The three main challenges of the modern farmer

[mikkelebbesen]

politicians, voters, multi nationals.

Any ideas on how to subvert the multinationals? Once, farmer co-ops was the way to go. How about today?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Good to see input from New Zealand. I would be very interested in you elaborating on your thoughts, since the issues are the same, but you are in a totally different location. I know that markets today are global, and the issues likewise, but your home market always puts some limitations on your business/gives you some opportunities. For example, Denmark is the no. 1 counry in the world, when it comes to the consumption of organic products. Some organic farmers make a lot of money on this fact, especially if they have managed to sell their own brand into a retail chain. However, the rest of the world cares less.

Unfortunately my farm is very small by NZ standards.
The average sheep/beef farm here is many times our size, we have very tight margins compared to the UK and US, and no subsidy systems, so profitability is difficult to achieve on 100acres. Therein lies my main challenge.
Helping our agriculture here, our exchange rate is much more dependant on agriculture/export than other countries, so commodity price volatility is slightly "compensated" for want of better terminology.
I am leaning strongly towards organic certification here, rather than trying to compete with all the other farmers with scale on their side. It seems more sensible for me to cater more towards the niche markets such as the rapidly growing organic food movement, especially the US beef market, as well as the local demand. There seems to be a lot of effort in my region to organise marketing into these markets, and the premiums over conventionally produced red meat look very attractive, I already have good background in these sorts of systems and my smaller area can be more easily managed than the larger scale operations without extra labour cost. Our other option is to graze youngstock for dairy farmers, which provides great cashflow, but little control over when the animals come and go, creating a lull in the springtime.. the heifers have gone- have a huge amount of growth and nothing to eat it, and 4 months with no revenue.
We have a fair bit of debt to pay down, so need to have extra sideline operations on, fitting things in around the main earners and part time work off-farm, at least over the next few years until our debt has been reduced. And then that creates the problems of work/life balance.. it's nice to have extra money makers, but they have to be easy on time and labour input, not to mention cheap to set up.
Chickens and pumpkins are possibly my best fit, as I can soon feed any surplus back into the system.

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

Interesting point about resistance to change. Who are the ones resistant to change? And how do see the need for change?

Humans are naturally resistant to change.

We find comfort and contentment in stability.

Change forces us to leave our comfort zones.

Consumers are resistant to change (GMOs) and producers are resistant to change (no-till, e-passports etc etc...)

There is always a need for change, in order to maintain and build market share and retain the USPs that our products and services have.

 

[4course]

unfortunately not ,as some have more power than many countries and definitely have more influence than the producer in most just look at the price differential of chemicals fertilizer grain etc in the different markets of the same product

 

[roscoe erf]

1 The people your trying to feed
2 as above
3 as above

 

[Woldgrain Storage]

Any ideas on how to subvert the multinationals? Once, farmer co-ops was the way to go. How about today?

Farmers' Co-ops still enable growers to share risk and reward without handing over a slice of the cake to a third party.

 

[mikkelebbesen]

1) Increasingly being in a minority in my community. More and more difficult finding a group of crofters to hire a bull together, buy a machine together etc. Public events don't stop for lambing any more so I miss things. People don't understand what I do & tell me I'm just making excuses if I'm not available for public events at certain times. It costs me a lot more in transport because fewer people sharing...
2)Transport costs. I'm in a remote place so every bag of feed I buy & every lamb I sell has a "tax" on it compared to my competitors. The Government in their wisdom have discounted ferry fares for tourists but not for business traffic. The tourists won't want to come to see a shrubby wilderness once the farmers are gone!
3) Constant rule changes. Planning production (without big losses) is a slow process, planned years ahead but the goal posts move too frequently to keep up with.

First of all, now I know what a crofter is. Thank you for that!
As a crofter, I see that your conditions are different than for most us, although many of us feel we are a minority.
I'm a bit curious about how you bring your products to market. What are your sales channels?

 

[mikkelebbesen]

1.Globalisation.
2.Politics.
3.Price.

And I`m no farmer..... but the same things create many of the problems in all aspects of business.

We also need input from non-farmers. I believe it's called cross-pollination.
As an "outsider", how would you mitigate the challenges that you mention?

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

As part of a SWOT analysis (especially post-Brexit) I would list Globalisation as an opportunity.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Any ideas on how to subvert the multinationals? Once, farmer co-ops was the way to go. How about today?

IMHO the most effective UK co-op ever was the MMB. It was disbanded by government as anti-competetive. Now the few major milk buyers utterly dominate their producers.

Co-ops have never been successful in the UK, we just don't seem prepared to work together like that. Brexit may force that to change though.

 

[Adeptandy]

Stupid rents, weather, regulation. From your point of view, how do we go about it?

Can't change the weather
Doubt regulation will get any better post Brexit, as there's Chemicals that can be used in the rest of Europe that we're not allowed in GB
Rent's.......there will always be somebody willing to go that bit higher which on FBT seems to set the rate for everyone else, so other than pack in farming, I'm stuffed

 

[JCMaloney]

We also need input from non-farmers. I believe it's called cross-pollination.
As an "outsider", how would you mitigate the challenges that you mention?

Politics creates regulation which hinders those who do the job. The UK appears to take on board every letter of such "rules" yet the French & others pick and choose what suits their national interest. Fortunately the Brexit decision may improve that slightly.

The playing field of globalisation will never be level....... living costs, land costs, wages. input costs are much lower in other countries which leads to cheaper products on the market.

Cheaper isn`t necessarily better, racing to the bottom doesn`t improve anyones life........ society has become far too wasteful. As a kid growing up in the 1970`s wasting food was an aberration , now its "normal".

 

[holywell farmer]

Weather
Folk with clipboards
Public relations

Supermarkets!

 

[mikkelebbesen]

Unfortunately my farm is very small by NZ standards.
The average sheep/beef farm here is many times our size, we have very tight margins compared to the UK and US, and no subsidy systems, so profitability is difficult to achieve on 100acres. Therein lies my main challenge.
Helping our agriculture here, our exchange rate is much more dependant on agriculture/export than other countries, so commodity price volatility is slightly "compensated" for want of better terminology.
I am leaning strongly towards organic certification here, rather than trying to compete with all the other farmers with scale on their side. It seems more sensible for me to cater more towards the niche markets such as the rapidly growing organic food movement, especially the US beef market, as well as the local demand. There seems to be a lot of effort in my region to organise marketing into these markets, and the premiums over conventionally produced red meat look very attractive, I already have good background in these sorts of systems and my smaller area can be more easily managed than the larger scale operations without extra labour cost. Our other option is to graze youngstock for dairy farmers, which provides great cashflow, but little control over when the animals come and go, creating a lull in the springtime.. the heifers have gone- have a huge amount of growth and nothing to eat it, and 4 months with no revenue.
We have a fair bit of debt to pay down, so need to have extra sideline operations on, fitting things in around the main earners and part time work off-farm, at least over the next few years until our debt has been reduced. And then that creates the problems of work/life balance.. it's nice to have extra money makers, but they have to be easy on time and labour input, not to mention cheap to set up.
Chickens and pumpkins are possibly my best fit, as I can soon feed any surplus back into the system.

To me, it seems like you have come up with some interesting options that into consideration your specific situation. Up until the financial crisis, we were all about specializing and increasing our production - more pigs, more cattle, more acres. The crisis has made some diversify their business and look to niche markets, as you consider.

How do you get the additional knowledge needed to move into these new areas of farming?

 

[mikkelebbesen]

Humans are naturally resistant to change.

We find comfort and contentment in stability.

Change forces us to leave our comfort zones.

Consumers are resistant to change (GMOs) and producers are resistant to change (no-till, e-passports etc etc...)

There is always a need for change, in order to maintain and build market share and retain the USPs that our products and services have.

In our case, the low prices on our products forced us to think differently about our options. It was at that point, we decided to shut down our large-scale pig production facility and look to alternatives, e.g. energy production (we are still looking).

One thing is realizing that change is needed. But how do we equip and prepare ourselves to make these changes?

 

[mikkelebbesen]

unfortunately not ,as some have more power than many countries and definitely have more influence than the producer in most just look at the price differential of chemicals fertilizer grain etc in the different markets of the same product

I notice that your examples of the power of multinationals are from the input side of agriculture. What can we do to improve our situation on the output side?

 

[mikkelebbesen]

1 The people your trying to feed
2 as above
3 as above

It's very difficult to predict the behaviors of consumers, the ones you are trying to feed. We thought that our niche production of pigs, with a strong focus on animal welfare, would go through the roof. Today, we still only produce 200 pigs a year for making our own pork products. How would you say that we get better at dealing with the people we are trying to feed?

 

[mikkelebbesen]

Farmers' Co-ops still enable growers to share risk and reward without handing over a slice of the cake to a third party.

Once the co-ops were farmer-driven, and now many of them have turned in to multional companies. How do you see the role of co-ops today and in the future?

 

[mikkelebbesen]

As part of a SWOT analysis (especially post-Brexit) I would list Globalisation as an opportunity.

Good to see a different view on globalisation. How is it an opportunity?

 

[mikkelebbesen]

IMHO the most effective UK co-op ever was the MMB. It was disbanded by government as anti-competetive. Now the few major milk buyers utterly dominate their producers.

Co-ops have never been successful in the UK, we just don't seem prepared to work together like that. Brexit may force that to change though.

I tried to look up MMB on Google but without luck. Could you explain it to me?

You say there's little experience working together in the UK, in the way you do it in a co-op. What's needed to make it a feasible way to do things?