Minimum cost of cropping

[Clive]

So your rent is about £70 acre this year then, which is quite a bit less than my AHA rent.
Everyone seems to think that those of us on AHA are getting it for a lot less than we really are. @statics £150 isn't double what we are paying. Not moaning, just stating facts.

the rent is cheap yes compared to averages - it has to be as this land is low quality with very low yield potential, ex opencast, poorly drained, terrible indices, low OM, exposed etc. and no one is willing to invest in it or offer tenure longer than a couple of years at a time, rent surely should reflect that potential ? if it was 4t barley land I would probably be paying double or more but the extra tonne would cover that

i'm not into silly rents and never have been (contrary to some local speculation I expect !) , they are pointless, and I will walk where landlords demand them, I do nothing I can't see a margin in

 

[Hampton]

the rent is cheap yes compared to averages - it has to be as this land is low quality with very low yield potential, ex opencast, poorly drained, terrible indices, low OM, exposed etc. and no one is willing to invest in it or offer tenure longer than a couple of years at a time, rent surely should reflect that potential ? if it was 4t barley land I would probably be paying double or more but the extra tonne would cover that

i'm not into silly rents and never have been (contrary to some local speculation I expect !) , they are pointless, and I will walk where landlords demand them, I do nothing I can't see a margin in

Clearly, it seems that some landlords are so happy for you to farm it they are even letting you have the subsidy too!
Why are they renting it for sub £80 then letting you have the BPS? Seems very naive of them!

 

[Clive]

Clearly, it seems that some landlords are so happy for you to farm it they are even letting you have the subsidy too!
Why are they renting it for sub £80 then letting you have the BPS? Seems very naive of them!

the entitlements are mine not theirs ? if let to someone else it would have no BPS and at current economics be effectively worthless as a result - I think i'm being quite generous in this case and may actually push for a rent reduction

 

[glasshouse]

the best thing for opencast land is grass.

 

[Clive]

the best thing for opencast land is grass.

seems not as I've just harvested a crop of barley with a margin even at current prices

I have nothing to eat grass and neither do many others around here and those that do are busy standing outside Morrison's saying they are loosing money ?? so I cant see grass doing better .............

 

[glasshouse]

seems not as I've just harvested a crop of barley with a margin even at current prices

I have nothing to eat grass and neither do many others around here and those that do are busy standing outside Morrison's saying they are loosing money ?? so I cant see grass doing better .............

its not about money its about restoring the structure, which will pay off in 3yrs
you could use it as your greening and top it. add clover for free nitrogen.
grass is the ultimate no till.

 

[Tomjoad]

Excuse my ignorance but what is opencast land?

 

[glasshouse]

coal opencast mine

 

[onthehoof]

coal opencast mine

Re-instated though, not a big hole in the ground!

 

[Douglasmn]

Maybe they were there for 4yrs, but most had sold forward at £130 ish.
we can all sell a few loads high, it is the average that matters.
i sold milling wheat at £244 in 2012, but as i said, it was yielding under two ton, as everyone round here was in 12 and 13.
i have sold organic wheat for £350 too.
The point is, we in scotland have not benefited from the £200 /ton used in headlines, as our yields were sh!t, but we are stuck with the high input costs that the big companies have stuck on us.

A bit late on this thread but a bit misleading to say everyone in Scotland(or maybe you mean a small part of the lothians) was yielding less than 2t in 2012/13. Plenty of 4t crops to be found in both of those years, as there are every year. No wonder us Scots have a reputation for being so dour and miserable...

 

[eagleye]

our wheat only yielded 2.4t in 2012, in part due to late spray (we were depending on someone spraying for us then). spring barley was only slightly better. Must be the dour scottish blood in us N Irish settlers