The on-going up hill battle that is agriculture.....

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
You don't need to be a processor or retailer (not a bad idea though) but you need a market for your produce that leaves a good return. I think that's the biggest difference I've noticed since being here, farmers know the market they're producing for and either own some of it, like co op's or partnerships, have direct contracts or develop their own market.
Much of the UK stuff seems to be, produce what you want, how you want, then look round for a buyer and hope its paying ok.
The lack of interest in finding a market seems to have produced a lot more middlemen all taking a cut.
It's probably a scale thing too, hard to know how many acres TFF posters have but I'd bet a living can be made there on less acres than here?
That's not correct. The pricing of milk, for instance, varies by processor and they pay by constituents depending on what the end use is. So if you are selling to a cheese producer you had better produce good proteins and butterfat always has a premium value to all, because even liquid milk is skimmed to a variable degree and fat sold separately.
The UK governments, in contrast to NZ, are very focussed on keeping food prices as low as humanly possible. They will not allow anything like a farmer co-op with a high market share but will allow a small number of supermarkets to dominate the purchase side against thousands of micro-businesses, which is what 99.9% of farms are.

Yes of course you need more output per person to make a living but your regulations and costs, including fuel are a fraction of what is imposed on British farmers, although your farmers are on the on the upward debt and cost spiral these days apparently.
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
It would appear iam not alone in having difficultly getting and keeping decent staff? Is it a nation wide issue or more regional? Wheres the best place to find the unicorns that maybe out there?

Also, machinery price increases are a constant issue to us. I know theres nothing we can appear to do, but will it ever slow down?

Sorry for being rather pessimistic on a wet Tuesday but i thought a post of my thoughts on here may be better time spent, than a afternoon sat trying to justify either of the above. 🤷‍♂️
It's an international issue, best place to find unicorns is the Philippines.
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
But why be the farmer at all, if you can operate a successful processing/retailing business? You might as well just buy in the raw materials/products and forget about the production, its not going to make you much extra profit in and of itself.

This is farming's fatal flaw - there are very few synergies to be found between production and processing/retailing. If there were any Tesco would own millions of acres of farm land and direct its produce straight into its stores. But as we know the Co-op divested itself of its farms because owning them made no economic sense. They were better off concentrating on the retailing and ignoring the production as it added nothing to the bottom line.
The fatal flaw is not seeing the synergies, producer owned cooperatives work and work well the world over, they just don't work in the UK, it is the farmers mind set that needs to change if you want value from further up the supply chain.
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
That's not correct. The pricing of milk, for instance, varies by processor and they pay by constituents depending on what the end use is. So if you are selling to a cheese producer you had better produce good proteins and butterfat always has a premium value to all, because even liquid milk is skimmed to a variable degree and fat sold separately.
The UK governments, in contrast to NZ, are very focussed on keeping food prices as low as humanly possible. They will not allow anything like a farmer co-op with a high market share but will allow a small number of supermarkets to dominate the purchase side against thousands of micro-businesses, which is what 99.9% of farms are.

Yes of course you need more output per person to make a living but your regulations and costs, including fuel are a fraction of what is imposed on British farmers, although your farmers are on the on the upward debt and cost spiral these days apparently.
It is the famers themselves that are stopping the formation of a producer owned cooperative, as mentioned in my previous comment it would require a huge change in mindset for them to operate in the UK.
When did you last visit NZ? Our regulation costs and fuel are about the same if not more than the U.K. Debt would be a lot higher.
 
It is the famers themselves that are stopping the formation of a producer owned cooperative, as mentioned in my previous comment it would require a huge change in mindset for them to operate in the UK.
When did you last visit NZ? Our regulation costs and fuel are about the same if not more than the U.K. Debt would be a lot higher.
Eh🤔, suddenly reading this thread make one think that maybe the good old Canadian supply management ain't that bad after all.👌👍🇨🇦
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Nonsense and I despair at anyone actually agreeing with that and giving it a 'like'.

Fat to meat to bone ratio of average UK lamb chop comparted to Australia? Percentage of UK lamb kill presented for slaughter which is out of spec?

Work done on eating quality of UK beef compared to US beef? (US beef sires have genomic scores for shear testing and marbling scores)

Number of lambs weaned per ewe and kg of lamb weaned per ha NZ vs UK?

When was the last time UK wool clip covered cost of shearing? Any work done at industry level to improve fleece quality?

Ewe headage subsidy and variable premium were more important. Introduction of BPS and cross compliance resulted in many estates dispersing their sheep flocks because potential 5% subsidy penalty was more valuable.

Mules with pretty faces being worth more.

The estate shepherd quoted here previously "it would cost £40k to top all the parkland. As long as the sheep enterprise looses less than than per annum my job is secure"

Prevalence of performance recording UK vs Aus/NZ.

But don't take my word for it, at the most recent Sheep Breeders Roundtable renowned UK sheep consultant gave a presentation. One of the main messages was "like it or not, to date the UK sheep industry has been shaped by subsidy. Subsidies are being removed and the industry must change to adapt."
 
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Hilly

Member
It is the famers themselves that are stopping the formation of a producer owned cooperative, as mentioned in my previous comment it would require a huge change in mindset for them to operate in the UK.
When did you last visit NZ? Our regulation costs and fuel are about the same if not more than the U.K. Debt would be a lot higher.
Your weather is slightly better as well .
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
That's not correct. The pricing of milk, for instance, varies by processor and they pay by constituents depending on what the end use is. So if you are selling to a cheese producer you had better produce good proteins and butterfat always has a premium value to all, because even liquid milk is skimmed to a variable degree and fat sold separately.
The UK governments, in contrast to NZ, are very focussed on keeping food prices as low as humanly possible. They will not allow anything like a farmer co-op with a high market share but will allow a small number of supermarkets to dominate the purchase side against thousands of micro-businesses, which is what 99.9% of farms are.

Yes of course you need more output per person to make a living but your regulations and costs, including fuel are a fraction of what is imposed on British farmers, although your farmers are on the on the upward debt and cost spiral these days apparently.

Yes that's what I'm saying (perhaps badly) Dairy farmers have a contract, know what they do and don't get paid for and produce accordingly. It would be a brave dairy farmer that produced for the spot market.
A lot of stuff in the UK is just produced for the open market though, with no real idea of what the demand is when sale time comes. It's a brave strategy and it is helped a bit by the fact many farmers have other incomes or a subsidy/environmental payment they can fall back on if the plan doesn't work.
If farmers keep producing below their costs, the price will stay low.

Food prices are high here because supermarkets have to pay export price or producers will just ship all their product abroad (some do) plus there's only two companies who own the supermarkets.
There's more supermarkets in the UK so more competition.
 
As long as you are only selling into your home market eh.
Given that the British have gone around the four corners of the globe and have had a fairly good hand at benefitting from trade over the last 400 odd years, would the be able to survive entirely on domestic supply, where in the UK would the bananas and pineapples come from?🤔
Equally other countries dependent on exports ,like with kiwi's , where would they be if they couldn't export to global markets?
Any idea as percentage of gross income , just how much is spent on food now compared to say 50 years ago?🤔
 

bluebell

Member
people have short memories, talk to your grandparents or anyone growing up either during or the years after the war, people dont have to be connected, or to do with agriculture, they will tell you how food was important to them and the post war ravaged europe generally ? we now as a population dont regard food at all in the same importance ? that could, and would soon change if something happened to cutoff this golden land of plenty ?
 

GeorgeK

Member
Location
Leicestershire
Yes it is. But its not easy to say sell it or put the sheep off when its been in the family for 200 years
Yes this is a huge problem/responsibility/privilege . BUT the times they are a changin' and I would sincerely hope none of our farming ancestors would want us killing ourselves or families destroyed for the sake of our increasingly tenuous control over a piece of land
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 6 3.2%

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

  • 1,287
  • 1
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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