i am not sure if i should repeat what elderly farmer told me

banjo

Member
Location
Back of beyond
You have to laugh, the first thing that's taught us to spend huge amounts of money to bring in the same income, and when all the money is eventually paid back, your f**ked.
most young farmers turn grey during the first couple of months after the Loan agreement and not far off the grave at 50!
The old saying that still stands the test of time is "Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity."
I do tend to listen to older farmers as I get nearer the age myself, they have seen it all and wore the t shirt.
Most still managed to keep farming, maybe there us a lesson there for everyone!
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Same here, we only watch the odd film if we are round at Mrs Fred's dad's, but don't have tellie at the farm.
A surprising number of people seem to be giving up on it, or just not bothering to reconnect when they move, etc
must admit that apart from Emmerdale there is not much good on :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
You have to laugh, the first thing that's taught us to spend huge amounts of money to bring in the same income, and when all the money is eventually paid back, your fudgeed.
most young farmers turn grey during the first couple of months after the Loan agreement and not far off the grave at 50!
The old saying that still stands the test of time is "Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity."
I do tend to listen to older farmers as I get nearer the age myself, they have seen it all and wore the t shirt.
Most still managed to keep farming, maybe there us a lesson there for everyone!
I can't remember ever being taught to spend money
 

jendan

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
People forget the older generation were farming in one of the most exiting times for farmers after the war, huge improvements in everything.
This great vid shows how far thinking they were then, now we go backwards compared to it!
I often said that to my late father,although they had it very hard with lots of manual work,farming and food was wanted,a golden age perhaps.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Same here, we only watch the odd film if we are round at Mrs Fred's dad's, but don't have tellie at the farm.
A surprising number of people seem to be giving up on it, or just not bothering to reconnect when they move, etc
Same with the landline telephone - few people bother with them anymore.
This world is all changing, all the time.

Farming is being left behind in some respects, or at least the thinking is.... and that is what all the moaning is about.

We have schools that prepare us to be great employees, discourage free thought, discourage getting a trade, agriculture...

Basically, preparing us for the world that was
People forget the older generation were farming in one of the most exiting times for farmers after the war, huge improvements in everything.
This great vid shows how far thinking they were then, now we go backwards compared to it!
Really enjoyed that - it isn't just rose tinted glasses either, farmers of olden days had huge challenges and cracked on with it.

By contrast - a fair % of "modern, progressive" farmers can tell you exactly how much of what to apply to hide that, and are fearful, living in silent suffering; it really is quite indicative of progress to date.

I think @Walterp is far closer to the crux than a simple like conveyed.

"deferring to their friends opinions instead of exercising their own critical faculties" or words to that effect.
 
I can't remember ever being taught to spend money
I was thinking this. The idea that we all went away to college and were brainwashed into buying inputs doesn't really hold water for me, as we spent most of our time studying botany, grass production and clover leys, and the lecturers were wiley old codgers who knew their stuff.
By comparison, the film from the 1960s shows them using far more fertilizer and technical know-how than most of the local livestock farmers use today. Dad never went to college but he learned all the latest gen from the press, days out and demonstration visits, all of which were really pushed back then in post war days.
 

smcapstick

Member
Location
Kirkby Lonsdale
I have been talking to an elderly farmer in Welshpool market today and I am not sure if I should repeat what he said but as long as no names are mentioned it will be ok
he told me that he has never seen anyone do any good at farming after they have been to farming college,he also said that all farming colleges should be destroyed
Was he the richest, most successful farmer you had ever met?
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
You cannot farm from a tractor seat!.... Well you can, but you can do it so much better and without working yourself to death if you get a good Ag coll qualification and the inspiration to do better.

It would be a shame if anybody young was contemplating going to Ag coll and was put off by reading this thread. My father never went to Ag Coll, because his father didn't want him to. That made my father absolutely determined to send me to one. It was without doubt, the best thing he ever did for me!

I have to say that there is no way I could do what I do now or throughout my farming life without having done so. I hated school and couldn't leave soon enough. I then spent a year on the farm before going off to College aged 17. The course was designed for the son of a farmer and all he would need to know. If you weren't interested in certain enterprises, you could leave them out and concentrate on the ones you were. It assumed that we already knew how to drive tractors and operate machinery, so didn't waste time trying to teach it to us.

What it did teach us was the latest cutting edge techniques and what was likely to work here and those that might be suspect. But best of all it taught us about business and more than 50% of the entire course was dedicated in one form or another towards pure management. Whether that be accountancy, finance, financial gearing, banking, tax, planning and building regs, business law, H&S, partnerships, limited liabilities, labour laws, succession, inheritance, Trust(s) laws and conveyancing.

Suddenly I found myself studying something I was really interested in and I wanted to learn about. Yes there are those students who seem to want to pee it all up against the wall. But there are also those who would take it all on board very seriously and go on to found an entire career on what they learned at College, that had inspired them to do even better.

I learned that you can be the best technical farmer in the world but a bad business man and you will go bust. Get the rest of it (business management) right and you can be an OK (not the best) farmer and you will be fine.

I enjoyed my time at College and learned a great deal more about life as well as the subjects that were taught to us. I couldn't wait to leave. However, this time was because I couldn't wait to put all I'd learned into practice!
 
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PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
`That part of a man`s farm to benefit most from cultivation, is the small estate within the ring fence of his skull`

Very apt!

Screen Shot 2018-03-28 at 16.34.01.png
 
We have given up watching most TV and especially the news, its so biased now and is more putting across the various opinions than reporting facts
Same here, quite honestly I could not give a f!@$ about the "news readers" opinion or personal life.:mad: The US election was a classic example where their belief was the mad cow was a better choice than the numty eejit:rolleyes: They were not too pleased with the result:LOL:
 
You have to laugh, the first thing that's taught us to spend huge amounts of money to bring in the same income, and when all the money is eventually paid back, your fudgeed.
most young farmers turn grey during the first couple of months after the Loan agreement and not far off the grave at 50!
The old saying that still stands the test of time is "Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity."
I do tend to listen to older farmers as I get nearer the age myself, they have seen it all and wore the t shirt.
Most still managed to keep farming, maybe there us a lesson there for everyone!
Ffs, you saying I'm going to kick the bucket next Tuesday?:eek::unsure::whistle::D
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
"That part of a man`s farm to benefit most from cultivation, is the small estate within the ring fence of his skull" (y)

I do love that quote, couldn't agree more.

Hands up who would willingly power-harrow and roll their cerebral matter and expect it to perform beyond it's natural ability, afterwards?

If in doubt, repeat.....?? (n)

Perhaps it was lost in translation :whistle:

I fear the old boy mentioned in the OP has never even removed the dome of his skull, hence his comments, there are some educated fools in the world after all - "it takes a week to learn to blow a duck call, and a decade learning when not to blow it"
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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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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