Riding the storm

[neilo]

And on another page oe wanting advice on investing 200k, it all bad.

And page after page of 'which new truck' threads. Not just from farmers, but also from some of those that make a living off farmers' backs.

 

[Hilly]

In a real agg depresion if you reliant upon machinery your, fuked bye bye.

 

[solo]

The green veg industry has had a shot in the arm with Europe's cold snap. I bet the supermarkets do a roaring trade this weekend on courgettes, calabrise etc. Growers here will benefit from this too I would have thought. Farming is all cyclical if you look back at history, recent or further back. You will have good times as well as bad in your farming career. The only concerning bit is how deep the troughs and how high the peaks will be.

 

[GTB]

Always hill farms aint it, im a hill farmer i reckon i could stand a depression better than most sectors, it wouldnt take much for me to reduce to collie and stick others wouldnt know where to start with that and when the financed tractor has sh!t its pants and no money to repiar and no skills to fix it they are gone .

I was talking about real hill farms, the ones who already just run a quad and a few dogs.

 

[Kevtherev]

Improve and adapt to suit

 

[Jackov Altraids]

In my opinion, riding the storm is going to be coping in the few uncertain years.
Whatever happens, there is likely to be a transition gap which is likely to be particularly difficult for farmers. I fear the decision makers will not understand the complete consequences of their choices until a couple of years have passed. Putting any support in place will also take time although I rather expect English Agriculture will be thrown to the wolves whereas the other regions will fair well.
There is a chance that nothing will change but it is far more likely that everything will.

 

[Hilly]

I was talking about real hill farms, the ones who already just run a quad and a few dogs.

Thats how i started, that is my backup plan if the sh!t hits the fan big time, them boys do ok dont be fooled, they will stand a agg depression better than the big fancy types i tell ya.

 

[GTB]

Thats how i started, that is my backup plan if the sh!t hits the fan big time, them boys do ok dont be fooled, they will stand a agg depression better than the big fancy types i tell ya.

Depends on scale. 250 hill lambs @ £40 only comes to 10k before costs. Even with no costs it's not much to live on. Ten times as many might work but take out rent and other essential costs and it's still only scraping a living.

 

[Sussex Martin]

So you think wiping 1.5 billion off the British rural economy is a good thing??

Say subs go in 2020, lamb prices drop 50% ( anything is possible ) input prices are 20% higher than today, what do you think will happen?? 90% of farms will go bust, what is needed is a period of stability when we leave the EU and subs will give farms the time to adapt when they know what the new trade tariffs etc are and then have hard facts to plan ahead with.

It could also be that subs go and lamb prices go up by 50% (anything is possible). Why when people say 'anything is possible' must it always be bad?

 

[Sussex Martin]

In my opinion, riding the storm is going to be coping in the few uncertain years.
Whatever happens, there is likely to be a transition gap which is likely to be particularly difficult for farmers. I fear the decision makers will not understand the complete consequences of their choices until a couple of years have passed. Putting any support in place will also take time although I rather expect English Agriculture will be thrown to the wolves whereas the other regions will fair well.
There is a chance that nothing will change but it is far more likely that everything will.

If all the so called pundits are to be believed Stirling will be on the floor so I can't see that imports of beef and lamb will be cheaper than home produced so being thrown to the wolves wouldn't even be possible.

 

[GTB]

If all the so called pundits are to be believed Stirling will be on the floor so I can't see that imports of beef and lamb will be cheaper than home produced so being thrown to the wolves wouldn't even be possible.

I want to believe things will be ok. I just hope the Govt. don't mess it up for us. I can see them messing this whole tariff business right up just so that food and other goods can be imported cheaply. British farmers could, with a bit of encouragement, feed this nation without too many food imports. I'm sure we as a nation could also build our own cars and machinery too if the conditions were favourable.

 

[The Ruminant]

Depends on scale. 250 hill lambs @ £40 only comes to 10k before costs. Even with no costs it's not much to live on. Ten times as many might work but take out rent and other essential costs and it's still only scraping a living.

I suppose the question is should farms of this size even be considered as full-time holdings? It's the equivalent of a lowland farm with, say, 20 cows.

If the answer is that it's not a full time holding, then the £10k before costs is forming only part of the farmer's total income.

 

[Hilly]

Depends on scale. 250 hill lambs @ £40 only comes to 10k before costs. Even with no costs it's not much to live on. Ten times as many might work but take out rent and other essential costs and it's still only scraping a living.

Thats just a saturday morning job tho, if that farmer had a full time job and 250 lambs to sell hed be better off than the average person, no one can in this day n age expect to make a full time living of 250 lambs.

 

[Sussex Martin]

I want to believe things will be ok. I just hope the Govt. don't mess it up for us. I can see them messing this whole tariff business right up just so that food and other goods can be imported cheaply. British farmers could, with a bit of encouragement, feed this nation without too many food imports. I'm sure we as a nation could also build our own cars and machinery too if the conditions were favourable.

If the pound is low there will be few imports to put tariffs on anyway, and exports with tariffs will still be affordable to our European friends .

 

[Y Fan Wen]

Depends on scale. 250 hill lambs @ £40 only comes to 10k before costs. Even with no costs it's not much to live on. Ten times as many might work but take out rent and other essential costs and it's still only scraping a living.

In Snowdonia you can still see the farms that were abandoned in the depression at the end of the 19th century.

 

[GTB]

In Snowdonia you can still see the farms that were abandoned in the depression at the end of the 19th century.

Same here. Our home farm is made up of what was at least four holdings originally. Probably a lot more if you went back far enough.

 

[Hilly]

In Snowdonia you can still see the farms that were abandoned in the depression at the end of the 19th century.

Similar here, remains of settlements all over the place, times change things move on, change and move with them or die.

 

[Lincsman]

With FBT's at £200+ there is plenty of slack to take up yet.

 

[Blod]

@GTB swap sheep for trees?

Or do both?

 

[czechmate]

The green veg industry has had a shot in the arm with Europe's cold snap. I bet the supermarkets do a roaring trade this weekend on courgettes, calabrise etc. Growers here will benefit from this too I would have thought. Farming is all cyclical if you look back at history, recent or further back. You will have good times as well as bad in your farming career. The only concerning bit is how deep the troughs and how high the peaks will be.

All my years of growing leeks, the only time it really paid off was the frozen spells. Just had to go out the last day before the freeze and lift loads