Turnover vanity profit sanity….what a load of tosh

[Rich_ard]

Should pay family the same.

Family are for free slave labour. Any proper farmer knows that.

 

[stewart]

Family are for free slave labour. Any proper farmer knows that.

We were always paid a fair wage on the farm, do the same with my kids now.

 

[Rich_ard]

We were always paid a fair wage on the farm, do the same with my kids now.

I was joking, although on this forum there are plenty willing to work for a promise.

 

[Spud]

Im going to accept that, a small, non-specialist farm can only really provide a) a nice view and b) a small bit of extra pocketmoney for me and future generations. I am retraining and going to work off-farm, and will crop opportunistically, or wang it all in whatever scheme is most reliably able to pay the mortgage.

I have a potential solar scheme, and a nice yard to develop which is the next project.

You've been saying that for a good ten years now

 

[crashbox]

fair play but most that have switched to 3 times a day milking and ayr housed tell me their profits are up, and they made an absolute killing when milk was pushing 50p

Yes but here's the bit your missing; not everyone can do it, and that system is significantly more complex, more capital intensive, and therefore more risky to run.

The grass based system has a far better risk/reward ratio, and probably profit per hour worked.

Like you say, KISS.

 

[DairyNerd]

67 acres, make a decent living dairy farming 60-70 cows. We have small diversifications but no other major off farm income as such, these bring in extra but the main earner is the dairy. We are profitable and are investing each year in an old farm to upgrade. Obviously our small turnover caps our profit significantly lower than SOME bigger herds but I would also have a fair guess I have more left over at the end of the year than some other much bigger herds than us.

So would we make more money if we doubled turnover? If it didn't compromise efficiency, which for me would mean taking on more grazing land and milking more cows then we would almost certainly make more profit. If I just bought another 60 cows tomorrow; imported all silage and concentrates, reduced days at grass, had more muck/slurry, longer milking times and a massive headache then I think we would almost certainly reduce profitability and nearly every one of those litres would be marginal. Biggest problem we have is getting hold of land to expand a bit, having said that also quite happy as we are until that opportunity comes up.

 

[mountfarm]

Heard this said plenty of times, but really if you have a small farm turning over a relatively small amount say £1-200k you are only ever going to be able to make so much money no matter how efficient you are or how well you sell your produce. The only way to increase profits is to increase revenue and that means turnover. Lots of moaning on here about cost of red tape and lack of government support and the expectation that we should be supported, I agree we should be recompensed for any environmental obligations. We have to accept that cheap food relative to the cost of everything else is important for the world’s people and governments. In order to survive, we need to increase revenue and profit. So what’s your plan?

Cutting back on the farming and pushing none farming diversifications here but we’ve stripped them out of the farm accounts and running them as separate business’s. I think for us the farm will tread water with a mix of cropping cereals, stewardship and renting land out for root crops or energy crops. It won’t have to pay any tax put it that way. The current machinery line up will have to last as I can’t see how the farm can afford to buy anything unless it’s grant aided. £160,000 for a 250hp mid framed tractor doesn’t work in my accounts I’m afraid so the £50,000 trade in will be staying for the foreseeable future. I could do with a new sprayer but if stewardship and renting land out means I’m only cropping 50% myself then I suddenly don’t need a new sprayer. I’ve had an agronomy company cold call me this morning looking for business, selling stewardship seeds mainly. My fertiliser supplier rang to get an idea of next years order so I told him probably 50% and his reply was ‘not another one’.

 

[FonterraFarmer]

It wasn’t the turnover that resulted in BMCs demise, it was bad management.

Turnover (product sales) - operational costs (materials, design and labour) ÷ management expertise = profit
The concept of turnover at or below cost is flawed.
Equally the above relative to a companies value or fictitious share value is equally flawed.
That said any government that's equally inept should be able to be held to account by the governor general, have impartial external audit and dissolved with those responsible held to account if deemed not to be working in the best interests of the country.
This touchy feelly UN/WHO political prostitution has no place in a country's political affairs.