will work it out when they have to.
It hasn't just been subsidy that's done the damage to COP, it has just quietly eroded profitability in many cases - UK ag hasn't really been driven by profitability in generations... as @glasshouse has noted, agriculture acts were designed to safeguard output and help share prosperity but then a merger with the competition came along

Old money
Class systems
Tax laws
Tiny fields
Poos climate
Lots of mouths
Thin strip of water to the continent
Not much room to breathe
Concentrates
Tillage
Feeding plants

All that doing takes SOME undoing in the name of profitable enterprise, and it has driven the output per acre.
Efficient it is efficient....
Just it would be more profitably efficient if 4 out of 5 farmers gave it up nobody wants to be in that 4.

 

[Henarar]

In the same way that Cameron had issues when he visited the flooded Somerset levels I suspect Mr Gove would have to send out a flunky to buy him some Hunter wellingtons before he visits my operation to tell me how to become more efficient.
I am not clear what his definition of efficient would mean to a suckler herd with low cost over wintering, a tight spring calvng pattern and low replacement rate with no debt. The stores sell well. The minimal kit is old but it works ( a bit like me) , the buildings are pole barns and tin. And I make a profit without taking into account any BPS payment.
My business is made less efficient by influences and polcy over which I have no control.

Mr Gove could help me by puttng wildlife that are vectors of Tuberculosis on general licence. That way I can deal with the source of infection that means my business has trading restrictions and additional non productive activity imposed on it which reduces efficiency.
How else could I, together with Mr Gove make my busness more efficient?

bloody good post, most of the big problems facing our sector of farming have been caused by the government, we would be far more efficient if they got out the f**king way and let us work, The BPS is just a minor part payment that goes a little way toward paying for their gross incompetence over the years

 

[Bossfarmer]

Thats just not true. Vast swathes of world food production are unsubsidised or very lightly subsidised and make a primary profit. And at lower COP than the UK. Russia, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina etc etc etc.

Yes and what do they all have in common?

 

[Goweresque]

Yes and what do they all have in common?

They can all produce food cheaper than you can?

 

[Bossfarmer]

You need to get out more and I mean visit at least 3 other countries involved in food production in a big way. I have never read such a crock of sh!t on any forum ever and believe me I use a fair variety of em. Sorry old chum but you are so wrong I don't even know what wonky wheel-barrow prize you possibly qualify for.

There is a veritable ship load of money being made in food production out there in the big wide world. You think mankind churns out millions of tonnes of every kind of grains, meat, cheese, veg, fruit, juice, oils, powders and all of it is because folk are desperate to be involved in some get poor-quick loss making activity?

If you genuinely believe what you have written you are beyond redemption.

Tell me, bow much do the chinese farmers make on cereals excluding their subs? Japanese? European?

 

[Bossfarmer]

They can all produce food cheaper than you can?

No they have enourmous scale and cheap labour WHICH WE DONT!!!!

 

[ollie989898]

So with these reductions in production how do you handle the problems brought about by it? Slaughterhouses not seeing enough throughput, not enough beef for export so the market contracts and other similar issues. Note I couldn’t think of an arable issue here and that’s probably because it’s mostly arable boys claiming they don’t need or want the sub (tongue quite firmly in cheek!)

Same as happens in other industries, the big wide world of tough sh1t! Why the hell should the tax payer fork out to keep exports or slaughter houses running? Not their problem!

 

[ollie989898]

In the same way that Cameron had issues when he visited the flooded Somerset levels I suspect Mr Gove would have to send out a flunky to buy him some Hunter wellingtons before he visits my operation to tell me how to become more efficient.
I am not clear what his definition of efficient would mean to a suckler herd with low cost over wintering, a tight spring calvng pattern and low replacement rate with no debt. The stores sell well. The minimal kit is old but it works ( a bit like me) , the buildings are pole barns and tin. And I make a profit without taking into account any BPS payment.
My business is made less efficient by influences and policy over which I have no control.

Mr Gove could help me by puttng wildlife that are vectors of Tuberculosis on general licence. That way I can deal with the source of infection that means my business has trading restrictions and additional non productive activity imposed on it which reduces efficiency.
How else could I, together with Mr Gove, make my business more efficient?

1. You can't say that- you heretic!

2. Gove is signalling that any subsidy will be environmentally driven and entirely optional to enter. In your case, why would you opt into it unless it 'pencils'?

3. The cull is a political issue and waaaaay bigger than Gove's standing or paycheck. As you know, in our area, it is starting to be 'dealt with'.

 

[ollie989898]

Tell me, bow much do the chinese farmers make on cereals excluding their subs? Japanese? European?

Go and do your own research.

 

[DRC]

Same as happens in other industries, the big wide world of tough sh1t! Why the hell should the tax payer fork out to keep exports or slaughter houses running? Not their problem!

Can't believe your happy just to export all the jobs in UK ag, just so you can get a cheaper , probably chlorinated chicken.
Most farm subs ( I accept that they need capping and having a proviso that the actual farmer gets them, not shiek your money!, Or national trust), filters down through the agricultural or associated business world.

 

[Henarar]

1. You can't say that- you heretic!

2. Gove is signalling that any subsidy will be environmentally driven and entirely optional to enter. In your case, why would you opt into it unless it 'pencils'?

3. The cull is a political issue and waaaaay bigger than Gove's standing or paycheck. As you know, in our area, it is starting to be 'dealt with'.

arr a vashon