Farmers are the donkey everyone rides
- Thread starter bobk
- Start date
warksfarmer
Member
And all the NFU's fault in my view because they have never put their farmer members first. We've ended up like this because of very poor union representation.
warksfarmer
Member
Agreed, but it does appear that the input industries moved from a "cost plus" model prior to Covid to a "lets see what we can get away with" model caused by short term shortage, which was only ever going to work for a limited amount of time before the parasites kill their host. With fertiliser and machine manufacturers profits at record highs, it should tell us that perhaps their profit margins weren't quite as slim as they were making out. That their industries are going to suffer immeasurably due to farming contraction and SFI makes my heart bleed.
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
They had a story on the ABC rural bit on radio yesterday talking about far north Queensland farmers dealing with the recovery after the most recent tropical cyclone and up to 2 meters of rain that was dumped up there in places... Some farms were completely inundated, no help to clean up.No income in the meantime. No premium to help with their fruit to get them going again. YET. The transport companies have put a surcharge on trucking their fruit out as they have to go over the "range" as the highway up the coast was severely damaged and is still impassable. At the time there was a spike in tropical fruit prices in the supermarkets due to "low supply from the cyclone" farmers saw none of it....Damage to fruit is still evident on farm for most of them. Yet the supermarkets have cut the prices back (cost of living and all that....You know how hard up they are....Both the majors here recorded over 1 billion dollars profit last financial year), and still will only take the top quality.
It's got to stop. Farmer wants something, farmer pays all the input costs. Farmer sells something, Farmer pays all the costs to market.
It's becoming a very skinny donkey carrying the weight of all the fat bà§tarðs in the world.
Wilksy
Member
- Location
- East Riding
There’s a charity advertises on Telly for the welfare of knackered overworked Donkeys 
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
The whole fudging world
no ,some people pay farmers ie customers ,i was thinking of all the quangos etc that live off the farmer,things that only exist to take money off the farmer
- Location
- Radnorshire
Story of rural Ireland where the donkey was the main working animal. The locals met in the pub each week to boast how much work there donkey had done and on how little food they ate. One farmer always had the best donkey, until one week he was crestfallen, just as his donkey was doing all the work and not eating at all he died. We’re all getting thinner.
Who else feeds the world at a loss , you need therapy
No-one is forcing you to do it.
- Location
- Ceredigion
If straw like the price is now and using environment SFI as the excuse for the bonkers price £30 round bale we as farmers are killing each other off. I like the life, but this 2023-2024 input cost is hurting my brain, sad to say the end of my wife’s long generations of farmers is near the end, £30 a bale is an extra £2000 by the time the cattle go out, I only have 40 suckler cows and calves and getting in the top 10 market reports. 11% of Welsh farmers will be gone in 24 months!
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
It's not compulsory to be a farmer?
I'm curious as to who has paid your bills and provided you an income all your life if you "feed the world at a loss"?
Just about every industry or profession feels hard done by or not understood by the rest of the world.
It's just the way it is, don't like it do something else.