impossible to farm?

[Will Blackburn]

But even then no-one would offer him a warranty on a 15 year old 1056 anyway [emoji6]

The youngest 1056s will be 26 years old!

 

[ollandroverman]

I bet it's been warmer in Portugal!

Is your olive crop struggling with the cold?

 

[jondear]

Is your olive crop struggling with the cold?

No I'd be silly to grow olives !But still suffered with cold like everyone in this country.

 

[glasshouse]

Im sorry ,but i don't understand your angle here.
NO business wants to sell at a loss. Do you? it sounds like a silly thing to say
If i stay with the car manufacturer analogy. It takes years and a huge sum of money for a car manufacturer to design, develop, engineer and bring a car to the market place. They will know their costs for doing so and the selling price they would like to achieve, but they are selling onto a free market place , and as such customers will vote with their wallets.
As i recall the Vauxhall Insignia cost 1 billion to develop, yet it's reception and sales were very lukewarm, and profit levels certainly were not good.
Price setters with low risk...i think not.
When i tender for work with my off farm business, i have to be in the same price ball park as my competitors, or offer something that my competitors do not, or i will have no work. If i take on work than makes me a financial loss, then i have either made a grave mistake with my costings, or i am a fool.

If you have no work, you are better to take on a job that will cover some of your costs than sit and twiddle your thumbs.

 

[Jackov Altraids]

costs should be worked out on a £ per acre basis not £/t surely? that way you know your costs

That gives you a basic cost but COP is by definition the cost for each unit of produce which you can't calculate until sold.
Most risks can be hedged against but weather is king.
We all have various lead times between expenditure and sales and the unquantifiable variable is the weather. It can give unpredictable extra expenses, losses and can continually move the goal posts so you don't know whether to accept loses or spend more 'to weather the storm'.
The biggest problem in almost all modern businesses is the lurch towards efficiency at the expense of resilience.

 

[ollandroverman]

If you have no work, you are better to take on a job that will cover some of your costs than sit and twiddle your thumbs.

Heck no, not unless it was known to be a short term issue.
It's just circling the plug hole.
I would jettison my costs, and in the past I have indeed done just this.
I am not going to willingly loose sweat and money to the benefit of others.

 

[glasshouse]

Heck no, not unless it was known to be a short term issue.
It's just circling the plug hole.
I would ( and indeed in the past have) jettison my costs. I am not going to willingly loose sweat and money to the benefit of others.

have you fired yourself?

 

[ollandroverman]

have you fired yourself?

No, I am an asset and can and do earn money. Machinery and staff cost, and can be moved on as is required.

 

[glasshouse]

No, I am an asset and can and do earn money. Machinery and staff cost, and can be moved on as is required.

So what do you do when YOU have no work?
cut your price or stay in bed?

 

[ollandroverman]

I can always find work. It may not be what I would like to do most, and it may not pay as well as I would like, but I can always be, and always have to be earning money.

 

[Old McDonald]

I bet it's been warmer in Portugal!

Yes, but what difference would that make? Do you think that the extra 9" of rain would evaporate so that I would only be as badly off as you?

I am not knocking your problem, merely demonstrating that 9" of rain is not particularly excessive. I have experienced more than that in Australia too, but you have to learn to live with it.

The thread is about being "impossible to farm". As @holwellcourtfarm remarked at post #3, it is never "impossible" to farm. Difficult to adapt perhaps, but not impossible. I will live with the damage that has been done, including probably a total crop loss in the almonds, and I will continue farming.

The main part of my post was about the various points of view on managing risk and the differences between being a large scale farmer and a small scale one. The big man can spend £x and hardly notice it, whereas the small man might not even have £x available.

 

[glasshouse]

I can always find work. It may not be what I would like to do most, and it may not pay as well as I would like, but I can always be, and always have to be earning money.

So you now admit you will work for less just to keep the wheels turning.
Same as every other business.

 

[Thick Farmer]

The youngest 1056s will be 26 years old!

I bought a 31 year old 956 yesterday. Drove it home today. I’d forgotten how slow 30k is but the engine sounds fantastic.

 

[glasshouse]

I bought a 31 year old 956 yesterday. Drove it home today. I’d forgotten how slow 30k is but the engine sounds fantastic.

So the slower the better?

 

[ollandroverman]

So you now admit you will work for less just to keep the wheels turning.
Same as every other business.

No, and yes.
You originally insinuated you should work for a LOSS, as it covered SOME of your costs .which I agree would buy you more time, but most likely is only delaying the inevitable.
I wrote I would work for less than my normal rate to keep up my profits if I had to. I have removed a lot of my outgoing costs and I have more work than I can manage, so if I chose to sit on a tractor for a day it is my prerogative, not by absolute necessity through attempting to plug a black hole. I have a family to house and feed and no get out off jail card. If I got to the point of circling the drain, I would be seriously questioning my future direction.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Impossible to farm ?
I doubt it

Impossible to farm as you currently know it ?
Very likely, but that is an issue being faced by farmers around the world, & for those of us in more arid environments, one we face constantly. That is why we are constantly changing & adapting, basically reinventing ourselves every 10 yrs or so

I would find it impossible to farm in the UK
I would expect most of you would find it virtually impossible to farm here.
The mindsets & attitudes are just too different. Doesn't mean it can't be done though

Sometimes our greatest restrictions & challenges are our very own paradigms, attitudes, biases & beliefs . . .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Impossible to farm ?
I doubt it

Impossible to farm as you currently know it ?
Very likely, but that is an issue being faced by farmers around the world, & for those of us in more arid environments, one we face constantly. That is why we are constantly changing & adapting, basically reinventing ourselves every 10 yrs or so

I would find it impossible to farm in the UK
I would expect most of you would find it virtually impossible to farm here.
The mindsets & attitudes are just too different. Doesn't mean it can't be done though

Sometimes our greatest restrictions & challenges are our very own paradigms, attitudes, biases & beliefs . . .

View attachment 659962

Yeah, again it comes down to our "dynamic risk assessments" - the unfortunate side-effect of distorting the apparent risk of "farming" via subs and schemes simply increases the risks for everyone in the game. Risk management is an individual task.

The fact that farmers cannot or will not accept the risks anymore, means it has done its job well.... we have a large group across the globe, with their mission statement copied from Babe The Pig...

"That's just the way things are!"

It is this bovine acceptance of fate that will drive me insane, we are in control of far more than what the weather does, what the markets will offer for our produce, it is how we react to those challenges that determines much of our success.

We get to govern our assets, our liability levels, our costs to a large extent; many farmers on here simply don't make the necessary management choices to succeed in business... the equivalent of building an titanium-alloy Model A Ford, and expecting the world to come a-flocking because it cost a lot to produce?
I fear many will die, still waiting, for someone else to make it all better.

High cost, high risk farming is a farmer problem, not a consumer problem... if we don't acknowledge the risks, then why do we deserve any rewards?

 

[Farmer Roy]

The one paradigm which seems to dominate this forum is the old line " farmers are the only industry who can't set their price "
What a load of rubbish. Very few involved in primary production, manufacturing, distribution, retail or labour have the luxury of setting " their price ". The price of any commodity, goods or services is dependent on what the market will pay or what your competitors are offering. There is only a very small proportion of niche products or highly skilled individuals who can " set their own price "
It is this " farm exceptionalism " or " farmer entitlement " that somehow dominates UK Farming, that really frustrates me. The sooner these naive, amateurish attitudes are replaced with sound business ( yes, farms are just another small business ), the better it will be for UK Ag in general.
The difference between Farming & say, mining or manufacturing, is Toyota won't keep making Hiluxes if people don't buy them, or don't cover costs. As soon as the world price of coal or oil drops a few cents, BHP or Shell stop pulling it out of the ground, or halt any new production.

I cannot believe the poor level of business knowledge & naive amateurness displayed at times here . . .

There are a number of things obviously out of our control, so why do we focus on them SO much. Focus on what you CAN control.
You can't control the price of wheat. You can control how much wheat you grow, if any at all. You can control your expenses & inputs.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Do UK farmers not practise risk management ?

Do uk farmers think Farming should be risk free ?

Is risk a swear word now ? Should it be added to the swear filter, will we try & circumvent it instead by writing it as r#sk or riiisk ?

If you can't manage or assess r#sk, I'd suggest Farming isn't an occupation to consider . . .

R##k is one of the motivators that drives us to trim our costs & make the best use of our resources that we CAN control . . .

 

[Tarw Coch]

Do UK farmers not practise risk management ?

Do uk farmers think Farming should be risk free ?

Is risk a swear word now ? Should it be added to the swear filter, will we try & circumvent it instead by writing it as r#sk or riiisk ?

If you can't manage or assess r#sk, I'd suggest Farming isn't an occupation to consider . . .

R##k is one of the motivators that drives us to trim our costs & make the best use of our resources that we CAN control . . .

It's been a long wet winter, started out as a wet end to the summer and has continued into a wet late spring, this sort of weather has to have an impact on farming and as a consequence profits, not a lot we can do about the weather apart from have a moan, it will get better.