I’m a small farmer but I just can’t do it all myself anymore.

[unlacedgecko]

It also needs cheap land and that boat has sailed in the UK

One doesn't need to own land in order to farm it.

 

[Hilly]

Seems to me the majority of farmers seem a bit battle weary ‍ a bit sick n tired but not quite bad enough to sell up but not far away either ….. something needs to change id say especially for livestock farms .

 

[Wood field]

that's not enough though, we don't want to be hobbyists or quaint museum type or 'niche' set ups
all we ever wanted was to have useful productive , economically viable businesses that sustain themselves ,keep us a good respected place the rural community ,(if not Country wide ) and have a future with the insidious underlying worry of all of what we know of /have known of disappearing without trace or care by anyone anywhere.

If you see what i mean in that jumbled piece and yes and i appreciate that here we are writing to each other ie preaching to the converted .

I know exactly what you mean, it gets weary the “ what do you do after breakfast “ brigade
Nothing wrong in my book with small farms be it full or part time , as I’ve said there’s food on the table the bills are paid and above all we enjoy the job

 

[DrWazzock]

62 myself and plenty of aches and pains, a few of them also motorcycle related.

But nothing worse for them than sitting about, and nothing better than a farm to prevent you sitting about!

I’m only 54 and I’m keen to do a days work.I’m busy everyday. I’m just a bit fed up of servicing a big complex overhead on a small acreage. So if I can collaborate with relatives to cut overheads but can still contribute and keep active then that will suit me. That was the purpose of starting this thread. To find a positive way forward. Not to run things down, though I have a tendency to do that, I’ll admit.

 

[Red Fred]

I find this thread quite reassuring rather than depressing as it mirrors my own thoughts and concerns as I hit 60 with no successor and I see that other folks are in the same boat. Our local estates have effectively killed any hope of youngsters getting the opportunity that I was given by my old school landlord, as they have terminated all the grazing and FBT agreements in favour of putting all their land into feel-good green schemes or other non-farming activities. There are young people who are very keen but they seem to be reliant on renting from smaller retiring farmers rather than the traditional big estates which are run by short- termist agents.
When I was younger, my best mate's father-in-law was a slightly terrifying and gnarled traditional dairy farmer who had 5 daughters. I was somewhat in awe of his no-nonsense wisdom, and remember him telling me that he was going to give up at 65 on the dot, sell everything and invest it equally for his daughters so there would be no falling out. He did just that, and now he is in his 90s and we have become good friends, I realise that he had the right idea although it seemed hard headed at the time.
Thinking back to the 1980s, no one remembers any of the local farmers from that time as they have all passed on and their farms have been reabsorbed by the estates. I lost 100 acres of grazing in the last estate sweep out even though I had rented it for over 30 years, but no one cares or notices. In fact, I received a rude letter from the office this year asking why I hadn't paid my rent, and I had to remind them that they had in fact evicted me 5 years ago.
So I'm aiming at slowing down and reducing the sucklers each year until I'm 63, then spending a couple of years tidying up and haymaking on the bit I still rent on AHA before pulling right back to our own little place with its rental units and Mrs Fred's stables. I have had enough of only half doing things and mending machines before they can be used, and can't wait to spend more time tinkering and earning some cash helping horse girls with their harrowing.

 

[Hilly]

A farmer i have always looked up to said to me the other day he was starting to wind down as sick to the back teeth of the job , could have blown me over with a feather but he was the man when i was a school boy ! I got to thinking and forgot hes now 70, scary how time goes when you not looking.

 

[Agrivator]

Thinking back to the 1980s, no one remembers any of the local farmers from that time as they have all passed on and their farms have been reabsorbed by the estates. I lost 100 acres of grazing in the last estate sweep out even though I had rented it for over 30 years, but no one cares or notices. In fact, I received a rude letter from the office this year asking why I hadn't paid my rent, and I had to remind them that they had in fact evicted me 5 years ago.
So I'm aiming at slowing down and reducing the sucklers each year until I'm 63, then spending a couple of years tidying up and haymaking on the bit I still rent on AHA before pulling right back to our own little place with its rental units and Mrs Fred's stables. I have had enough of only half doing things and mending machines before they can be used, and can't wait to spend more time tinkering and earning some cash helping horse girls with their harrowing.

I would have paid the rent (by Bacs?) pronto, and moved back in.

 

[Red Fred]

A farmer i have always looked up to said to me the other day he was starting to wind down as sick to the back teeth of the job , could have blown me over with a feather but he was the man when i was a school boy ! I got to thinking and forgot hes now 70, scary how time goes when you not looking.

I keep thinking this. In 5 years I'll be 65 and getting even more creaky . 5 years is nothing, it's the same time as I was in big school or an ag student and it will pass in the blink of an eye.

 

[yoki]

I’m only 54 and I’m keen to do a days work.I’m busy everyday. I’m just a bit fed up of servicing a big complex overhead on a small acreage. So if I can collaborate with relatives to cut overheads but can still contribute and keep active then that will suit me. That was the purpose of starting this thread. To find a positive way forward. Not to run things down, though I have a tendency to do that, I’ll admit.

I originally had a much longer reply typed but unwittingly it had turned in to a bit of a 'life story' type thing and probably not really appropriate.

However, the first part is relevant here in that when I left school I trained in industrial control systems, served a four year apprenticeship in the power generation industry accompanied by five years of City and Guilds on day release (when C&G actually meant something!), and had a job guaranteed for life.

But ultimately I left it all to take up farming.

Everyone dreams of a cushy, well-paid, secure job,............................probably except me because I had it and it simply wasn't the life I wanted.

But it was well worth the years spent in it because no matter what else happened (and there was a lot!), I never wasted time or energy hankering after that 'dream'.

 

[soapsud]

Policy makers appear to have forgotten that the Common Agricultural Policy was put in place by the French with the Germans (EU) in order to keep the peasants on the land. The French ruling classes particularly having had experience of revolting peasants.
BPS had the benefit of pumping money into the rural economy to achieve the same end and it is not being adequately replaced by the bureaucratic nightmare with inadequate reward that is SFI.
English peasants are then forced off the land as farm businesses go to the wall by a combination of government policy removing support and the unconstrained cartel rigging the market.
Is that the modern version of the highland clearances or a form of ethnic cleansing?
Discuss.

It's been said many times. Having a subsidy upfront means producers can plan ahead safe that no matter what the market prices are, they'll be able to continue. However Gov sees a different countryside.

Without subsidy reassurance, the middle to large farming business model is being asked by the State to resort to faith or trust. No one should do that. So, these estates are following Gov's lead and diversifying and producing less or nothing at all. This leaves the vast Mega-Corp Industrial-Agriculture and the tiny bit players.

There won't be another countryside march in London or will there?

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

One doesn't need to own land in order to farm it.

But can you pay £200 per acre rent and prosper?

 

[Lowland1]

But can you pay £200 per acre rent and prosper?

I could but I’d need to be farming a lot of land to make it work. No one wants to address the elephant in the room that in 2023 200 acres arable is a part time job. Everything has moved on if there’d been a Farming Forum in 1963 then no doubt there’d be people upset that they weren’t making the living on their 30 acres that they used to.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

I could but I’d need to be farming a lot of land to make it work. No one wants to address the elephant in the room that in 2023 200 acres arable is a part time job. Everything has moved on if there’d been a Farming Forum in 1963 then no doubt there’d be people upset that they weren’t making the living on their 30 acres that they used to.

I was thinking more of beef and sheep on more marginal land and doing it from scratch without a lot of capital behind you . Arable land is often more than that

 

[Wood field]

I could but I’d need to be farming a lot of land to make it work. No one wants to address the elephant in the room that in 2023 200 acres arable is a part time job. Everything has moved on if there’d been a Farming Forum in 1963 then no doubt there’d be people upset that they weren’t making the living on their 30 acres that they used to.

I say this, our place not to long ago would be considered a good sized farm, nowadays it’s become a numbers game , but where do you draw the line , I am alone , wife helps weekends, 600 ewes and a few cows, I always have something to do , be that fencing , working with the livestock or whatever , if we expand then there’s a wage to find for the help , that would then mean doubling the size to pay a part time wage

 

[Spud]

The cold hard truth is, commodity agriculture requires scale in order to benefit from efficiencies.

I don't entirely agree with that.

What is important is matching the system & infrastructure to the area, or vice versa.

It's perfectly possible for a one man band to make a living on 200 or 1000ac with the right set up.

In fact, historically, smaller farms tend to see less turbulence in tough times. Big outfits tend to have big rents (chasing acres) staff to pay and kit that continually needs replacing. Small farms have very little of that as a general rule.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

I say this, our place not to long ago would be considered a good sized farm, nowadays it’s become a numbers game , but where do you draw the line , I am alone , wife helps weekends, 600 ewes and a few cows, I always have something to do , be that fencing , working with the livestock or whatever , if we expand then there’s a wage to find for the help , that would then mean doubling the size to pay a part time wage

As well as economies of scale there is also the law of diminishing returns

 

[Lowland1]

I was thinking more of beef and sheep on more marginal land and doing it from scratch without a lot of capital behind you . Arable land is often more than that

I say this, our place not to long ago would be considered a good sized farm, nowadays it’s become a numbers game , but where do you draw the line , I am alone , wife helps weekends, 600 ewes and a few cows, I always have something to do , be that fencing , working with the livestock or whatever , if we expand then there’s a wage to find for the help , that would then mean doubling the size to pay a part time wage

Whatever you do unfortunately it’s got to the point that it has either got to be very niche or it has got to be large scale. I talk arable/pigs because that’s what I know but £50 an acre profit gives you £50,000 on 1000 acres and £10,000 on 200 acres but in 2023 you could farm 1000 acres cereals single handed and still not be working yourself into an early grave for most of the year.

 

[czechmate]

One doesn't need to own land in order to farm it.

it definitely helps

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

Whatever you do unfortunately it’s got to the point that it has either got to be very niche or it has got to be large scale. I talk arable/pigs because that’s what I know but £50 an acre profit gives you £50,000 on 1000 acres and £10,000 on 200 acres but in 2023 you could farm 1000 acres cereals single handed and still not be working yourself into an early grave for most of the year.

I was thinking of how new entrants get started in the current system without outside income.The amount of capital required to finance a 1000 acre arable/pig unit from scratch is huge. I would suggest if someone had that amount of capital they’d be better off long term buying land and would make more profit from less acres

The problem is government land policy is to heavily weighted away from food production. Hopefully it will change one day, but it’s going to take big price increases and empty shelves

 

[Lowland1]

I was thinking of how new entrants get started in the current system without outside income.The amount of capital required to finance a 1000 acre arable/pig unit from scratch is huge. I would suggest if someone had that amount of capital they’d be better off long term buying land and would make more profit from less acres

The problem is government land policy is to heavily weighted away from food production. Hopefully it will change one day, but it’s going to take big price increases and empty shelves

I mentioned before if a new entrant could get hold of 200 acres arable he could farm it part time. He couldn’t afford to buy but with another job to subsidize it then it’s possible the problem is finding the land. You’d be fighting someone already established who needs a bit more land to justify his bigger combine/tractor. Yes it needs a government initiative to support younger farmers but the policy at present is to reduce farmer numbers and that just leads to an aging farmer population. Higher food prices won’t favour new entrants they’ll just favour established businesses.