FT get leaked speech...

hally

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
cumbria
Everything they do has risk attached. They like seeing someone who has the ability to service and actually repay a loan.
In the farming sector though where is the high risk? Mortgages are normally lent on 100% of the land value if there is collateral added from other blocks of land, machines are all easily repossessed and overdrafts are generally no where near the asset value of the business. Your right in that nothing is totally risk free but they rarely go balls deep in risk in our sector.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Value of public good delivered?
I can’t remember the figures but you often hear, Ag costs water companies £x.x billon, ammonia releases from Ag costs public health £x.x billion. Loss of habitat from Ag (??!) costs UK £x.x billion. Flooding caused by Ag costs £x.x billion. I don’t pretend to know how on earth they put a figure on some of them, but they always seem to come up with an impressively large amount!
Biggest problem is why pay me to stop farming, when you could just stop paying me to farm and get similar results!
Are we the problem...?
 

WRXppp

Member
Location
North Yorks
What do people suggest as an alternative to income forgone?
Well that is the can of worms, at the moment they have X pot of £ to devide by X number of entitelments. Stewardship schemes are budgeted to a pot of money available so is competitive. ELMS is a free for all and if they set payments on an income forgone payment in a high price wheat year they will not get uptake until a dire wheat price year, if they go with higher public goods calculation and have an avalanche of applications ie whole farms how do they budget for it, not to mention using taxpayer money to produce in essence less food which would, in a supply and demand market, lead to price increases and the circle starts again.
 

Goffer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorkshire
That might have been true many years ago when ordinary bank managers could make the lending decisions themselves.Its nonsense today.If the bank wants their £2million back,they will get it!..........no matter what.
I’d would of agreed with the sentiment also but a local builder with 20k of tangible assets has just gone for 625k . 300k of it bank loans . Ltd company what’s the chances getting that back more so how the hell did he get there ???? Itlll come out eventually but I stand by ag in general is a safe bet to bank with customers whom generally honour loans
 

stroller

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Somerset UK
I keep banging on, something may stick eventually.
About 20 years after we all start eating that slop there will be a huge increase in birth defects, obesity, and other illnesses, those companies will eventually become the new Monsanto.
 
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Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
And it’s a handy asset to have to set up a non farming income by borrowing against it whilst the likes of your company can farm it efficiently, I’m at the end of my ELS/HLS scheme at the end of ‘22 and it certainly focus’s the mind, ELMS if it on an income forgone basis of calculation and taking present high and mid tier CS payments as a guide you would need around 30% of 400 acres to be in the same place sub wise, squaring fields, using say wild bird mixes as break crops, can it be done on these 400 acre farms without harming your efficiency?
I think that depends on how much you want or need the payment. It's guarenteed, lower risk and is generally off peak work wise
 
I’d would of agreed with the sentiment also but a local builder with 20k of tangible assets has just gone for 625k . 300k of it bank loans . Ltd company what’s the chances getting that back more so how the hell did he get there ???? Itlll come out eventually but I stand by ag in general is a safe bet to bank with customers whom generally honour loans


Limited Company with £20k of assets doesn't necessarily mean that all the directors assets including his house are safe though nowadays..
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I’d would of agreed with the sentiment also but a local builder with 20k of tangible assets has just gone for 625k . 300k of it bank loans . Ltd company what’s the chances getting that back more so how the hell did he get there ???? Itlll come out eventually but I stand by ag in general is a safe bet to bank with customers whom generally honour loans

Director of a ltd can still make personal guarantees to borrow against, can’t imagine any lender would loan without guarantee of security behind the kind of sums you can stuff on a credit card
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
What do people suggest as an alternative to income forgone?

The alternative to 'income forgone' (which we were told was forced on us by those pesky Europeans), is what we were all being sold as the way forward to our bright new future. 'Public money for public goods' was all about paying us to provide desired 'outcomes' (as they called them), rather than just compensating us for the income we lost by providing those same things.

Another government promise that seems to have evaporated. :mad:
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
Are we the problem...?
If you listen to some people yes. I don’t think we are as bad as the worst case doom mungers state, but there is definitely room to improve a fair bit. Trouble is it’s usually at the expense of physical output and there is quite a change of mindset and business structure (and possibly whole industry structure) that’s needed to make sure that doesn’t end up as financial output as well.
 

two-cylinder

Member
Location
Cambridge
Everything was on it’s knees at that time. I remember a neighbouring 500ac (tired) arable farm came up for a sale in 1990/1, complete with bungalow and buildings (which we had rented previously for dairy heifers). The guide price was £1k an acre and there was only one offer on it, before it was ultimately withdrawn from the market. It was ‘tired’ after it had been contract farmed/raped for many years previously, and desperately need livestock & muck.

That was the year that IACS came in, and profitability started improving again.

Yes 1991 was a low point, everyone knew set-a-side was coming in and didn't know what to expect?
It was assumed by many we'd be forced to leave land fallow with no compensation, hence the caution.
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
If you listen to some people yes. I don’t think we are as bad as the worst case doom mungers state, but there is definitely room to improve a fair bit. Trouble is it’s usually at the expense of physical output and there is quite a change of mindset and business structure (and possibly whole industry structure) that’s needed to make sure that doesn’t end up as financial output as well.

The thing with a lot of these things you are trying to lump a whole bunch of very different but competing business under the one banner of ag.

Just look at the representation different areas in ag want vs the others. Just look at the arguments on here between the different forms of cultivation.

If you try and limit a groups output someone with more money, bigger debt etc will try and fill it that’s ag’s triumph but also downfall. As in effect we all compete whether we like it or not
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 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

  • 1,293
  • 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/
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