Should the purchase of a new direct drill be grant funded?

[E_B]

I say yes. What with the impetus in current CAP reform being the minimisation of soil erosion, should CSF offer some incentive to farmers currently operating an intensively tillaged system to adopt direct drilling? At least on a reasonable percentage of their farm.

Afterall, if the BPS reform is seeking farmers to reduce surface run-off, avoid compaction, use cover crops and stubbles over-winter, utilise legumes, increase organic matter, lessen wind erosion, and establish crops earlier then surely direct drilling should be a key part of their strategy? Not to mention lower carbon footprints and increased wildlife population which I'm sure fits into the EU borne objectives somewhere.

As such I think it wholly reasonable that RDPE/CSF etc should consider making the first time purchase of a direct drill an eligible item for grant assistance. Perhaps the availability of a grant towards a new drill should be made available to each farmer every ten years, so if you can show your drill is ten years old or more, you would be eligible for a grant towards the cost of a new one. Part exchange not included, limited to half the value of the drill, or somewhere in the region of £30,000.

There would be details to iron out I'm sure but I think it is something that DEFRA should consider. Perhaps an epetition should be in order! Might get a couple dozen signatures...

 

[Steevo]

Seriously?!

If you're serious about direct drilling and making it work, the drill will pay for itself no problem and that is the least of your worries.

If you 50% subsidised DD's all you'd do is push up the price of new ones. Otherwise, even those who didn't believe in DD would buy a drill at half the price of a non-DD whether they used it for DD or not. No DD drills would then be sold as they would be crazy money.

The result would therefore be a Vaderstad 4m would be 50k, and a 750A would be inflated to 100k, discounted by 50% grant....making it the same 50k. Nobody would gain but the manufacturers. Soil health, DD and the like would all end up suffering.

 

[Simon Chiles]

Really bad idea. The system only works if you want it too. Why do farmers always want a sub for everything and especially for something that is going to improve their yields and cut their costs! What about people who have done it for years and passed on free info enabling others to easily adopt the system, why should they be left out?

 

[Simon Chiles]

Here's a few more thoughts:-

What about a 750 that is equally at home drilling in cultivated soil as it is direct drilling, how are you going to police what it's actually used for?

What if your campaign points out to people that farmers are polluting rivers etc with soil and chemicals, it might lead to fines for erosion. Sometimes you need to be careful about what you wish for!

 

[SilliamWhale]

No.

We should be regulated instead.

The vast majority of farmers are not interested in no tilling anyway and prefer to just be traditional. Ploughmen should have their subsidy rebuked.

 

[Clive]

grants ? subs ? ........I would rather stand on my own feet and not be dependant on hand outs to make a living

 

[spin cycle]

i don't think it's feasible.....but i can see the logic in the op thinking

 

[Happy]

A really bad idea.
All it would do would give licence to drill manufacturers and dealers to hike up the selling price of their drills in the UK. Same happens with everything that is grant aided.

If you are not forward thinking enough to do things without subsidy then you are probably not forward thinking enough to make a success of DD anyway.

 

[E_B]

A few thoughts:

Saying the drill will pay for itself is besides the point. BPS modulation is here to stay and increasingly based around the ideals that happen to be the derived benefits of direct drilling. Thus it is feasible that the two should be synchronised to incentivise those who may not have previously considered it a viable option for their farm, for whatever reasons.

Basic market forces and standard regulation would ensure prices do not sky rocket. Three competing quotes is a pre-requisite of obtaining a grant, and manufacturers of drills will not know that a potential client is a potential grant recipient unless they are explicitly informed as such by someone daft enough. Price collusion is prohibited in the UK.

During the original application, a claimant would identify what proportion of his cropped area would be included in a direct drilled rotation. Obviously a mixed farm would have to remove fields that will have root crops (potentially) or permanent pasture from their proposed area. This would be factored into whether or not their application for funding is accepted or not. The threat of unannounced on farm inspections with penalties would be reason to adhere to your agreement.

Existing DDers would be eligible for funding if they could show that their drill is ten years or older.

Perhaps I have been a tad over zealous, 50% of funding would be a bit high, maybe 40% is more realistic!

By the way, I'm not really planning on launching a campaign for this, I would seriously doubt its chances of success. But I was keen to see people's reaction to an idea that isn't without merit IMO.

 

[E_B]

A really bad idea.
All it would do would give licence to drill manufacturers and dealers to hike up the selling price of their drills in the UK. Same happens with everything that is grant aided.

If you are not forward thinking enough to do things without subsidy then you are probably not forward thinking enough to make a success of DD anyway.

GPS systems have been eligible for grant funding for years, are their prices artificially high because of it? Certain types of buildings have been eligible for grant funding for years, are the building firms hiking their prices up because of it? I don't know for sure that they aren't, but I have no evidence to say that they are either.

 

[soilsaver]

No to handouts that manipulate machinery prices , we will be the long term losers and remember it would be funded buy our money in form of higher modulation , and we need that like a hole in the head.

 

[IH 684]

That's the trouble with agriculture to many handouts to the wrong farmers, subsidy should be means tested, this then would even out the playing field and give newcomers and the smaller farm stand a chance, it would also force retailers back to being a buyer rather than a dictator, we stopped claiming a few year ago and how life is much easier, dont have to answer to anyone and net profit hasn't really altered due to not being tied in to doing certain jobs at told times doing jobs when it suits us saves money and time,

 

[soilsaver]

rtk base station are good point in case at 30k + for a two way radio and cb aerial and a £200 receiver, that's how funding can unbalance prices!!

 

[E_B]

That's the trouble with agriculture to many handouts to the wrong farmers, subsidy should be means tested, this then would even out the playing field and give newcomers and the smaller farm stand a chance, it would also force retailers back to being a buyer rather than a dictator, we stopped claiming a few year ago and how life is much easier, dont have to answer to anyone and net profit hasn't really altered due to not being tied in to doing certain jobs at told times doing jobs when it suits us saves money and time,

There must be quite a few others like yourself who aren't BPS members by the sounds of it!

 

[Recoil]

Haha class. I hope this is a joke.

 

[mushnt grummmble]

I say yes. What with the impetus in current CAP reform being the minimisation of soil erosion, should CSF offer some incentive to farmers currently operating an intensively tillaged system to adopt direct drilling? At least on a reasonable percentage of their farm.

Afterall, if the BPS reform is seeking farmers to reduce surface run-off, avoid compaction, use cover crops and stubbles over-winter, utilise legumes, increase organic matter, lessen wind erosion, and establish crops earlier then surely direct drilling should be a key part of their strategy? Not to mention lower carbon footprints and increased wildlife population which I'm sure fits into the EU borne objectives somewhere.

As such I think it wholly reasonable that RDPE/CSF etc should consider making the first time purchase of a direct drill an eligible item for grant assistance. Perhaps the availability of a grant towards a new drill should be made available to each farmer every ten years, so if you can show your drill is ten years old or more, you would be eligible for a grant towards the cost of a new one. Part exchange not included, limited to half the value of the drill, or somewhere in the region of £30,000.

There would be details to iron out I'm sure but I think it is something that DEFRA should consider. Perhaps an epetition should be in order! Might get a couple dozen signatures...

so you dont get SFP?..

 

[E_B]

rtk base station are good point in case at 30k + for a two way radio and cb aerial and a £200 receiver, that's how funding can unbalance prices!!

Well I'm not a GPS expert but when I priced up RTK last year it was nowhere near that amount. If you need a base station then that would suggest you are on a large acreage on which to spread the cost, although again my understanding of it may be flawed.

 

[IH 684]

There must be quite a few others like yourself who aren't BPS members by the sounds of it!

What annoys me is that new lads / lasses trying to get a start haven't a chance, huge farms in a 50 mile radius of me are still buying up land to get rid of money, these farms should have any subsidies taken from them, one farm has sold 20 acre to a housing developer and bought another 100 acre, another 2000 acre farm has just bought a 5 acre field which adjoined one of theirs ripped out the hedge joined both fields up and the former 5 acre field now has 3 acre wasted as they cannot get the big kit into the corners, in the war these farmers would have had the farm taken from them for wasting land.

 

[soilsaver]

Sorry I am not talking about whether I need it or not, the problem is the grant has pushed up price of the base station.

 

[martian]

You've only got to look at the horrendous price of biomass boilers and the complete lack of a market for second hand machines (which cannot be used to claim RHIs) to see the distortions that direct subsidies create. You can buy boilers nearly half the price on the continent