Is the contract farming business model finished without sfp? poll

[glasshouse]

That's what I thought about lamb prices hitting £130 plus .
Glad I was wrong.
We are mostly competing on world prices and they are rising.

The lamb price is a covid brexit blip, normal service will be resumed come summertime and the price plummets

 

[ollie989898]

Yes but the subsidy looks like it is being repackaged towards enviromental
services thus potentially reducing land supply for food production.
This country has lots of land hungry agri businesses so I think there will
be a lot of disappointed opportunists who think rents are going to be
cheaper after the Bps.

I don't believe the ELMS pot will be large enough for all, nor 'lucrative' enough to replace income forgone.

In fact, I would be willing to bet the money is snaffled by the RSPB, National trust and estates with comprehensive and wide ranging environmental plans.

 

[Goweresque]

I don't believe the ELMS pot will be large enough for all, nor 'lucrative' enough to replace income forgone.

In fact, I would be willing to bet the money is snaffled by the RSPB, National trust and estates with comprehensive and wide ranging environmental plans.

The budget for ELMS is the same as what was being paid out in BPS in is not? Therefore by definition as 2 of the three ELMS layers involve co-operative large scale schemes, the amount available for the individual farmer will be a fraction of the £80-90/acre that they were getting under BPS. One also suspects that the large scale co-operative schemes will have significant 'operating costs' that will soak up a hefty proportion of the monies brought in, and the amount hitting the farmers pockets at the bottom will be significantly reduced. For example one suspects that if a water company draws together a large number of landowners to achieve some water quality improvement objective, all the costs the water company incur will be taken out of the revenues first, plus probably a 'profit charge' for a return on capital employed, before the farmers get a penny.

 

[bobk]

I think in 2 years we're going to be short of food .

 

[Luke Cropwalker]

I don't see the link between contract farming and BPS, the government giro usually goes straight to the farmer or it goes in as a shared income and straight out as a farmer's 1st charge. The actual business of growing crops has to stand up without subsidy.

 

[lloyd]

I don't believe the ELMS pot will be large enough for all, nor 'lucrative' enough to replace income forgone.

In fact, I would be willing to bet the money is snaffled by the RSPB, National trust and estates with comprehensive and wide ranging environmental plans.

Some of the CFA s for landowners on heavy unplanted land last season wouldn't
look very 'lucrative ' either.

 

[glasshouse]

I don't see the link between contract farming and BPS, the government giro usually goes straight to the farmer or it goes in as a shared income and straight out as a farmer's 1st charge. The actual business of growing crops has to stand up without subsidy.

You mean “ farmer”
Not an actual farmer

 

[warksfarmer]

Please, tell me what you expect any kind of trade deal, much less one with the USA, to do for you or the agricultural industry of this country???

I'm becoming more and more convinced that your world view is radically different to my own.

Could you, just for an example, please tell me what commodities you think the UK is going to export to the USA in any great volume that would benefit the UK agricultural industry?

Apologies I wasn’t clear. What I meant, is a Trump trade deal would of been bad for U.K. AG where as a Biden one might not even appear at all. We won’t be exporting anything to the USA. We’ve got nothing they want basically. This was clearly what was going to happen due to brexit but it didn’t change my vote to leave the EU.

 

[warksfarmer]

Is ELMS going to be a 'file and forget' way of making money? I don't get that impression. It seems to me that ELMS will reward farming in an environmentally friendly way. Not just doing next to nothing and getting a cheque, a la Set-a-Side c.1990. Ergo in order to get ELMS money you are going to have to be actively farming the land. In a less intensive way than before, but still requiring management and practical input. So any landowners who have been using FBTs and CFAs to manage their land up to now will still need their tenants or contractors to access ELMS money. Just buying a big tractor and topper and collecting a cheque every year isn't going to work. I mean I'd be delighted if that was all it took, it would solve a lot of stress and hassle, but I suspect its going to require a lot more active farming input than that.

It depends on what options they choose as to whether a contractor can deal with it on a job by job basis. There are most definitely options such as just leave it and walk away.

 

[farmerfred86]

I think in 2 years we're going to be short of food .

Those days are gone. You might not like it or agree with it but food is cheap and global. The lessons from WW2 were big ones but the world is such a different place now. Food flows in and out of this country with ease (even with Brexit). We are currently carting German wheat across East Anglia into the midlands. Its effortless.
I'm really not sure ELMS is going to be the financial package farmers are expecting. If it pays at or below the arable margin it adds little beyond security. The pot is also not going to pay for huge areas of the country to become CS.

 

[turbo]

Apologies I wasn’t clear. What I meant, is a Trump trade deal would of been bad for U.K. AG where as a Biden one might not even appear at all. We won’t be exporting anything to the USA. We’ve got nothing they want basically. This was clearly what was going to happen due to brexit but it didn’t change my vote to leave the EU.

I think you are wrong!,there is a massive untapped market for our top quality products in the USA,not basic commodities like wheat but for cheese and meat products it’s a big market

 

[warksfarmer]

I think you are wrong!,there is a massive untapped market for our top quality products in the USA,not basic commodities like wheat but for cheese and meat products it’s a big market

Hopefully I am but I just can’t see it. Family and friends across the water and I have to agree with them, that we’ve nothing that would be in big demand. The big market is organic but we don’t produce enough to export on that scale.

 

[Courier]

I think in 2 years we're going to be short of food .

Homegrown Food, Yes.

Imported calories in the form of any old cheap crap, No.

 

[Hindsight]

An aside comment not really to do with the thread. Looking at the devastating wet land around here and pondering government support over the past thirty years since the end of FHDS which effectively ended field drainage. What a complete waste of taxpayers money direct payments in effect funding rents and sucked out of practical Agriculture. The taxpayers money could have and should have been spent on infrastructure such as drainage and grain stores that would have benefited the taxpayer. That and the introduction of the Farm Business Tenancy legislation in 1995 with no provision within it the legislation for longer term arrangements to ensure ongoing long term investment. Rant over. As you were.

 

[Goweresque]

That and the introduction of the Farm Business Tenancy legislation in 1995 with no provision within it the legislation for longer term arrangements to ensure ongoing long term investment. Rant over. As you were.

The FBT was a much needed swing of the pendulum away from the AHA which had reduced the supply of land available to rent for longer than a grazing licence to zero, as no landowner in their right mind would sign away their land for 3 generations. As with all reactions they usually go further than the neutral point.

And you can't blame farmers for all the wet sodden land - how much main river drainage improvement is carried out by Government today? Virtually zero, as we all well know. Not only that, Government will prosecute anyone who attempts to do it for them for free. You could have the best drained land in the country, if the river it outfalls into is backed up because it hasn't been dredged in 40 years, you're still going to have sodden land.

 

[Hindsight]

The FBT was a much needed swing of the pendulum away from the AHA which had reduced the supply of land available to rent for longer than a grazing licence to zero, as no landowner in their right mind would sign away their land for 3 generations. As with all reactions they usually go further than the neutral point.

And you can't blame farmers for all the wet sodden land - how much main river drainage improvement is carried out by Government today? Virtually zero, as we all well know. Not only that, Government will prosecute anyone who attempts to do it for them for free. You could have the best drained land in the country, if the river it outfalls into is backed up because it hasn't been dredged in 40 years, you're still going to have sodden land.

Yes, I appreciate why the FBT legislation was introduced. My comment was to do with internal field drainage - not the river system. I was just observing as a taxpayer how may billions of sub since 2005 and really since 1992 reforms have in effect allowed sub cash to be sucked out into rent and away from practical use. 1984 ended of FHDS - hardly a drainage machine worked in Lincolnshire until after the tremendous rains of 2007 June made farmers appreciate systems are shagged. My if say a quarter of that had been available only as grant to drainage Lincolnshire would look a lot better today.

 

[teslacoils]

Sadly, there would be a beardy with clipboard telling the govt how damaging land drainage is.

 

[Hindsight]

Sadly, there would be a beardy with clipboard telling the govt how damaging land drainage is.

Probably. But feck all point in going to fancy agronomy trials with various potions and lotions if the land ain't drained properly. Of course pipe and gravel doesn't come with flashing beacons or in a can, so few have got much time for it. But that money will owrk 24/7 when needed and stand down for the rest of the time waiting to be called on. And will collect a long service medal at Lincs Show. Just that like farming itself most of the lads are nearing retirement and need replacing. And if the sub since 1992 when it went off price support to land support had been partly in grant form for infrastructure then land would have been underdrained on a steady replacement basis. Sad lack of coherent EU government policy. As you can tell I am in a maudlin' mood today. That and the short termism of land occupation.

 

[glasshouse]

Probably. But feck all point in going to fancy agronomy trials with various potions and lotions if the land ain't drained properly. Of course pipe and gravel doesn't come with flashing beacons or in a can, so few have got much time for it. But that money will owrk 24/7 when needed and stand down for the rest of the time waiting to be called on. And will collect a long service medal at Lincs Show. Just that like farming itself most of the lads are nearing retirement and need replacing. And if the sub since 1992 when it went off price support to land support had been partly in grant form for infrastructure then land would have been underdrained on a steady replacement basis. Sad lack of coherent EU government policy. As you can tell I am in a maudlin' mood today. That and the short termism of land occupation.

Vote labour

 

[glasshouse]

Yes, I appreciate why the FBT legislation was introduced. My comment was to do with internal field drainage - not the river system. I was just observing as a taxpayer how may billions of sub since 2005 and really since 1992 reforms have in effect allowed sub cash to be sucked out into rent and away from practical use. 1984 ended of FHDS - hardly a drainage machine worked in Lincolnshire until after the tremendous rains of 2007 June made farmers appreciate systems are shagged. My if say a quarter of that had been available only as grant to drainage Lincolnshire would look a lot better today.

Fbt should never have been introduced.