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

[Cowcorn]

Whatever floats your boat I suppose, if there is any grass in Saudi Arabia, it may not be greener, particularly if you have your head turned by a dusky maiden and the junior Teslacoils don’t get to see daddy any more!?

God no i sincerely hope @teslacoils hasnt his head turned by some dusky maiden in Saudi anyway ....heaven knows what thed cut off if he got caught !! Anyway i dont think hes running out on the Missus or the kids .

 

[Cowcorn]

The man you bought the sheep from could have found someone to share farm the flock and pushed efficiencies so that profit exceeded the English Nature look. Scale is what stops many businesses being efficient and profitable. Which is dictate to access to large contiguous areas of ground. And the biggest obstacle to that is subs and schemes. See @Bossfarmer idea about a beef co operative.

Unfortunately I've found that many landowners can't bear the thought of someone else making money from their land.

Option A) I have a business idea. I will provide labour and capital. You provide land. We will each make £500/ac.

Option B) Natural England will pay the landowner £300/ac, and I get nothing.

In my experience to date, the majority of the landowners will take option B. Or even worse, take option A, then find a way to cheat their partner out of his profit.

When they find their land massively devalued by NE through the back door (see NE knows best thread) they may come to regret it.

Bang on the money im afraid @unlacedgecko the powers that be have conspired to to cheat the hopefulls out of a start
Whatever about production based subs these money for nothing schemes suit the to lazy to work and to clever to starve brigade ....
Back in 93 when direct subs came in my father hated them and said " give a lazy bugger an option and it will cost the man who works "
Nearly fourty years later it looks like he was right with little available for new blood and more land locked in schemes that should instead be available for rent .

 

[Vader]

I thought you had 800kg suckler cows? Have they gone very recently?

Started thinning out last year as cull price was good.
Best cows been sold on for breeding.
Culled last ones month ago.
Still got the fat beast in shed on barley.
Couple more month and all be gone.

 

[ajd132]

With new gear, and a modern grain store, yes. How many 200 acre farms are blessed with this. And forget about selling straw, which requires you to be on tap 24/7 for 8 months of the year loading bales 2 at a time into horse boxes. A good relationship with the merchant too. No good an artic turning up in the yard if you're 40 miles away on a job..........

central store or commercial store, huge amount of work removed. Gone at harvest. No worries about lorries turning up randomly.
you dont have to sell straw two bales at time Into horse boxes, would need serious uplift compared to selling it in one go to make it worth the time.

it can be as simple or complicated as you want.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

The man you bought the sheep from could have found someone to share farm the flock and pushed efficiencies so that profit exceeded the English Nature look. Scale is what stops many businesses being efficient and profitable.

Why would share farming necessarily increase the profit over what it is now? And I can't see how any change of system would allow the farmer to get more from half the flock profit than he is getting from the whole flock up to present which is what he would have compared with the scheme.

Option A) I have a business idea. I will provide labour and capital. You provide land. We will each make £500/ac.

Are you talking about farming sheep?? and making £1000 per acre

In my experience to date, the majority of the landowners will take option B. Or even worse, take option A, then find a way to cheat their partner out of his profit.

As a landowner I would be wary of option B because so many of these types of agreements go wrong.

When they find their land massively devalued by NE through the back door (see NE knows best thread) they may come to regret it.

He accepts the land is unlikely to be farmed by his family again and to mitigate that he is going to use the payments to buy more land. You need certainty on what income you are going to get to finance that.

All I'm trying to show in these posts is how the current system favours non agricultural use for land, whether it be nature projects, energy etc. I don't agree with it but as a landowner who will be 65 next lambing time, I am finding myself pushed towards these options purely as a business decision. I thought it would be helpful to give an insight into a (old) landowners' thinking at this time.

Oh and I didn't inherit 1 acre

 

[Red Fred]

Bang on the money im afraid @unlacedgecko the powers that be have conspired to to cheat the hopefulls out of a start
Whatever about production based subs these money for nothing schemes suit the to lazy to work and to clever to starve brigade ....
Back in 93 when direct subs came in my father hated them and said " give a lazy bugger an option and it will cost the man who works "
Nearly fourty years later it looks like he was right with little available for new blood and more land locked in schemes that should instead be available for rent .

My landlords didn't consider the cost of the work which I used to do for nothing as I saw it as part of the deal and treated the grazing land just the same as my AHA land. The agent gave me a year's notice on my grazing area, then just as the notice was nearly up and I had reduced the cow numbers by 40%, the estate foreman ,who I got along with, turned up on my doorstep asking if I wanted the ground back as they hadn't thought of how NE would want it grazed or managed in the new scheme. However, the agent said he would want double the old rent, so I politely declined.
Over my 30 years, I had regularly maintained the water meadows with a rotary ditcher, and the estate now discovered that it would require a specialist contractor to do the job that NE had happily let me do for nothing and I enjoyed doing it. At one point, the sum of £40,000 was mentioned Similarly, I had put together a weed wiper gang to keep the docks and creeping thistle in order and the landlords had never considered this. Looking over the fence, the area is now in a right old pickle but I consider it SEP- Someone Else's Problem.

 

[DRC]

The man you bought the sheep from could have found someone to share farm the flock and pushed efficiencies so that profit exceeded the English Nature look. Scale is what stops many businesses being efficient and profitable. Which is dictate to access to large contiguous areas of ground. And the biggest obstacle to that is subs and schemes. See @Bossfarmer idea about a beef co operative.

Unfortunately I've found that many landowners can't bear the thought of someone else making money from their land.

Option A) I have a business idea. I will provide labour and capital. You provide land. We will each make £500/ac.

Option B) Natural England will pay the landowner £300/ac, and I get nothing.

In my experience to date, the majority of the landowners will take option B. Or even worse, take option A, then find a way to cheat their partner out of his profit.

When they find their land massively devalued by NE through the back door (see NE knows best thread) they may come to regret it.

There’s a lot of wannabe sheep graziers that any sensible farmer would run a mile from. unfortunately it attracts people that see sheep as the cheapest way into farming, but either try and do it on the cheap with poor stock or run out of money , leaving problems behind them . I’m afraid that’s what your up against .

 

[soapsud]

Oh and I didn't inherit 1 acre

I'm lower than a peasant or serf as I don't own any land, I rent, lease, and work in kind. I also have never collected any Gov subsidy - that's for the landowners. I can say our sheep have grazed Higher Tier CS flower meadows this last autumn as that's allowed. In the past, we've had to downsize a few times and move far and wide too. It was doable when diesel was £1.30pl. Things are different now. We're in one place and the parcels of land are close together.

Do you still want sheep (yours or someone else's) if you take the Shilling?

 

[soapsud]

There’s a lot of wannabe sheep graziers that any sensible farmer would run a mile from. unfortunately it attracts people that see sheep as the cheapest way into farming, but either try and do it on the cheap with poor stock or run out of money , leaving problems behind them . I’m afraid that’s what your up against .

Yep, been competing with them for years. It's the horsey crowd that tilt the balance. If the recession hits big time this year, we're hoping a lot more grazing will get freed up.

 

[unlacedgecko]

There’s a lot of wannabe sheep graziers that any sensible farmer would run a mile from. unfortunately it attracts people that see sheep as the cheapest way into farming, but either try and do it on the cheap with poor stock or run out of money , leaving problems behind them . I’m afraid that’s what your up against .

Have we met?

Damn right sheep are the cheapest way into farming. I've built my flock with £12-20 Shetland draft ewes. For someone like me, it's the quickest way to achieve critical mass. Buying mule shearlings at £180/hd is a complete non starter.

 

[DRC]

Have we met?

Damn right sheep are the cheapest way into farming. I've built my flock with £12-20 Shetland draft ewes. For someone like me, it's the quickest way to achieve critical mass. Buying mule shearlings at £180/hd is a complete non starter.

Some aren’t as switched on as you maybe . Personally I’d take the scheme money before the risk of scabby sheep rubbing wool all over the fence posts and dead ones left lying around, before someone dies a bunk and won’t pay.
Neighbour had this very scenario

 

[som farmer]

Have we met?

Damn right sheep are the cheapest way into farming. I've built my flock with £12-20 Shetland draft ewes. For someone like me, it's the quickest way to achieve critical mass. Buying mule shearlings at £180/hd is a complete non starter.

in a moment of insanity, l bought some shetlands, lad had lost his grazing, and they had to go, bought cheaply, but not stolen, with their lambs.
I think l know why he lost his grazing, we couldn't keep them in, turned them round, pretty quickly, except the final few ewes and lambs. l did find/see them, about 4 miles away, definitely the ones, markings told me that, had a think, and decided, forget them. Where they were, was a nightmare to get to.

we haven't had our own sheep for 10 yrs or more, caught myself thinking, all this grass, would be ideal for some oct lambing poll dorsets ! I didn't mention it to son though ! I might if we sell the cows .......

 

[czechmate]

Stick It all in Fallow, and see if someone will rent some/all on a 1 year cropping agreement.

Thats where i am, you might think you will get short of money, but go and have an add up of expenses that disappear or shrink to very little (EG water bill) if you dont start a tractor engine, it will shock you.
Ok i moved a land sale money into houses a few years ago as I couldn't roll it over, I now have way more cash stacked in the bank than ever in my life, and grows every month.
It does concern me that although I thought I was a half decent farmer (others opinion) the bottom line profit had in recent years nearly become irrelevant to the work and turnover of modern farming.

you had some serious coolant leaks

 

[unlacedgecko]

Some aren’t as switched on as you maybe . Personally I’d take the scheme money before the risk of scabby sheep rubbing wool all over the fence posts and dead ones left lying around, before someone dies a bunk and won’t pay.
Neighbour had this very scenario

And were I in your position, I may well do the same.

That's the thing about perspective, your perception of reality depends on where you're standing. We are all at different life stages, and have different personal circumstances.

It's unfortunate your neighbour was burned. Like any relationship, choice of partner and continued communication are vital.

 

[robs1]

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.

Why should one of the most important jobs in the world need to receive a subsidy to cover the costs ?
Sooner or later food price or the part the farmer gets will have to rise or governments will have to pay farmers a proper subsidy to stay in business, either will do or there will be massive food shortages and riots.

Yep, been competing with them for years. It's the horsey crowd that tilt the balance. If the recession hits big time this year, we're hoping a lot more grazing will get freed up.

Horsey ladies will sell themselves before their old nag

 

[czechmate]

Why should one of the most important jobs in the world need to receive a subsidy to cover the costs ?
Sooner or later food price or the part the farmer gets will have to rise or governments will have to pay farmers a proper subsidy to stay in business, either will do or there will be massive food shortages and riots.

Horsey ladies will sell themselves before their old nag

subsidies were to create stability of price/production, to lower the risk of shortage.
worked well imo

 

[glasshouse]

In same situation here.getting old with plenty of aches and pains from farm work since I could walk and motorbike accidents.elderly mother still in charge and no offspring.No help either and lots of things I really struggle with too.in process of putting whole farm into stewardship stuff.ill still get to do some tractor work which I love but more time to myself,still do digger work but not as much as before.im really pee'd of with all the ridiculous regs put on to us causing expense fir no return aswell.i certainly won’t miss the regular grillings evertime an agrovista spray bill drops through the door either along with how much have you spent on that!only need to get a big topper and will probably sell some machinery that will not be needed.very sad situation and I’ve had some really dark moments when I’ve sat down and thought about it but I really cannot see any way foreward with the way things are.we own 220 acres and having beeen in stewardship for last 20 years we have had about 170 arable acres.
nick...

Tell mum to sit a sprayer test and go get a job till she comes to her senses

 

[soapsud]

Horsey ladies will sell themselves before their old nag

Statistica says there were 250,000 horse in the UK in 2017.
Petkeen says there are 375,000 now that are worth £4.7 billion.
If you're right, then OnlyFans etc are going to go mega!

 

[unlacedgecko]

Statistica says there were 250,000 horse in the UK in 2017.
Petkeen says there are 375,000 now that are worth £4.7 billion.
If you're right, then OnlyFans etc are going to go mega!

It's a highly competitive saturated market.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Why should one of the most important jobs in the world need to receive a subsidy to cover the costs ?
Sooner or later food price or the part the farmer gets will have to rise or governments will have to pay farmers a proper subsidy to stay in business, either will do or there will be massive food shortages and riots.

Or the sector will consolidate until businesses are at a sufficient size to be competitive. Producing a globally traded commodity without a unique selling point means one must compete with global price point.