Do headlines like this help?

[llamedos]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/16/britain-farming-crisis-how-tough

"people dont realise how tough it is"

Do headlines like this just sound like more whinging farmers?

 

[Renaultman]

It's very well and sympathetically written. Our trouble is always going to be SFP as journalists will jump on the huge amounts paid out to Farmers already and it's very hard to explain that it often doesn't end up in Farmer's pockets but gets swallowed by the business. Especially in our area where so many industries were shut down to cut subsidies. I have no answers unfortunately just pointing out more problems

 

[grumpy]

that no part of this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21773242

 

[llamedos]

So playing devils advocate, As mentioned above SFP, many on various forums(farming) despise the benifits culture, But dont look behing a headline.
If things are that bad, why not give up sell up and find another job? after all, that is how some farmers think people who are in others industries should behave.

 

[lim x]

I don't believe the public have any sympathy for farmers, there have been so many problems over the years ie bse, foot and mouth. salmonella in eggs, schmallenberg. weather etc, a few months later its all forgotten, until another problem comes along.

I think the general perception by the public is that farmers are rich, owning land, with big kit, and driving round in expensive 4wd's. Take Adam on countryfile, he is the closest the public get to see of farming. He drives a newish pickup one week, discovery the next, kit for every job going, and staff to do the work - does he look under hardship??

And then of course there are the sfp payments. So yes, Farmers do look like whingers.

 

[llamedos]

I don't believe the public have any sympathy for farmers, there have been so many problems over the years ie bse, foot and mouth. salmonella in eggs, schmallenberg. weather etc, a few months later its all forgotten, until another problem comes along.

I think the general perception by the public is that farmers are rich, owning land, with big kit, and driving round in expensive 4wd's. Take Adam on countryfile, he is the closest the public get to see of farming. He drives a newish pickup one week, discovery the next, kit for every job going, and staff to do the work - does he look under hardship??

And then of course there are the sfp payments. So yes, Farmers do look like whingers.

I think you are correct re the perception, A quote from my Brother, office worker, totally indiffrent to farming,watching last years #sosdairy protest.
"Look at their fleet of cars lined up, look at the womens Dubarry boots, look at their clothes, broke my arse. No sympathy" "let them live on the sink estate some of the kids at school come from, send their kids to school without breakfast, shop at the charity shop, then come back and say they need more"

 

[grumpy]

I think you are correct re the perception, A quote from my Brother, office worker, totally indiffrent to farming,watching last years #sosdairy protest.
"Look at their fleet of cars lined up, look at the womens Dubarry boots, look at their clothes, broke my arse. No sympathy" "let them live on the sink estate some of the kids at school come from, send their kids to school without breakfast, shop at the charity shop, then come back and say they need more"

and your brother is correct in a way,define being poor?to me its if you have an empty belly and no roof over your head.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

If your that concerned sell your farms and give it away, this working for a living sucks anyway

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

and your brother is correct in a way,define being poor?to me its if you have an empty belly and no roof over your head.

Being poor is when you cannot afford what you need to live,
Those who buy what they want to live don't know how well off they are,
Bit like knowing the cost of everything, and the value of nothing

 

[Princess Pooper]

I have no sympathies for farmers who claim to be poor whilst driving shiny vehicles - even if they're on HP - and wearing dubarry boots (admittedly the phoney ones from Yorkshire Trading are a lot cheaper!!). Similarly I have no sympathy with someone who claims to be unable to afford food for their children whilst subscribing to Sky TV and drinking and smoking. However there is a difference between saying you are poor and campaigning about injustice and an imbalance of power in the supply chain.

I always remember doing the cashflow forecasts etc for a farmer who claimed poverty and that the bank should keep lending him more and more money. He was largely a tenant but owned a few acres in the village with building potential. Any respect I had or him and his wife disappeared when she insisted on keeping her horse (and the horse box and all the rest) and he refused to contemplate selling his 'pension'. He didn't seem to realise that at the age of 40 he was never going to stay in business long enough without reducing his borrowings by around £70k as a minimum. I stopped working for him when he refused to pay my bill and physically threatened me (a woman) when I asked for payment.

Having been brought up in charity shop clothes and hand-me-downs by parents who did have the right priorities, I don't have a lot of time for some folks nowadays who have very different priorities - eg the amount of money spent on nails, hair, tanning etc to me defies belief.

That said, when it is so hard to generate any decent profit in livestock enterprises, it is galling to know that the £10,000-£20-£50-£100,000 additional costs of this year (dependent on scale and circumstances) will take years to recoup, if ever - in effect many people are working for nothing not just this year but next year too. However, the current situation in farming is not just financial, it's the emotional struggle as well. If the sun would just come out and dry things up and people could get cows out, muck spread, crops drilled and if Schmallenberg and fluke and TB would disappear then everyone is in a positive frame of mind to tackle the financial issues. The river is in flood again, the fields are sodden, the slurry store is full and we've a batch of 6 month old calves down with pneumonia. That in itself puts a cloud on the day - it's there in the back of the mind all the time. Edit - half an hour later - it's snowing.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

This is a daft argument, comparing the state of an industry that supplies the most important thing in life to the above mentioned, what's wrong with you guys are you behond help

 

[chipsngravy]

My view is, until the shop shelves are empty of bread and milk the public wont give a shite about british farmers.

All they want is it as cheap as poss, end of. Right or wrong the supermarkets will give them this.

 

[Walterp]

Tentatively, I would suggest that UK agriculture is over-sensitive about its image with the tax-paying public - most people don't care, most of the time, what most farmers do. Granted, there are exceptions with animal cruelty, pollution, and bTB policies, but as a rule no one really pays farmers anything like the attention they think they attract.

Ask yourself this: if the Sun has two articles on its front page, one in which they have persuaded the thin Mrs Cheryl Cole - at great expense - to permit her gusset to be photographed, and one in which they describe a farmer grown fat on his business acumen, which do YOU think the public reads first? And remembers?

I have, purely in the interests of research, conducted this experiment on myself, and I can tell you it ain't the farmer...

So it isn't the public that's the problem, is it?

 

[Renaultman]

I have no sympathies for farmers who claim to be poor whilst driving shiny vehicles - even if they're on HP - and wearing dubarry boots (admittedly the phoney ones from Yorkshire Trading are a lot cheaper!!). Similarly I have no sympathy with someone who claims to be unable to afford food for their children whilst subscribing to Sky TV and drinking and smoking. However there is a difference between saying you are poor and campaigning about injustice and an imbalance of power in the supply chain.

I always remember doing the cashflow forecasts etc for a farmer who claimed poverty and that the bank should keep lending him more and more money. He was largely a tenant but owned a few acres in the village with building potential. Any respect I had or him and his wife disappeared when she insisted on keeping her horse (and the horse box and all the rest) and he refused to contemplate selling his 'pension'. He didn't seem to realise that at the age of 40 he was never going to stay in business long enough without reducing his borrowings by around £70k as a minimum. I stopped working for him when he refused to pay my bill and physically threatened me (a woman) when I asked for payment.

Having been brought up in charity shop clothes and hand-me-downs by parents who did have the right priorities, I don't have a lot of time for some folks nowadays who have very different priorities - eg the amount of money spent on nails, hair, tanning etc to me defies belief.

That said, when it is so hard to generate any decent profit in livestock enterprises, it is galling to know that the £10,000-£20-£50-£100,000 additional costs of this year (dependent on scale and circumstances) will take years to recoup, if ever - in effect many people are working for nothing not just this year but next year too. However, the current situation in farming is not just financial, it's the emotional struggle as well. If the sun would just come out and dry things up and people could get cows out, muck spread, crops drilled and if Schmallenberg and fluke and TB would disappear then everyone is in a positive frame of mind to tackle the financial issues. The river is in flood again, the fields are sodden, the slurry store is full and we've a batch of 6 month old calves down with pneumonia. That in itself puts a cloud on the day - it's there in the back of the mind all the time.

Absolutely brilliant post, and the buzz phrase seems to be I'm getting no pleasure out of Farming' I hear it more and more and think it myself a lot more. I have said this before, but in the last 12 months I don't feel I have done my job right and certainly have had very little pleasure out of it never mind making very little money, I know some have lost so not complaining as such. How long before a lot of us say enough is enough and cash in our investments and live very well off the proceeds? And if we all do it will the whole job collapse. As someone has already said. A bit of sunshine and everything will be right again.

 

[llamedos]

This is a daft argument, comparing the state of an industry that supplies the most important thing in life to the above mentioned, what's wrong with you guys are you behond help

Nothing daft about it at all.
If things have become as bad as has been said, sell up pay off the bills, life in a beautiful house unless that goes too, and get another job. Simple, isnt it??

 

[DRC]

Non farming friends have alot of sympathy for us when the weather is bad and realise the supermarkets are not paying enough,but i try and deflect it as quite honestly i receive more in subsidy payments than most of my friends earn,and i'm not a big farm.
Alot of farmers think they are hard done by but maybe don't think how tough it is in the workplace for others in a recession on short term contracts.
One of my mates has had to up sticks to Kuwait for a year,leaving his family behind as building projects dried up in this country.
I realise there are real hardships on some farms in parts of the country, but moaning about it to the general public isn't going to help.

 

[grumpy]

pal of mine owned a plant hire company he once told me he has to stand on his own 2 feet he don't get no dole cheque like farmers,when I stopped laughing pointed out the EU decide to tighten up regs on sewage disposal and his diggers are flying out the door to the sewage works or the council want a new office building and its the same the irony was lost on him

 

[IANTO]

Nothing daft about it at all.
If things have become as bad as has been said, sell up pay off the bills, life in a beautiful house unless that goes too, and get another job. Simple, isnt it?

Only trouble is, if everyone is in the sh!t, and decide to sell up, prices would collapse, and you could not afford to live in a beautiful house. Unemployment is bad enough already, where will they find Jobs?

As has been said on other threads SFP is not meant to fund food production, but support the rural economy.

Nothing is simple.

 

[grumpy]

Only trouble is, if everyone is in the sh!t, and decide to sell up, prices would collapse, and you could not afford to live in a beautiful house. Unemployment is bad enough already, where will they find Jobs?

As has been said on other threads SFP is not meant to fund food production, but support the rural economy.

Nothing is simple.

ehh?no its a payment to super markets,

 

[Derrick Hughes]

If a company outside farming came under financial pressure due to unforeseen events,say a hurricane blew the roof off his factory would you not expect him to receive financial help, or would you prefer if he shut down and turned his workforce on the street, the guy has no food to feed his animals due to the unforeseen dreadfull weather last year