Farm subsidies.. Yay or nay

This is a difficult one l, I only know about arable.
But when ahdb etc publish stats saying the average price it costs to grow a tonne of wheat is £150/t there is something drastically wrong. It should cost no where near that. Part of me thinks the real subsidy beneficiaries are the various input suppliers machinery, chemical, fert etc.
It seems the ahdb s main aim (not their fault) at the moment is teaching 50 year old farmers at monitor farm meetings how much a tractor costs to run and telling people to make obvious savings that should already be in place on a well run business. They do some great work, but could plough more money into even better work without all this obvious dead weight.
Foward planning I am not expecting to get anything.

I’m quite happy they publish figures like that. Imagine the pressure supermarkets would be putting on prices if they knew wheat didn’t cost that much too grow
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
what sort of older classics are you running?
K reg (1992?) Ford 7740SLE 9500 hrs
IMG_0109.JPG

N reg (1996) Ford 8340 SLE 9000 hrs
IMG_0115(2).JPG

The secret is knowing somebody who used to work for a main dealer, set up on his own, that is a hell of a lot cheaper, who can fix the bits we can't do ourselves.
 
K reg (1992?) Ford 7740SLE 9500 hrs
View attachment 810936

N reg (1996) Ford 8340 SLE 9000 hrs
View attachment 810928

The secret is knowing somebody who used to work for a main dealer, set up on his own, that is a hell of a lot cheaper, who can fix the bits we can't do ourselves.
capable enough looking, my 8 year old tractor already have more hrs on them though
 

D14

Member
This might get a bit of a debate going

Is the future of GB farming with / without subsidies?

Which do you think would be better for farmers long term?

My personal thoughts are it would be better scrapped, but we need the rest of the EU to do the same!

Whatever happens we will be screwed nobody else. I've thought for a long while that this move towards environmental payments are nothing short of a con because it'll keep food prices where they are because its ultimately a subsidy. However we have got to spend it to do the environmental things such as the countrywide stewardship in order to get it. That will cost at least 50% of what you receive so we are all facing loosing 50% of what you get which will be considerably less than the SFP. Just looking at our stewardship scheme now and it pays £609/ha for the land thats out of the production of cropping. This is all land that is tight field corners or against water courses so has not really impacted on the bottom line. We've spent £150/ha establishing them though for a 2 year period so thats paid £450/ha which we think is good money. Then add in overwintered stubble which is something we would do anyway and you get another £84/ha so again thats money for nothing. The capital items then top it up which again do not affect our actual cropping so its things like hedge planting etc. So for us the CS assuming we get paid of course is good money. However if SFP is completely removed then the only way to maintain some subsidy income would be to fallow half of the land down on the enhanced overwintered stubble option which pays £436/ha. I can see a lot of people doing this and letting staff go and selling equipment as they are effectively halving the farmed area.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
capable enough looking, my 8 year old tractor already have more hrs on them though
Perhaps I wouldn't want to be using working classics that are 20 years + old with more than a 1,000 hours / year on them.
But there are many out there that haven't done anything like that. I bought both of mine 3 years ago. I'll not worry about them up to at least 15,000.
Where the savings come is keeping the mainline tractors from clocking up high hours and wearing out. Their working hours are halved.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Perhaps I wouldn't want to be using working classics that are 20 years + old with more than a 1,000 hours / year on them.
But there are many out there that haven't done anything like that. I bought both of mine 3 years ago. I'll not worry about them up to at least 15,000.
Where the savings come is keeping the mainline tractors from clocking up high hours and wearing out. Their working hours are halved.
Lots of folk wear out big expensive new tractors doing jobs that a tractor half the size and a 10th of the price would do
Take away the payments and we will see if this continues
 
No, merely time has done that.
Capital gains here are fairly high, probably similar increases recently to UK land prices - and largely due to the same reasons, people with the means like to have some

Up where @FonterraFarmer is, the urban sprawl is pushing land prices beyond what farming can afford to pay, well, conventional farming at least, as the returns are what they are.

I'd rather sh!t in my hands then clap, than be a conventional farmer .
Ahh, but what is a "conventional farmer"? The one who farms like their father or worse their grandfather, or the one continually following the fashion of the day or the slave to technology?
The perspective of reality is distorted by the politics of the country that you farm in and merely replicating what is done abroad without understanding the dynamics of the environment that you are farming is doomed to failure.
The ultimate question is, is it possible anywhere in the world to be able to be a farmer and to be able to farm without subsidies, supply management or direct or indirect government intervention and restrictive tariffs?
Very easy to be insular and narrow minded, but travel abroad will either open the mind or give one the focus or justification that give one the confidence to farming on a tangent.
That said , as a statement is directed at no one, it's said as an observation or generalisation as result of going overseas and returning to NZ over the years.
 

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
Give every farming business a yearly lump sum probably equal to the minimum wage then let the market sort it out. If you are happy farming because you enjoy it you will continue especially now you have a guaranteed income and it will cost the tax payer an awful lot less than funding the likes of Mr Dyson who will succeed because of their large size anyway. Likewise abandon environmental subsidies and legislate for what you want to happen in the countryside. Thats what I would do.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Give every farming business a yearly lump sum probably equal to the minimum wage then let the market sort it out. If you are happy farming because you enjoy it you will continue especially now you have a guaranteed income and it will cost the tax payer an awful lot less than funding the likes of Mr Dyson who will succeed because of their large size anyway. Likewise abandon environmental subsidies and legislate for what you want to happen in the countryside. Thats what I would do.
What would yearly min wage be ?
 

fgc325j

Member
What would yearly min wage be ?

The figure bandied about as being the national avg. income, i believe, is 28k.
But who would receive it, the name of the person on the business, or his son
who is actually doing the work. There have been postings on TFF about the
avg. age of farmer's being 58, and a lot have posted that this refers to the
age of the figurehead in the business, not the actual grafter.
 
Give every farming business a yearly lump sum probably equal to the minimum wage then let the market sort it out. If you are happy farming because you enjoy it you will continue especially now you have a guaranteed income and it will cost the tax payer an awful lot less than funding the likes of Mr Dyson who will succeed because of their large size anyway. Likewise abandon environmental subsidies and legislate for what you want to happen in the countryside. Thats what I would do.
Then I would contract farm for most of my land lords who would claim the payments
Any limit on payments would ultimately only affect a small number of large land owners
Some may then go back to letting land
The family farm with 4 partners would have to split their land holdings and farm as a group mum dad 2 sons / daughters plus partners could set up as 6 farm businesses using same kit as a family contractor
Agents and lawyers and accountants would collect fees
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 35.1%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

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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/
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