Elms & the Livestock Farmer

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Do it again I must have missed it. I don't read much squabbling on here, plenty of debate about how to best spend public money.
(goes off to look up the meaning of the word 'forum')
Your proposals are going to do nothing to stop the decline of small livestock farms and rural communities I’m afraid.
 

delilah

Member
Your proposals are going to do nothing to stop the decline of small livestock farms and rural communities I’m afraid.

Well that's funny, because we are a small livestock farm and I can tell you with absolute certainly that it would help us and our local community .
(and before you respond that I have said that we are mainly arable; two hats :) )
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Well that's funny, because we are a small livestock farm and I can tell you with absolute certainly that it would help us and our local community .
(and before you respond that I have said that we are mainly arable; two hats :) )
Oh so you do have a vested interest, this is new
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
not saying this to cause a argument , but is not a lot of what Arable farmers produce, livestock feed, somewhere along the chain.If so, is the profitability of your end users of your product of relevance to you too.
Yes. I’m not having a go at any sector I just don’t think subs are good in general.
 

delilah

Member
not saying this to cause a argument , but is not a lot of what Arable farmers produce, livestock feed, somewhere along the chain.If so, is the profitability of your end users of your product of relevance to you too.

Yes, the multiplier effect of a pound given to the livestock farmer is greater than a pound given to the arable farmer. There is 'public good' in that.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Too late for that Brian - we have already been shafted! The Australia free trade deal is a template that will be rolled out to any country in the world that is interested in taking a slice of British agricultural and any other industry we have left (apart from banking and finance). I notice that Oliver Dowden, Tory party co-chairman, stated that they lost the Shropshire by-election due to negative press when what the voters really want is more trade deals? WTF. I wonder if Shropshire's farming community see it this way? I wrote to my own MP urging him to support the Parrish ammendment to the trade Bill and didn't even get a reply - possibly due to his commitments in the Virgin Islands! SFI is just another example of this government's indifference to food producers and the industry we support whilst they continue to line their own pockets. Bring me a government and prime minister with some morals and a desire for true public service asap.😡
I have a feeling that their research as to what went wrong in a largely rural community will tell them a different story & the fact that they rely on many rural communities to keep them in power will give them food for thought, there’s a chance that amendments to the ELMS scheme may suddenly appear before Mays local elections otherwise another drubbing is on the cards!
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Yes. I’m not having a go at any sector I just don’t think subs are good in general.
This is the conclusion I often come to.
Nothing would be simpler than just letting them wind down over the next few years as is happening to BPS. It would take the inflationary steam and distortions out of farming but wouldn’t penalise those who are willing to work on viable businesses. We’d carry on doing a certain amount of direct drilling here not because of subsidy but because it pays better,
Simple as.
If 10 cows and 30 sheep don’t pay then it’s just the way it is. Every other industry has had to recognise the same economic realities. Locally, millers, wheelwrights, blacksmith shops all in branches of my family, all gone. Move on.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
This is the conclusion I often come to.
Nothing would be simpler than just letting them wind down over the next few years as is happening to BPS. It would take the inflationary steam and distortions out of farming but wouldn’t penalise those who are willing to work on viable businesses. We’d carry on doing a certain amount of direct drilling here not because of subsidy but because it pays better,
Simple as.
If 10 cows and 30 sheep don’t pay then it’s just the way it is. Every other industry has had to recognise the same economic realities. Locally, millers, wheelwrights, blacksmith shops all in branches of my family, all gone. Move on.
Well put.
 

delilah

Member
This is the conclusion I often come to.
Nothing would be simpler than just letting them wind down over the next few years as is happening to BPS. It would take the inflationary steam and distortions out of farming but wouldn’t penalise those who are willing to work on viable businesses. We’d carry on doing a certain amount of direct drilling here not because of subsidy but because it pays better,
Simple as.
If 10 cows and 30 sheep don’t pay then it’s just the way it is. Every other industry has had to recognise the same economic realities. Locally, millers, wheelwrights, blacksmith shops all in branches of my family, all gone. Move on.

You are talking there about subs for farming.
This is about 'public good'.
 

delilah

Member
What about small arable farmers who have no grass?

What about them ? You have said they should 'crack on' ? :scratchhead: .

If you mean in terms of 'public good', if they have any hedges or watercourses then you will have read that I believe they should receive public money.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
This is the conclusion I often come to.
Nothing would be simpler than just letting them wind down over the next few years as is happening to BPS. It would take the inflationary steam and distortions out of farming but wouldn’t penalise those who are willing to work on viable businesses. We’d carry on doing a certain amount of direct drilling here not because of subsidy but because it pays better,
Simple as.
If 10 cows and 30 sheep don’t pay then it’s just the way it is. Every other industry has had to recognise the same economic realities. Locally, millers, wheelwrights, blacksmith shops all in branches of my family, all gone. Move on.
Not many millers, blacksmiths & wheelwrights were having to compete with heavily subsidised competitors just across the channel, not beyond the realms of possibilitiy that farming in the family could go the very same way in time.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Yes. I’m not having a go at any sector I just don’t think subs are good in general.
Ok but you can see that a), there is a real dearth of people wanting to come into farming from outside and b), the minimum size of a viable unit keeps getting bigger, which then makes it more difficult to attract newcomers.

Actually the big elephant in the room is the corporate food system which we are all working for. The only way out of this seems to be access to the retail market for small producers. So that's another catch 22, farms are so busy expanding that there's no time to develop the processing and retail side which would actually make them more sustainable.

We all chase the bigger farm, the extra bit of land or the bigger machine to save time. But it all involves extra risk, management and capital for us to keep feeding the monster with.

I don't know how many cows you need to make a living, but if you can retail the milk for £1 a litre it must be fewer than wholesaling it for 30p.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Ok but you can see that a), there is a real dearth of people wanting to come into farming from outside and b), the minimum size of a viable unit keeps getting bigger, which then makes it more difficult to attract newcomers.

Actually the big elephant in the room is the corporate food system which we are all working for. The only way out of this seems to be access to the retail market for small producers. So that's another catch 22, farms are so busy expanding that there's no time to develop the processing and retail side which would actually make them more sustainable.

We all chase the bigger farm, the extra bit of land or the bigger machine to save time. But it all involves extra risk, management and capital for us to keep feeding the monster with.

I don't know how many cows you need to make a living, but if you can retail the milk for £1 a litre it must be fewer than wholesaling it for 30p.
This is why I think throwing abit more sub at it all is pointless
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
You are talking there about subs for farming.
This is about 'public good'.
Yes it’s a completely different thing. If you are running a “community” farm then I think that deserves some kind of support but maybe the local taxation system would be the best way of funding it. That way rate payers can make a judgement when they vote on what they think is good use of their money locally and I for one would be happy to support it.
But chucking money out from Whitehall on non targeted blanket schemes isn’t right in my view. It’s neither value for the taxpayer nor helpful to the real efficiency of agriculture.
Frankly despite the basic payment and the cross compliance rules there isn’t really anything we are doing differently here than we were doing in 1950. We always had hedge margins 2m from hedge centre and 1m at watercourse bank top. Cross compliance is just a veneer of respectability to justify doling out £3bn to people who are some of the richest biggest landowners in the country and I can see the SFI is going exactly the same way. It will pay the biggest the most, for what a lot of them are doing anyway and would do anyway without a sub. DEFRA like it that way because it keeps them in a job, the NFU like it but it keeps their biggest members snouts in the trough but for us on 200 acres of mixed cropping, some grass, livestock etc its just not worth the bother.
It needs a rethink. I’m almost happier to see the money go to genuine nature reserves, community farms, rewilding projects etc where people and the landowners really want them. But please don’t frig around with my farming business trying to mix it with “ public goods”. Won’t work. I do a bit for nature anyway. It goes with the job. Keep distorting subsidies and the inflation they bring out of farming. Yes, actually give it to the nature reserves, community farms etc and let them get on with it.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 81 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 68 35.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.6%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,294
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top