Great article in The Times

[ajd132]

Apparently according to the folk here they spoke to Mr Goldsmith who told them it wasn’t worth practicing regen ag on any ground that wasn’t to the standard of the fens etc. That all this sort of ground is good for is rewilding.

not sure what else we can do other than try and him wrong.

 

[CopperBeech]

Been there - Sheep are making decent money at the moment, so if you had to get out at any time, now wouldn't be the worst time to do it. Think about what you are going to do next and start thinking about making it happen.

Keep your chin up.

People keep saying this, and while I accept it’s true. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to build up to what I have. And it would be quite hard to replace once gone. I just find it a bit hard to swallow that I need to f*ck off out of ag, despite being very good at it and working hard, because I don’t fit in with the latest whim of the rich celebs and their wealth managers.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Yes, everyone should sign that. But it is just about getting the LR element of ELMS binned.

This whole loss of productive land to trees is being driven by a bigger issue. The growing belief that trees are better in terms of GHG than farmland. A belief that is being driven forward by both the NFU and AHDB. That is where we need urgent change; for our national bodies to do a 180 degree turn and openly call it out as the crock of sh1t that it is.

edit: and at an individual farmer level, it is being driven by anyone who evangelizes about carbon credits. Shame on you.

I wonder how much of the push is coming from industry with the idea of lab created food - first step towards that would probably be remove the land area to produce food by other methods.

 

[Wolds Beef]

@CopperBeech Surely it might be a case of relocating your business. Some farmers will still farm and grass is a carbon sink. Groundswell is not entirely going to happen but those that go down that root are going to need someone who knows about stock to eat the cover crops. A whole generation of young people studying agriculture have been brought up on the arable way of life, skiing holidays and all. But we will need FOOD, we need PROTEIN, meat provides that, so do not do anything rash, advertise, look around you will find other land and landlords.
WB

 

[ajd132]

In Jared Diamond's book Collapse, he talks about why societies fail, and mentions Italy and North Africa (which were both the bread baskets for the Roman Empire). He says they destroyed the soil in both areas by the way they farmed. He argues part of the reason for that, was the land was owned by large wealthy landowners, who employed managers to farm it. This then meant, the farmers worked on a "short term" results driven timescale. Poor results in one year, out of a job etc. This meant the land was not farmed with a long term view to improvement of soil resources. That idea sounds pretty similar to the way you are forced to farm - short term lets/FBTs/share farming agreements does not encourage the attitude of the smaller Yeoman farmer to improve the land for their children. You may say I am being overly romantic but I am only joining the dots from Diamond's book to the present system we seem to be moving towards.

i agree, luckily we are have been farming for all our land owners for a long time so have a good relationship and they are fully on board with what we are doing, could all change thought who knows. theres plenty of land owners about who will swap contract farmers/tenants every few years trying to screw an extra few quid out of them and i have no interest of working with someone like that

 

[SteveHants]

People keep saying this, and while I accept it’s true. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to build up to what I have. And it would be quite hard to replace once gone. I just find it a bit hard to swallow that I need to f*ck off out of ag, despite being very good at it and working hard, because I don’t fit in with the latest whim of the rich celebs and their wealth managers.

Yeah, I know - Like I said, I've been more or less exactly in your position, and its really easy to dwell on it, but if you can't change it, you've got to move forward, however that might be for you.

 

[Two Tone]

TBH, I didn’t realise there was a Plough Monday.
I’ve known about Plough Sunday for many years. For the past 2 years (this one included) ours have been cancelled due to Covid. I think more were probably disappointed to miss the Lunch afterwards, rather than the Church bit.

When you see a link to something in a newspaper, especially in one such as The Times and you think they got the day wrong, it makes you wonder how accurate the rest of the article will be. But having googled it, it does exist.
Again looking at the article, it appears to have been published on Tuesday 11, to confuse the issue even more!

Had it appeared in The Sunday Times and even referred to Plough Sunday, maybe more would have read it!

Nonetheless, it hopefully highlighted a very important issue. Being that if Defra want us to do these things for the so called environment, they’d better look after us enough, rather than continue to upset us, as we farmers are the only ones that can implement their plans.
And they ain’t doing so enough yet, by a long, long way!

 

[serf]

Can't understand why ( publicity look at me I'm green) aside, these folk with swathes of land worth millions would want to turn it to rack n ruin and basically worthless because it would be unrecoverable after a few years , either physically or politically!

 

[7610 super q]

Hmmm. Lost count of the many threads on here that expect land owners to rent land to roving livestock farmers for nowt. Looks like they will be choosing something that pays better.
Oh well. Tin hat at the ready.........

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Been there - Sheep are making decent money at the moment, so if you had to get out at any time, now wouldn't be the worst time to do it. Think about what you are going to do next and start thinking about making it happen.

Keep your chin up.

Agree, similar thing happened to us a few years ago. Less than a month's notice. It was for the good in the long run as it turned out though.

Difficult to see it at the time, but that's the sound of a door opening. If you can run a sheep flock you can do anything.

 

[beardface]

Most likely will have to sell the flock. Lost another 500 acre block end of last week because the rich London property developer owners have two dogs which bite people and attack sheep and horses and they don’t want the stress of worrying so the whole 500 acre farm is now just a place to walk to stroker dogs.

Makes me wonder why i bother. Hard work and being good at what you do means nowt these days.

Sorry to hear this.

I've said in other threads that I'm afraid the hay days of graziers are over. And for 2 reasons.

1. The lack of worthwhile support payments for marginal land will lead landlords to want to make up the difference in rent. Making being a grazier uneconomical.

2. The option to rewild or put land into forestry will out compete what graziers can pay. With less "hassle" for the landowner.

 

[beardface]

Very sorry to hear this it must be a very bitter blow, you are absolutely right in your conclusions. I personally have always disliked the idea of tenants and landowners. I was very lucky to be in that generation after the war when landowning did not benefit from IHT benefits. So land was purchasable by farmers not city investors

I'm still of the view that a Labour gov would be detrimental to the long term direction of the country. BUT the likely removal of IHT relief on land under their tenure, could create a better future for many young farmers.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

In Jared Diamond's book Collapse, he talks about why societies fail, and mentions Italy and North Africa (which were both the bread baskets for the Roman Empire). He says they destroyed the soil in both areas by the way they farmed. He argues part of the reason for that, was the land was owned by large wealthy landowners, who employed managers to farm it. This then meant, the farmers worked on a "short term" results driven timescale. Poor results in one year, out of a job etc. This meant the land was not farmed with a long term view to improvement of soil resources. That idea sounds pretty similar to the way you are forced to farm - short term lets/FBTs/share farming agreements does not encourage the attitude of the smaller Yeoman farmer to improve the land for their children. You may say I am being overly romantic but I am only joining the dots from Diamond's book to the present system we seem to be moving towards.

While you are absolutely right, not all landowners only want the highest short term gain. That's more the domain of your fly by night contractor and land agent scenario.

 

[beardface]

People keep saying this, and while I accept it’s true. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to build up to what I have. And it would be quite hard to replace once gone. I just find it a bit hard to swallow that I need to f*ck off out of ag, despite being very good at it and working hard, because I don’t fit in with the latest whim of the rich celebs and their wealth managers.

You'd walk into a flock mangers job very easily.

 

[Vader]

I'm wrong ---net EU migration to UK is now negative i think but total migration is +tive
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac....rnational-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/

Probably lot more positive than figures show.
Unless they changed it, they only count the ppl coming in, they assume they leave when they say they were going to.
Its why UK population is most likely a few million over what the official figures say.

 

[CopperBeech]

@CopperBeech Surely it might be a case of relocating your business. Some farmers will still farm and grass is a carbon sink. Groundswell is not entirely going to happen but those that go down that root are going to need someone who knows about stock to eat the cover crops. A whole generation of young people studying agriculture have been brought up on the arable way of life, skiing holidays and all. But we will need FOOD, we need PROTEIN, meat provides that, so do not do anything rash, advertise, look around you will find other land and landlords.
WB

This would be an option. This is however not the first time I’ve been shafted. Been at this game a fairly long time now and have yet to find a decent evenly matched partnership. But if someone on here wants a chat I’m open. 1000 high index exlana ewes left, 150 good Charmoise ewes, all the equipment needed, good dogs and good staff. A lot of experience of herbal lays, cover crops, regen ag etc.

 

[DRC]

why? we can provide a service that produces both farming and environmental goals, its up to us to prove that's a better option for land owners than "re wilding" (which i think is term being flung about too much). the carbon stuff you can do whilst still growing good crops so that comment does not really make sense. you can do all this stuff togethor. everything is not as black and white as keeps being made out on this forum.

I’m sure your right, but will land owners see it that way .

 

[CopperBeech]

Hmmm. Lost count of the many threads on here that expect land owners to rent land to roving livestock farmers for nowt. Looks like they will be choosing something that pays better.
Oh well. Tin hat at the ready.........

Did I say nowt? No need to be a knob jockey. This has nothing to do with the price of land, it is about shafting people in favour of ill thought through Instagram friendly nonsense.

 

[CopperBeech]

You'd walk into a flock mangers job very easily.

Very true no doubt. But I think I would struggle being someone’s lackey running a couple thousand mules. Not meant nastily in any way.

 

[beardface]

Very true no doubt. But I think I would struggle being someone’s lackey running a couple thousand mules. Not meant nastily in any way.

I think many now are looking for blokes to stamp their mark and move things forwards.