- Location
- Fife
I don't think you're a dick at all. I agree entirely. Unfortunately, there is normally some other f cker with subsidies who can push up the rent in the landlords' eyes and give them unrealistic ideas as to value...
How high is too high
- Thread starter hendrebc
- Start date
I don't think you're a dick at all. I agree entirely. Unfortunately, there is normally some other f cker with subsidies who can push up the rent in the landlords' eyes and give them unrealistic ideas as to value...
- Location
- Fife
no I don't! Must be someone else your thinking of?
My grass parks are creeping up though... IMO I pay well over the odds for it - compared to what the land was like in year 1 (after being properly farmed), but the owner/agent sees it differently and keep asking for more - but wont spend a single £ on the place
I have a similar problem. I'm renting some land on a headage rate for tack sheep. But the land hasn't had anything put on it in 10 years+, just cut for hay/silage in the summer and grazed by sheep in the winter. There is also no fencing to speak of.
The landowner won't spend anything on fences, reseeding or fert. The hedges are barely trimmed, and get wider every year. They continually moan that the farm has no income.
I've offered them a 5 year contract farming agreement, but don't want to give me that security of tenure. Worries about subsidy loss and tax relief status pervade.
Skirza NCC
Member
@ OP I'll take every penny I can get for our lambs - it's impossible that someone can pay too much as they're only worth what the buyers willing to pay. Main thing is profit at the end of the day and the money is better in your bank.
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
A £3/kg premium for washing a mincer seems a bit steep.
I agree i will take as much as i can get for mine too no one will do me any favours so why should i. Was more a hypothetical question what happens when people who eat our lambs cant afford them anymore and were a happy medium price is or even if there is one.
What if there was a new market created? I have rarely bought lamb as it just doesn’t look value for money on the shelf, a few poxy little pale and tasteless chops for more money than I’ve seen some store lambs selling for!
The best lamb you will taste isn’t lamb at all, it’s been overwintered and grown on and finished at grass the year after.
Rather than marketing lamb, which just isn’t that popular in the UK supermarkets, why not try and make a new market for hogget? With ever increasing consumer sensitivity these days, perhaps even the label ‘lamb’, with its connotations of cute week old lambs jumping and skipping in the fields, would be enough to put folk off.
Whereas the new product ‘hogget’ could encourage curiosity, cuts of meat would be bigger, and some economies of scale (surely processing costs wouldn’t be much higher for a hogget v a lamb, ie cheaper/kg) could make the product better value for money.
It would surely have a more developed flavour as well.
If we lose continental markets for light lamb we really need to try and innovate and promote our product at home.
The best lamb you will taste isn’t lamb at all, it’s been overwintered and grown on and finished at grass the year after.
Rather than marketing lamb, which just isn’t that popular in the UK supermarkets, why not try and make a new market for hogget? With ever increasing consumer sensitivity these days, perhaps even the label ‘lamb’, with its connotations of cute week old lambs jumping and skipping in the fields, would be enough to put folk off.
Whereas the new product ‘hogget’ could encourage curiosity, cuts of meat would be bigger, and some economies of scale (surely processing costs wouldn’t be much higher for a hogget v a lamb, ie cheaper/kg) could make the product better value for money.
It would surely have a more developed flavour as well.
If we lose continental markets for light lamb we really need to try and innovate and promote our product at home.
- Location
- Ceredigion, wales
I was told by an abattoir manager a few years ago that once lamb reached £4/kg there was a fair bit of 'consumer resistance' as he called it. £4/kg then was probably more like £5/kg now though.
Skirza NCC
Member
I understand your question but really think your worrying too much about something that's outwith your control. If there's no profit folk will stop producing lamb, might take a while to change but if they can't turn a pound they won't bother. There's no happy medium price as there's such a variation in cost of production.
Not worried just thinking out loud and make a bit of debate see what others think of it.
When it comes to cost of production its the ones with the high costs that will lose out if someone can produce it for less then they will be ahead as always. There might not be a happy medium but there might be a price beyond what people can afford to pay so cost of production will be the important thing if that happens.
Skirza NCC
Member
Yes the cheaper production holds less risk. Some of the best profit I've seen is a neighbours daughter selling whole or half lambs direct - she's been at it for a few years and built up a nice group of returning customers, she's charging £140 for a fully butchered lamb freezer ready. When the lamb price is high there's not much difference in the profit but after the market has been flooded with new season and fat non farm assured is floating about £70 there's a good margin, she continues through until the following February when they need the space for lambing so the tail enders go in a bunch. No doubt there's extra work involved that I'm not seeing but It seem a good margin albeit small scale.
Might be cheaper than rushes at £50 though
- Location
- Ceredigion, wales
Yes it works on a small scale but try doing it with a couple of thousand lambs
- Location
- Fife
Skirza NCC
Member
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
beefandsleep
Member
- Location
- Staffordshire
I believe there is one for sale in Derby.
- Location
- Ceredigion, wales
No it's more a case of limited amount of customers willing to buy direct. We can all sell twenty lambs to friends and family but try selling another twenty and you'd struggle IME.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
5 yrs wouldn’t be enough if you were aiming to get it back in good heart, unless you had it for next to nowt.
Depends how bad it is fencing is out but npk and ph / hedge cutting is doable5 yrs wouldn’t be enough if you were aiming to get it back in good heart, unless you had it for next to nowt.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
It’s certainly doable (that’s what I inherited here) but if it’s had bugger all put in and hay/silage taken off each year, it will likely have been drained of P&K. To correct pH and P&K on that sort of ground takes more inputs than it produces for several years, hence my comment about having be very cheap if only for 5 years.