UK Farming subs to continue until 2022.......MABYE WE DO MATTER??

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
There are some fantastic environmental schemes running on large farms. And small. As someone said earlier, it is the person / team managing that makes the difference. Like everything else, if they have the passion then they will make it work., if they are cynically going through the motions, they won't.
most of these schemes are only an attempt to put back what they f**ked in the first place those of us that didn't pull the place all to hell in the first place and still have what the schemes are trying to provide get and will get nothing
look at mid tear unworkable here if I wanted to carry on farming any sense at all but a couple thousand acre arable farm can do it no problem, the mid tear adviser told me that
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
yes labour are a bit anti farming but traditionally farming has always done well under labour because they tend to mess up the economy hence creating a weak pound which used to help us immensly.
My father always reckoned we did better under a Labour govt, despite the fact that he never voted anything other than Tory. He said that Labour threw money at farming.

But I have to say that we didn't do very well when the Blair years started. He created Defra (Deaf Error) and when the bl--dy Margaret Becket woman was put in charge of it she made a right balls up of it all with the Historic/Actual splits. Not to mention the huge delay in us all getting our payments until she was replaced by David Miliband.

If we ever ended up being better of because the pound had crapped out under Labour, this was by accident rather than by design and nothing to do with Labour policy as regards farming.

I'm not saying that any Govt of either political persuasion are that good with regards agriculture. It seems to me that as soon as we get a minister/secretary that actually understands the situation and tries to actually do something that helps us, he/she gets sacked or moved to a different department. They are then often replaced by somebody who is absolutely useless at the job.

Mid you, this was undoubtedly not helped by the shite and bollox being excreted by the EU which will end and hopefully make who ever ends up in charge not trying to do things with one arm tied behind their back all the time.

Having said that, whoever we end up with, it is no good if they themselves don't want or like the job.

Whoever we do get post Brexit 2019 is going to have a pretty challenging, but interesting task ahead to sort out where we go from there. Encouraging greater food self sufficiency (which in itself will provide food security) has got to make a lot of sense for a start.
 
There are some fantastic environmental schemes running on large farms. And small. As someone said earlier, it is the person / team managing that makes the difference. Like everything else, if they have the passion then they will make it work., if they are cynically going through the motions, they won't.
We were put in a SSSI long before any schemes came along, so the HLS was a bit of a blessing as at least we got paid for being restricted. I've always figured that he who pays the piper calls the tune, so I've always given it my best shot. They tailored the HLS round what we were doing anyway
The extra money has actually helped us manage the place better, as I've been able to afford weedwipers, a little digger, etc, so I like to think we've all won from it.
The new scheme, though, seems to be almost impossible to manage so hopefully they will completely overhaul it before I have to think about applying.
 
Location
East Mids
We were put in a SSSI long before any schemes came along, so the HLS was a bit of a blessing as at least we got paid for being restricted. I've always figured that he who pays the piper calls the tune, so I've always given it my best shot. They tailored the HLS round what we were doing anyway
The extra money has actually helped us manage the place better, as I've been able to afford weedwipers, a little digger, etc, so I like to think we've all won from it.
The new scheme, though, seems to be almost impossible to manage so hopefully they will completely overhaul it before I have to think about applying.
Ditto here. Yeah new CSS seems a disaster.

However, NE they have been trialling environmental payment by results - much less prescriptive, . Basically -
'this is what we are aiming for (either retaining/enhancing existing habitat or creating new) but we are not going to dictate how you do it, we leave that to the farmer to manage as they are the ones who sometimes know best. '
Hopefully this is the way things are going.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa..._data/file/594101/rbaps-newsletter-issue1.pdf
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
In our case, providing wading bird habitat was the main aim, but in fact a greater side effect has been the resurgance of the wild flowers in the flood plain over 150 acres. The jury is still out on the waders which seem to be subject to other external factors such as predation.
that's ok for HLS money you can afford to cut your farming back
comes down to what they pay and what you as a farmer can still get out of it, being only a small farm there is a limited amount of land we can "let go" and still do a sensible amount of farming. if it came to it and paid well enough it would have to be done though and just keep a few cows about for old times sake
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
On the pilots, objectives set at the start, if farmer doesn't like it he doesn't have to take part but if you read the link they are very enthusiastic.

I can see that being a bit of a cause for contention among neighbours - wildlife doesn't respect boundaries so to create suitable environments you need large areas all working to the same set of rules. If a large landowner decides he's not going in for the environment payments that could negatively affect his smaller neighbours chances of getting the requisite wildlife to flourish and thus get paid.

Equally if you farm where there's lots of people around, getting wildlife to flourish when every man and his dog (literally) are wandering all over the place is going to be pretty hard work too.
 

digger64

Member
I can see that being a bit of a cause for contention among neighbours - wildlife doesn't respect boundaries so to create suitable environments you need large areas all working to the same set of rules. If a large landowner decides he's not going in for the environment payments that could negatively affect his smaller neighbours chances of getting the requisite wildlife to flourish and thus get paid.

Equally if you farm where there's lots of people around, getting wildlife to flourish when every man and his dog (literally) are wandering all over the place is going to be pretty hard work too.
I think that would be the wrong way round , you want farm - next door floods your grass and you feed their rabbits ,geese and pee'd off cattle
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 6 3.3%

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

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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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