You don’t approve of supporting environmental schemes?
Rewilding at Knepp Castle- Daily Mail article
- Thread starter Red Fred
- Start date
You don’t approve of supporting environmental schemes?
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Whatever floats their boat is fine by me. Sometimes you can continue to be a busy fool, or you can exploit what is available to you and have a happier life.
If I cannot be rewarded sensibly for trying to feed the nation, I prefer the latter.
If I cannot be rewarded sensibly for trying to feed the nation, I prefer the latter.
ollie989898
Member
No I do not. Can my gran have a new hip on the NHS instead?
Environmental payments are wasted paying certain landowners to follow policies they are pursuing for altruistic reasons. The National Trust as by far the biggest recipient of enviro.subsidy is actually making up the agenda.
Knepp castle is at least a private altruistic project that has needed to stand on its own feet and was risky experiment 15 years ago when embarked upon.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
In a way it's a relief it was published by the Mail, otherwise George Monbiot might have read it and used it to further his agenda
They have already done this with our old farm. To be fair it is dreadful soil but it went from a mixed farm to grass and reeds pretty quick. It now looks a mess and has a few sheep managing it.
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
This is a national disgrace which the nation will come to regret.
No wonder young farmers cant get any land to farm.
Ten percent should be the maximum area of any farm allowed into wilding or trees or other f**ked up nonsense.
3500 ac could support ten families or more.
No wonder young farmers cant get any land to farm.
Ten percent should be the maximum area of any farm allowed into wilding or trees or other f**ked up nonsense.
3500 ac could support ten families or more.
Will Blackburn
Member
- Location
- Cheshire
They have a target of something like 25%, so everything that comes back out of tenancy automatically goes, won't be long till they put some heat under ever longer term tenants to achieve this target. We have woodland establishment and mob grazing on the farm next door, all very nice, we shall see how it develops?
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
How was it risky? I would have thought subsidies of various sorts made it a guaranteed Euromillions lottery winner type income.
To be frank if you can't make a profit running a 3500 acre estate that close to London, one of the richest part of the world with all the money making opportunities that allows, you should give to someone else who can.
15 years ago following an environmental agenda with good farmland was risky....today/tomorrow not so much.
They also made their own agenda and didn’t seek to follow a N E prescription what they’ve done was done for own principles and not to chase EU stewardship payments. In this case it’s private individual doing his own thing with his own land for his own pleasure.Doubtless NE have subsequently offered payments for a hls agreement but I wager it is only on Knepp estate terms.
They also made their own agenda and didn’t seek to follow a N E prescription what they’ve done was done for own principles and not to chase EU stewardship payments. In this case it’s private individual doing his own thing with his own land for his own pleasure.Doubtless NE have subsequently offered payments for a hls agreement but I wager it is only on Knepp estate terms.
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
15 years ago the environmental route was a very sensible route to go down as cereals prices were on the floor, sub £100/tonne IIRC.
I was about to point out that Knepp do receive environmental payments until you posted this. I have little doubt that the trustees will have wanted to see some kind of viable business model!
Sorry - Philip Hammond will be paying that cash to Brussels.
IACS/SFP/BPS helped pay your salary as an agronomist
Seriously, I do hope she gets that new hip anyway. Sorry to be flippant.
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Red Fred
Member
- Location
- Hants/Dorset border
I started on my own 18 years ago and the Environmental schemes were the way to go, certainly on our own meadows. My farm payment was very low back then, we had the horrors of foot and mouth and we had just got out of dairying as the price of milk was rubbish.
After 5 years, the HLS scheme came along and that was a real money spinner . I just wished I owned 100 times the area I actually do!
After 5 years, the HLS scheme came along and that was a real money spinner . I just wished I owned 100 times the area I actually do!
Pieces_of_Eight
Member
I always thought that environmental schemes were in place as an incentive to help food producers farm in ways that were more sympathetic to nature, running alongside conventional production. But what do I know, I'm only a taxpayer.
Most taxpayers may feel that Knepp Castle are bending the rules by taking the money but not farming the land fully.
Knepp Castle is probably just low input, extensive beef ranching.
For true rewilding, find the Oostvarderplassen (sp?) on youtube (but not while you're eating your lunch).
Most taxpayers may feel that Knepp Castle are bending the rules by taking the money but not farming the land fully.
Knepp Castle is probably just low input, extensive beef ranching.
For true rewilding, find the Oostvarderplassen (sp?) on youtube (but not while you're eating your lunch).
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- Location
- Cumbria
Fair enough. Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable with telling the world that the only way I could make a living off £35 million pounds worth of inherited wealth was to basically stop working it and trouser hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of government grants - in fact I'd be bloody embarrassed. However, like most of the UK gentry, their sense of entitlement is sickening.
I'll add this - the gentry have the assets and time to create an environmental paradise like Knepp. Far beyond what most farmers can do or afford to do.
Does that not consider a bit of thought?
- Location
- Cumbria
I'll add this - the gentry have the assets and time to create an environmental paradise like Knepp. Far beyond what most farmers can do or afford to do.
Does that not consider a bit of thought?
No doubt it does. But personally my view is that 3500 acres of farmland should be either farmed or better still tenanted to half a dozen families to make a living off. I think that would be better for biodiversity and better for the local economy and community.
I may have missed something, but I thought one of the driving reasons they (the Burrells?) did it was because they were loosing so much money trying (unsuccessfully) to farm it and not because they had assets and time? hardly an altruistic approach to land management. If such a project requires so much time and assets and is beyond the financial reach of others to be rolled out on any decent scale (3500 acres isn't enough to support the reintroduction large apex predators or mega fauna which should be what re-wilding is), is it really sustainable? Its nothing more than a dude ranch really.
The best farmers in this country can and will farm without subsidy, I can't ever see this type of project being viable without a large amount of public sector funding. Alternatively, could this be a way to avoid a future land tax? neglect your land or we will tax you to the brink of collapse and take it off you when you die? I'm sure the Islington set would be in full agreement with their new found tweed clad friends then.
A much more eloquent reply, thank you.
I agree with pretty well all of that - 3500 ac isn't enough for a "proper" nature reserve but it is a great start for a private landowner. Birds and scrub don't generate cash except where there is natural capital funding available.
Not sure about the first paragraph. Perhaps your definition of biodiversity is a bit different. Knepp is doing something half a dozen farming families won't and can't afford to do. How many people does Knepp employ currently? Plenty of big estates employ more than they would otherwise do because of grants. Lots of envy in TFF about big estates doing people out of jobs without considering what other non farming employment they do generate that a few small family farms wouldn't, or at least not in the same way. Maybe it is because those workers don't necessarily live on site or within a couple of miles? Tax mitigation for rewilding? Fine in the uplands on a decent scale (sorry, hill farmers) but not on small parcels of lowland farmland. You're from Cumbria - what are the proposals for retreating from the hills there?
There's managed conservation and neglect. The two are distinctly different & Knepp seems to be "lightly managed rewilding." To see this on a bigger scale is currently in the bigger nature reserves "managed" by the RSPB, National Trust etc
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Oh the politics of Envy!
I'd love to live in a world without subsidy and people paying the right money for food so that subsidies weren't needed. Yes there are good farmers that can farm land without the need for subsidies. But that is good land that will reliably produce good yields each year.
There is a hell of a lot of land that cannot be farmed profitably without subsidies. It simply will not produce high enough yields to do so. Much of this land was grass for livestock that has been turned into arable for several reasons:
Lowland beef production, relying on 100% paid labour isn't very, if at all profitable. The only way to do it is by using your own or family labour whilst not drawing much cash out of the business. The average age of farmers/farm workers working in Beef production is very nearly retirement age.
Any form of livestock farming requires large amounts of capital and borrowings tied up in the livestock and every couple of years, someone invents a problem that scares the sh!t out of the public into not wanting to eat it!
In the end, farmers get fed up with it all, and plough up their grass and put it into arable, thinking that it is a lot less risky and a much easier life.
Can you blame them?
So now we have overproduction of cereals which now need exporting and former grassland that really isn't suitable for arable that keeps a profusion of agronomists in business.
On top of which we have IHT relief on farmland that over-inflates its value several fold, totally distorting its true value and preventing new, young farmers from getting a foothold into the job!
The system is the system and it is pointless being envious of those who by appearing to have been given it on a plate, have more than most of the rest of us do.
When it comes down to it, the owners of Knepp Castle Estate have every right to do with it whatever they see fit
I'd love to live in a world without subsidy and people paying the right money for food so that subsidies weren't needed. Yes there are good farmers that can farm land without the need for subsidies. But that is good land that will reliably produce good yields each year.
There is a hell of a lot of land that cannot be farmed profitably without subsidies. It simply will not produce high enough yields to do so. Much of this land was grass for livestock that has been turned into arable for several reasons:
Lowland beef production, relying on 100% paid labour isn't very, if at all profitable. The only way to do it is by using your own or family labour whilst not drawing much cash out of the business. The average age of farmers/farm workers working in Beef production is very nearly retirement age.
Any form of livestock farming requires large amounts of capital and borrowings tied up in the livestock and every couple of years, someone invents a problem that scares the sh!t out of the public into not wanting to eat it!
In the end, farmers get fed up with it all, and plough up their grass and put it into arable, thinking that it is a lot less risky and a much easier life.
Can you blame them?
So now we have overproduction of cereals which now need exporting and former grassland that really isn't suitable for arable that keeps a profusion of agronomists in business.
On top of which we have IHT relief on farmland that over-inflates its value several fold, totally distorting its true value and preventing new, young farmers from getting a foothold into the job!
The system is the system and it is pointless being envious of those who by appearing to have been given it on a plate, have more than most of the rest of us do.
When it comes down to it, the owners of Knepp Castle Estate have every right to do with it whatever they see fit