Wasn't this how the Nazis in Germany started by turfing the large landowners off their estates? I stand to be corrected.I've been pushing for the ground we rent to be put on to a 5 or 10 year FBT which would then justify us investing in it which it desperately needs. The landlord (retired farmer, not a member of the mustard corduroy gang) is very reluctant and frankly I don't blame him. Even though we get on well and have similar objectives, the political climate in Scotland is so anti land owner that they will avoid anything which could be perceived as weakening their hold on their land, even a relatively "safe" medium term FBT.
No idea to be honest. Interestingly, I believe that large numbers of the European and indeed British aristocracy sympathised with the Nazi cause, but whether that was down to their policy on land ownership or their darker eugenics ambitions, I couldn't say.Wasn't this how the Nazis in Germany started by turfing the large landowners off their estates? I stand to be corrected.
Quite. I make a monthly payment to a bank which owns nearly 50% of my farm. Would paying the local Duke or Earl be any worse? At least you know who they are and they don't add interest to their rent.Any of us are but the stroke of a pen from being out on the street.
If you had a secure tenancy for £30/ acre, why on earth rock the boat? Would it not have paid better to stay on board until such times as circumstances were changing for the worse ? Very interesting thread this as each area seems to operate on different systems. Here in NI. most farmers own land and take more in annual conacre. Where people know and get on well this arrangement can run for years. The NT. own Estates near us and of course the dreaded Land Agents complicate things, but large Dairy farms are pushing the price of rent almost beyond the reach of others. £160-180/year.Having farmed on both sides of the fence so to speak, I have seen a lot of the problems first hand. As always, the truth resides somewhere in the middle. There are some very good landlords in Scotland that look after their tenants, and appreciate the good they do for the asset, and there are some rotten landlords , that hide behind a W...r of an agent doing their utmost to make the tenants life a misery. But by the same token there are some absolute Bolshevik tenants out there that think they are owed a living by the landlord, an d don’t need to pay much for the right to use his asset to make money.
We were served notice to quit by our landlord due to the right to buy legislation, and the fact that we had, quite rightly registered our interest to purchase. We were paying a very fair rent and looked after the assets as if it were our own. Other tenants on the estate, didn’t register their right to buy and are still farming away with secure tenancies paying a pittance of a rent (c£30 acre) for good general cropping land.
YawnWe are tenant 's and owners so can see both sides of the coin.
The "tension" that you speak of is brought about when you have idiots like Glasshouse who seems to think that "what's his is his and what's mine should also be his".
My family have farmed the block of land that we tenant since 1938, we have a very good relationship with the landlords but they are absolutely terrified of the 'right to buy' legislation which folks like Glasshouse are desperate to have brought into force. When this was first talked about landlords like ours employed land agents to help them safeguard their land.
This has totally backfired on everyone as the land agent's are complete parasites who are lining their pockets and destroying relationships which have been built up over many generations. So landlords are now taking land back in hand and farming it themselves which is denying young people the chance of a tenancy.
I think that @holwellcourtfarm is right with his figure of 40%.
I wouldn't rent land to anyone at the minute because of people like Glasshouse!
You shouldnt have registered your right to buy if you didnt have a secure tenancy.Having farmed on both sides of the fence so to speak, I have seen a lot of the problems first hand. As always, the truth resides somewhere in the middle. There are some very good landlords in Scotland that look after their tenants, and appreciate the good they do for the asset, and there are some rotten landlords , that hide behind a W...r of an agent doing their utmost to make the tenants life a misery. But by the same token there are some absolute Bolshevik tenants out there that think they are owed a living by the landlord, an d don’t need to pay much for the right to use his asset to make money.
We were served notice to quit by our landlord due to the right to buy legislation, and the fact that we had, quite rightly registered our interest to purchase. We were paying a very fair rent and looked after the assets as if it were our own. Other tenants on the estate, didn’t register their right to buy and are still farming away with secure tenancies paying a pittance of a rent (c£30 acre) for good general cropping land.
Whats the price of land in your area?Hey
As an Australian, it’s something that I’m not that familiar with & probably don’t have a good grasp on, but reading TFF it seems that a lot of farm businesses operate on leased / rented land ( owned by the Duke of Westminster, or the C of E or some other massive aristocratic landowner ), rather than having freehold title on your land. There also seems to be a bit of “tension” between tenant farmers & landowners ? Which then raises questions over what a “real” farmer is ?
just curious, does anyone have a rough idea of what % of farm businesses in the UK are tenants & how many actually own the land they farm ?. Which is “normal” or the most common ?
Most here own the land they farm
cheers
Wasn't this how the Nazis in Germany started by turfing the large landowners off their estates? I stand to be corrected.
The short answer is: They don't!NO idea what a “real” farmer is meant to mean, but it does seem to take up a lot of TFF space . . .
I also don’t really understand how subs etc work & who is or isn’t eligible. . .
The whole concept is foreign to me
Yes we should . Was a long term limited partnership tenancy. Perfectly within our rights. Turned out they had a development deal set upYou shouldnt have registered your right to buy if you didnt have a secure tenancy.
In an insecure tenancy your “rights” only exist on paperYes we should . Was a long term limited partnership tenancy. Perfectly within our rights. Turned out they had a development deal set up
Good effort @holwellcourtfarm.The short answer is: They don't!
There have been so many changes that I get confused myself now.
In simple terms subsidy was paid as "deficiency payments" until EU entry in the early 1970's. When the market price fell below a notional lower threshold the government paid out a support payment to the trade (who were then hoped to pay more for the product in return, so called "trickle down economics" ).
Under the EU the subsidies were run as "intervention buying" whereby if the market fell too low they stepped in and physically bought products at a higher baseline price to support the market and stored them for sale when (if) the price rose. This just resulted in huge stores of goods rotting in sheds, the fabled "agricultural surpluses".
When this got so bad in milk in 1984 they introduced milk quotas to 𝚍̶𝚎̶𝚙̶𝚛̶𝚎̶𝚜̶𝚜̶ ̶control production.
Around the same time (iirc) they swapped to direct support of key commodities. We thus had "Suckler cow premium" (EU money paid annually for each breeding beef cow you owned (or pretended to own in some less honest places)), protein crops premium and beef special premium.
This clearly was a mess and cost too much so in came IACS, the Integrated Agricutural Control System. Membership of the scheme was individual and optional but paid so much that virtually everyone joined. We all had to submit records annually of what we produced and where with supporting maps and were paid by each commodity according to rates offered that year. To cut the surpluses they introduced "set aside" where we had to leave a %age of our land idle each year to get the rest of the money. The %age changed each year. This led to farms deciding their cropping based on what paid the most subsidy each year, a crazy system.
Next the system was "reformed" to "de-link" subsidy from production with the "Single Payment system" where you still had to send in data annually on what you produced in each field but the payment made was based on the average of what you had received in the 5 years before the change over and was paid irrespective of what you produced so long as you kept the land in GAEC: "Good Agricultural and Ecological Condition" as defined in the scheme bible. This is where the payments started to be split from production and, in some cases, were kept by the landlord rather than the tenant. Oh, and the beloved "Rural Payments Agency" was created to manage the 𝚏̶𝚒̶𝚊̶𝚜̶𝚌̶𝚘̶ excellent idea's implementation.
This led to the "working farmer test" which, in reality, was fudged by most competent land agents on the Landlord's behalf by dreaming up compliance schemes. Are you keeping up? Good.
As an aside, these schemes after the deficiency payment system did not include some sectors notably veg growers, pigs, poultry and milk who just produced without subsidy.
To "simplify" all this complexity the "Basic Payment System" was 𝚏̶𝚘̶𝚒̶𝚜̶𝚝̶𝚎̶𝚍̶ ̶𝚘̶𝚗̶ introduced to us to make the system 𝚖̶𝚘̶𝚛̶𝚎̶ ̶𝚋̶𝚞̶𝚛̶𝚎̶𝚌̶𝚛̶𝚊̶𝚝̶𝚒̶𝚌̶ easier to manage.
At this point we had all become expert paperwork shufflers with the week before May 15th each year (the application deadline) being our best paid hours of the year but we all became so confused with the annual changes to the rules that we ceased noticing how unprofitable we had all become with all this "public support".
I'm sure I have missed out some key info and got a few bits confused but then I have lived through it all and so claim dimished responsibility as a result...
As Guy Martin says: What could possibly go wrong?