Stubble to stubble rates

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
We used to do another 200 acres stubble to stubble. One thing I’d never do is agree a fixed price stubble to stubble.
I’d also say the jobs like spraying probably used as much time, diesel and tyre wear getting there as they used in the field.
It’s a mugs game in my view. Maybe there is enough left to share out on easy land but difficult land costs more to do and sometimes disappoints with yields so in my view CFA on difficult land is a non starter. Direct drilling spring barley here on the sand for ourselves is fine. It’s the most profitable way. If we threw the kitchen sink at it wouldn’t do any better. There’s £100 an acre profit in it. Why split it? It doesn’t make it bigger.
 
What are people currently charging/being charged for a simple stubble to stubble operation on combinable cropping land?

Quoted £140/acre not long ago. That’s all field work including hedge cutting and tipping into grain store and pushing up. Doesn’t include drying or any ditch/drainage work.
 

D14

Member
It has to be a really bad harvest/prices for the landowner and myself not to take away well over £150 each. Jobs not worth doing for either of us if that is not the case.

2020 2t wheat per acre and if you are a harvest seller to create cash flow you've sold it at £140/t. £280/acre income doesn't cover £150/acre contractor fee and all the crop inputs. Think back over the last 10 years I reckon 4 harvests have been poor.
I am not saying £150/acre is wrong but seeing both sides of the fence then everybody involved needs to be viable. This is why ELMS is going to take vast areas of land out of production because theres no risk involved, or a very much reduced risk. A contractor once per year with a topper and a sprayer and a direct drill is where we are all heading.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Surely you have to look at a long term rotation gross margin and work from there. Don't make any decisions on any one year in isolation. But I'm guessing land that doing 5t/ha in any year is not the best land anyway, so do what you need to do. I'm going to carry on growing wheat on 90% of my farm at least in the short/medium term. I already have 10% in environmental.
 

D14

Member
Surely you have to look at a long term rotation gross margin and work from there. Don't make any decisions on any one year in isolation. But I'm guessing land that doing 5t/ha in any year is not the best land anyway, so do what you need to do. I'm going to carry on growing wheat on 90% of my farm at least in the short/medium term. I already have 10% in environmental.

We have 8% totally out of production earning £260/acre + bps. 2% totally out of production earning £206/acre + bps and then a further 15% in overwintered stubbles which gets planted with a spring crop which earns but we get paid (not a lot) for no putting a winter crop in so theres currently 23% involved and I can see that increasing to at least 50% here but choosing options that pay as much as possible by taking land out of production for 12 month increments. Basically 50% cropped and 50% set-a-side.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
We have 8% totally out of production earning £260/acre + bps. 2% totally out of production earning £206/acre + bps and then a further 15% in overwintered stubbles which gets planted with a spring crop which earns but we get paid (not a lot) for no putting a winter crop in so theres currently 23% involved and I can see that increasing to at least 50% here but choosing options that pay as much as possible by taking land out of production for 12 month increments. Basically 50% cropped and 50% set-a-side.

I was spraying yesterday and thinking how clean my 1st wheats after fallow were from blackgrass. I could see a good environmental argument for fallowing land in order to make a significant impact on blackgrass whilst reducing pesticides, carbon emissions, etc. Trouble is that it isn't financially viable to do so on a large scale, especially if you are renting land in despite being a more sustainable option than many of the break crops on offer.

If ELMS paid a sensible amount for land to be left fallow, I think many farmers would go for the 50:50 option you mention. It would probably involve getting contractors in to crop the 50% area for many though as it wouldn't stack up for many to keep their own kit and labour, and it's not always easy to change that factor without a full scale revamp.

Cashflow is going to be a problem for landlords, tenants, contractors and almost all farmers alike post BPS I expect.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
There’s an interesting article in the current FW by Gary Markham, who I respect. He talks about how CFAs need to reflect the decline in BPS. His figures suggest that the farmer/landowner will have to take the hit & he had devised a hybrid model of working out profit shares.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
There’s an interesting article in the current FW by Gary Markham, who I respect. He talks about how CFAs need to reflect the decline in BPS. His figures suggest that the farmer/landowner will have to take the hit & he had devised a hybrid model of working out profit shares.

I did read that over the weekend now you mention it.....one of the few people who has proposed an option meaning that the farmer's income share is maintained, rather than reduced as many have tried to suggest should be the case.

I found his comment of the rental value of the land being just £20-40 an acre very interesting. On the one hand, I wondered whether that will reflect "real market" rents of bare land available in years to come.....will bare land without entitlements really rent for those sorts of figures?

The bigger "wake up" point as I see it is how mad cheap anyone outside the industry would think that is. It makes me laugh that the suggested public perception is that farmers are loaded, subsidised etc. etc. and yet here is a professional valuing an acre of the land they farm at a couple of £20 notes for the entire year.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
I was spraying yesterday and thinking how clean my 1st wheats after fallow were from blackgrass. I could see a good environmental argument for fallowing land in order to make a significant impact on blackgrass whilst reducing pesticides, carbon emissions, etc. Trouble is that it isn't financially viable to do so on a large scale, especially if you are renting land in despite being a more sustainable option than many of the break crops on offer.

If ELMS paid a sensible amount for land to be left fallow, I think many farmers would go for the 50:50 option you mention. It would probably involve getting contractors in to crop the 50% area for many though as it wouldn't stack up for many to keep their own kit and labour, and it's not always easy to change that factor without a full scale revamp.

Cashflow is going to be a problem for landlords, tenants, contractors and almost all farmers alike post BPS I expect.
You can do it in mid tier enhanced over winter stubble. Thank me later.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
There’s an interesting article in the current FW by Gary Markham, who I respect. He talks about how CFAs need to reflect the decline in BPS. His figures suggest that the farmer/landowner will have to take the hit & he had devised a hybrid model of working out profit shares.
I wasn’t impressed. Couldn’t work out why the farmer got all the elms and that was entirely hypothetical at the moment and won’t be active until 2024.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
There’s an interesting article in the current FW by Gary Markham, who I respect. He talks about how CFAs need to reflect the decline in BPS. His figures suggest that the farmer/landowner will have to take the hit & he had devised a hybrid model of working out profit shares.
I wasn’t impressed. Couldn’t work out why the farmer got all the elms and that was entirely hypothetical at the moment and won’t be active until 2024 anyway. And why suddenly use the word rent instead of prior charge.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I did read that over the weekend now you mention it.....one of the few people who has proposed an option meaning that the farmer's income share is maintained, rather than reduced as many have tried to suggest should be the case.

I found his comment of the rental value of the land being just £20-40 an acre very interesting. On the one hand, I wondered whether that will reflect "real market" rents of bare land available in years to come.....will bare land without entitlements really rent for those sorts of figures?

The bigger "wake up" point as I see it is how mad cheap anyone outside the industry would think that is. It makes me laugh that the suggested public perception is that farmers are loaded, subsidised etc. etc. and yet here is a professional valuing an acre of the land they farm at a couple of £20 notes for the entire year.

I will re-read it later but I don’t remember the farmer doing well out of it. Their income from the hybrid model was made up with BPS. That looks poor without it.

Elms/CS - it depends on what option it is and how it is managed but I think income and costs of stewardship should be treated differently from crop growing. The cost structure is very different. Stewardship is explicitly excluded from all my contract farming agreements, though I’ll end up managing the schemes in many cases anyway.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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