This Farming Life

[Suffolk Serf]

Good idea but what would they film from September to March? Curling, the Tenerife holiday, watching TFF?

Don’t Scottish ones spend most of the winter shooting? Like their sassenach counterparts.

 

[Northernlights]

Good idea but what would they film from September to March? Curling, the Tenerife holiday, watching TFF?

Local all arable unit is usually still harvesting and sowing until November so plenty to film.During winter plenty of geese and pigeons to film being scared off all these crops.

 

[CharcoalWally]

Really liked watching the two women on the Croft. Their articulacy and ability to explain themselves, their thoughts and plans for the future was most impressive. It also shows the viewer that farming is all sorts of different things to different people, be that big or small.

What Raymond's doing could be the same old same old, but he's a natural for the telly, as he has the knack of coming across as totally himself, with no special thought to either the camera, or that he's going out in a million sitting rooms .

Getting ordinary people just to be themselves on film can't be easy. How do you forget you're being filmed and relax with it ?

 

[sheep&cows&stuff]

I might be biased - but I think they should document a young farmer that has started from scratch. I love the show, but stevie got 580 acres gifted to him & Raymond is inheriting all from his father. Absolutely nothing wrong with any of that - but what about getting a young fella on who has to work off farm to fund his passion? Or someone who started off share farming etc?

Need something to show other young people who might want o start farming that it is in fact achievable (even if the government / banks / DARD etc do everything in their power to favour the large existing farmer).

 

[Henarar]

I might be biased - but I think they should document a young farmer that has started from scratch. I love the show, but stevie got 580 acres gifted to him & Raymond is inheriting all from his father. Absolutely nothing wrong with any of that - but what about getting a young fella on who has to work off farm to fund his passion? Or someone who started off share farming etc?

Need something to show other young people who might want o start farming that it is in fact achievable (even if the government / banks / DARD etc do everything in their power to favour the large existing farmer).

isn't that what the two women are doing ? starting from scratch using their own money ?
though I dare say they get grants for stuff like the tree planting they are doing the same as anyone else could

 

[Dave6170]

I might be biased - but I think they should document a young farmer that has started from scratch. I love the show, but stevie got 580 acres gifted to him & Raymond is inheriting all from his father. Absolutely nothing wrong with any of that - but what about getting a young fella on who has to work off farm to fund his passion? Or someone who started off share farming etc?

Need something to show other young people who might want o start farming that it is in fact achievable (even if the government / banks / DARD etc do everything in their power to favour the large existing farmer).

I guess raymond could be inheriting a tenancy with a fair sized rent to pay. Thats no easy task

 

[sheep&cows&stuff]

isn't that what the two women are doing ? starting from scratch using their own money ?
though I dare say they get grants for stuff like the tree planting they are doing the same as anyone else could

Yes - fair point - but rearing 3 pigs and planting a few trees isn't really a fair representation of the majority of start up farmers...

 

[CharcoalWally]

Yes - fair point - but rearing 3 pigs and planting a few trees isn't really a fair representation of the majority of start up farmers...

But they said last night that the Croft hadn't been worked for 30 years, so they walked in with no facilities or infrastructure to handle stock. I think they said that the plan was to bring on cows and sheep later in the year when they were ready for them .

What they're doing might be more of a representation of start up farmers than you think.

 

[Henarar]

Yes - fair point - but rearing 3 pigs and planting a few trees isn't really a fair representation of the majority of start up farmers...

so you think that most start up farmers start with 500 cows or 2000 acres of corn LOL
this is half the problem IMHO some think they should be able to do that or even have a right to do that

 

[sheep&cows&stuff]

But they said last night that the Croft hadn't been worked for 30 years, so they walked in with no facilities or infrastructure to handle stock. I think they said that the plan was to bring on cows and sheep later in the year when they were ready for them .

What they're doing might be more of a representation of start up farmers than you think.

Yes that's also fair - but I am not talking about a croft. They plan to sell their beef / pork etc. from home after it has been butchered - that is a niche market and small scale with high % returns for input.

What I am eluding to is farming as we all assume - rearing lambs / calves for sale at market / abattoir.

 

[sheep&cows&stuff]

so you think that most start up farmers start with 500 cows or 2000 acres of corn LOL
this is half the problem IMHO some think they should be able to do that or even have a right to do that

No I do not think that - IMHO they moved to the croft for the quiet lifestyle and for the way of life - you really think they are going to evolve into a 100 cow suckler herd or 250 ewe flock?

That was not what I was aiming to explain - what they are doing is admirable surely - but not a fair representation of how a young fella should try and get into farming!

 

[CharcoalWally]

Yes that's also fair - but I am not talking about a croft. They plan to sell their beef / pork etc. from home after it has been butchered - that is a niche market and small scale with high % returns for input.

What I am eluding to is farming as we all assume - rearing lambs / calves for sale at market / abattoir.

But this is the point - farming is different things to us all. What they're doing isn't my kind of farming either, but it's still the same job in a different form. If they can recover a high % return for capital invested, then they'll do better than most.

Anyway, it's not a done deal yet , let's wait and see how they get on .

 

[Henarar]

o I do not think that - IMHO they moved to the croft for the quiet lifestyle and for the way of life - you really think they are going to evolve into a 100 cow suckler herd or 250 ewe flock?

I have no idea if a croft where they are could support that
do you need a 100 cow heard or a 250 ewe flock to be a farmer ?
if you do then I am not a farmer

 

[sheep&cows&stuff]

I have no idea if a croft where they are could support that
do you need a 100 cow heard or a 250 ewe flock to be a farmer ?
if you do then I am not a farmer

No - but I am trying to make a point - there is a vast difference in trying to get started up to farm as I want to / wanted to (buying land, erecting sheds, buying machinery, buying stock etc.) to keep 20 or 30 or more cows or 100 or more seep (random figures)) and farming a croft.

How can I put this better without leaving my words susceptible to manipulation?....by starting up I meant somewhere half way between a croft and the likes of the farmers on This Farming Life (the two sisters / Raymond / etc.)

 

[primmiemoo]

No - but I am trying to make a point - there is a vast difference in trying to get started up to farm as I want to / wanted to (buying land, erecting sheds, buying machinery, buying stock etc.) to keep 20 or 30 or more cows or 100 or more seep (random figures)) and farming a croft.

How can I put this better without leaving my words susceptible to manipulation?....by starting up I meant somewhere half way between a croft and the likes of the farmers on This Farming Life (the two sisters / Raymond / etc.)

Sounds like a completely sensible ambition to document. Somebody in an increasingly rare Council starter farm, sort of thing? Someone working across rented/share farmed ground in many locations to build stock numbers?

I'd like to see that included, too. Haven't a long-term TV schedule to hand, but the series has a few more episodes. Is there a farming family like the above that we've yet to see?

 

[fgc325j]

I might be biased - but I think they should document a young farmer that has started from scratch. I love the show, but stevie got 580 acres gifted to him & Raymond is inheriting all from his father. Absolutely nothing wrong with any of that - but what about getting a young fella on who has to work off farm to fund his passion? Or someone who started off share farming etc?

Need something to show other young people who might want o start farming that it is in fact achievable (even if the government / banks / DARD etc do everything in their power to favour the large existing farmer).

From what i remember from the last series didn't they have a young couple who had taken on the tenancy
of a hill farm - and he still had a full time job as a gamekeeper, because i distinctly remember in one show,
they followed him on a day culling stags.

 

[Bertram]

No - but I am trying to make a point - there is a vast difference in trying to get started up to farm as I want to / wanted to (buying land, erecting sheds, buying machinery, buying stock etc.) to keep 20 or 30 or more cows or 100 or more seep (random figures)) and farming a croft.

How can I put this better without leaving my words susceptible to manipulation?....by starting up I meant somewhere half way between a croft and the likes of the farmers on This Farming Life (the two sisters / Raymond / etc.)

I think I see where you're coming from. A croft is a lifestyle choice and seems to attract people who've already done other things, may or may not have a bit of cash behind them, but have decided that is how they want to live. And good luck to them.I'd do that.

But I wouldn't have in my twenties. At that point, most farmers starting out want a business, and lots of land, and tractors - cows and sheep and stuff, f'rinstance. And good for them, too, if they find a way to achieve it.

Like in most things, peoples' aspirations differ.

 

[Happy]

Glad you all watched it after all.
Just needed someone to give you all a poke by being mildly critical of it

Thought Raymond really got across the excitement and buzz of the bull sales as well as the ups & downs preparing for it.

Well I thought the water buffalo were fascinating. Their behaviour, the systems they're handled in, the Expedition to Clogland, the Farmer, his Stockmen, and the Dutch Agent.
Entertaining and informative without being hyped.

Totally agree but been bugging me since I saw the Dutch agent who he reminded me of and been racking my brain as to who ever since.
Knew Ed Balls wasn’t quite right but just worked it out.
It’s former Rangers & Netherlands manager Dick Advocaat

Must have run out of clubs that want him

 

[Weasel]

No - but I am trying to make a point - there is a vast difference in trying to get started up to farm as I want to / wanted to (buying land, erecting sheds, buying machinery, buying stock etc.) to keep 20 or 30 or more cows or 100 or more seep (random figures)) and farming a croft.

How can I put this better without leaving my words susceptible to manipulation?....by starting up I meant somewhere half way between a croft and the likes of the farmers on This Farming Life (the two sisters / Raymond / etc.)

I know exactly what your meaning, a lot on here won't.
I've worked off farm and saved every penny to build up a suckler herd. A bit different from 3 pigs to be sold butchered

 

[Weasel]

From what i remember from the last series didn't they have a young couple who had taken on the tenancy
of a hill farm - and he still had a full time job as a gamekeeper, because i distinctly remember in one show,
they followed him on a day culling stags.

Aye they came out the farm, think he's a manager now