What would you want to see in a new knowledge exchange platform?

What knowledge are you wanting to exchange?
Anything and everything. Whatever the community wants ... the idea would be to marry the on-farm experience discussed on TFF and twitter etc with the scientific and industry information to get to a summary of the agreed 'best practice' ... but also to connect to alternative views where people may be doing things differently.
 
personally I would build upon something a bit like this 😜


The Resources section on TFF is a great first step, and I think will be a great way to share outputs from PEP widely. Would also be great to find ways for discussions and knowledge exchange on TFF to be captured on PEP for the 'knowledge nuggets' to be integrated and distilled.
 
I get what's in it for the knowledge consumer, my point is more what's in it for the knowledge producer? Why give your hard earned experience away for free?
I think this is a really important point - everybody needs a motivation to exchange knowledge. Lots of people do it on here and on twitter etc unprompted, i guess for the recognition, because they enjoy engaging with others and because they feel there is more they can learn from others. In the YEN we used the idea of a competition to engage high performers and to bring a bit of fun.

With new Defra Innovation grants could we envisage a future where farmers are paid for their efforts in generating and sharing knowledge for the public good?
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
I think this is a really important point - everybody needs a motivation to exchange knowledge. Lots of people do it on here and on twitter etc unprompted, i guess for the recognition, because they enjoy engaging with others and because they feel there is more they can learn from others. In the YEN we used the idea of a competition to engage high performers and to bring a bit of fun.

With new Defra Innovation grants could we envisage a future where farmers are paid for their efforts in generating and sharing knowledge for the public good?

My point is that you don't get knowledge exchange in any other industries, they all keep their competitive advantage to themselves. So why should such be any good for farming? Do banks exchange knowledge between each other as to how to spot the most lucrative people to loan money to? Do the pension fund managers give each other tips on what the best investment opportunities are? Do the supermarkets swap data on what's selling well and how to attract more customers? Of course they don't, and neither do farming's suppliers or customers.

All knowledge exchange is doing is making the farming environment even more cut throat than it already is. We really don't need that, as an industry. So why this obsession with knowledge exchange? It seems to me its a throw back to the old subsidy days of production being the be all and end all - there was no competition between farmers then, it was a collective effort to increase production nationally. So exchanging knowledge of best practise made perfect sense - if we doubled production as an industry we still got the same prices because they were fixed. But we are no longer in that world, haven't been for 30 years. If we double production today we just halve prices, simple market economics. So why act to try and get our throats cut by all the processors and retailers who surround us like sharks even faster than we do today?
 
My point is that you don't get knowledge exchange in any other industries, they all keep their competitive advantage to themselves. So why should such be any good for farming? Do banks exchange knowledge between each other as to how to spot the most lucrative people to loan money to? Do the pension fund managers give each other tips on what the best investment opportunities are? Do the supermarkets swap data on what's selling well and how to attract more customers? Of course they don't, and neither do farming's suppliers or customers.

All knowledge exchange is doing is making the farming environment even more cut throat than it already is. We really don't need that, as an industry. So why this obsession with knowledge exchange? It seems to me its a throw back to the old subsidy days of production being the be all and end all - there was no competition between farmers then, it was a collective effort to increase production nationally. So exchanging knowledge of best practise made perfect sense - if we doubled production as an industry we still got the same prices because they were fixed. But we are no longer in that world, haven't been for 30 years. If we double production today we just halve prices, simple market economics. So why act to try and get our throats cut by all the processors and retailers who surround us like sharks even faster than we do today?
Interested in others views on this. There is collaboration in all industries, and all manner of networking events, conferences, trade magazines, forums etc. The big difference is scale - the largest banks and supermarkets and other companies are prevented from talking freely to each other by the Competition & Markets Authority, and they can afford to conduct huge R&D programmes alone. But as individual farms we don't each have an R&D department to develop & test new ways of working, and we don't have enough harvests to draw firm conclusions anyway. So the only way to progress is by working together.

Surely our real competitors aren't our neighbours (unless we are acquiring land), but producers from overseas. Achieving a high wheat yield in the UK makes next to no difference on the wheat price nowadays, what happens in Ukraine or US is much more important.

And if the knowledge is about the best way to implement conservation measures, who is the loser in sharing that knowledge rather than keeping it to yourself?
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
There is collaboration in all industries, and all manner of networking events, conferences, trade magazines, forums etc.

Mostly aimed at trying to get information about what the competition are up to, not handing out trade secrets.

Surely our real competitors aren't our neighbours (unless we are acquiring land), but producers from overseas. Achieving a high wheat yield in the UK makes next to no difference on the wheat price nowadays, what happens in Ukraine or US is much more important.

Do you think if the dairy industry halved its collective COP through knowledge collaboration that it would be allowed to keep all the extra profits, or would the milk processors and retailers drive the market price down to grab the extra profit all for themselves? Or if the UK arable sector managed to cut its COP to well below that of the imports would the grain buyers just continue to pay world market prices or would they just drive the UK price to below world levels?
 
Mostly aimed at trying to get information about what the competition are up to, not handing out trade secrets.



Do you think if the dairy industry halved its collective COP through knowledge collaboration that it would be allowed to keep all the extra profits, or would the milk processors and retailers drive the market price down to grab the extra profit all for themselves? Or if the UK arable sector managed to cut its COP to well below that of the imports would the grain buyers just continue to pay world market prices or would they just drive the UK price to below world levels?
Do you have many 'trade secrets' that make a big difference to your farm profitability that you wouldn't want to share, but you think could make a big impact on others? Or isn't it more the case that because each farm and each farmer is different that what works well for you may not work so well for your neighbour - there aren't many undiscovered silver bullets? The job of finding 'what works' is much more an arduous trial and error process where we can progress much faster if we can learn from each others mistakes rather than keep repeating them?

Retaining an appropriate price for farm produce is a separate issue, but one where collaboration and knowledge sharing could also play a strong role. Whether you like it or not we operate in global markets now, sticking our heads in the sand whilst the rest of the world increases productivity and lowers their COP hence lowering price isn't going to help us. World market prices minus transport costs will always set a baseline for prices. Achieving price premiums for UK products will also only happen through collaboration.

The New Zealanders have achieved their productivity and profitability gains through a healthy mix of collaboration and competition.
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Do you have many 'trade secrets' that make a big difference to your farm profitability that you wouldn't want to share, but you think could make a big impact on others? Or isn't it more the case that because each farm and each farmer is different that what works well for you may not work so well for your neighbour - there aren't many undiscovered silver bullets? The job of finding 'what works' is much more an arduous trial and error process where we can progress much faster if we can learn from each others mistakes rather than keep repeating them?

Retaining an appropriate price for farm produce is a separate issue, but one where collaboration and knowledge sharing could also play a strong role. Whether you like it or not we operate in global markets now, sticking our heads in the sand whilst the rest of the world increases productivity and lowers their COP hence lowering price isn't going to help us. World market prices minus transport costs will always set a baseline for prices. Achieving price premiums for UK products will also only happen through collaboration.

The New Zealanders have achieved their productivity and profitability gains through a healthy mix of collaboration and competition.
You didn't answer my questions.

If UK producers reduce COP (or increase output for same inputs, which is the same things really) then would the oligopolies they have to sell to allow them to keep their extra profit or would they make sure the market price was driven down and grab it for themselves? (Hint: the latter is what they've been doing for the last 30 years ever since the CAP abandoned guaranteed prices)
 
You didn't answer my questions.

If UK producers reduce COP (or increase output for same inputs, which is the same things really) then would the oligopolies they have to sell to allow them to keep their extra profit or would they make sure the market price was driven down and grab it for themselves? (Hint: the latter is what they've been doing for the last 30 years ever since the CAP abandoned guaranteed price
It doesn't matter if it is UK producers or foreign producers who reduce the COP, if product is available cheaper from elsewhere (with similar quality and standards) then buyers will buy from where it is cheapest. The buyers can only force down prices as far as there are sellers willing to sell. We either need to co-operate together across the industry to become price setters rather than price takers; to differentiate our products so they have higher value to consumers; or to reduce our COP so we can enjoy larger margins. Ideally all 3. Reducing COP should only reduce prices if there are not alternative markets to sell to, for grain there is always an export market...

I don't see how this is an effective argument for doing nothing in terms of trying to improve the industry as a whole - the further we fall behind international competitors on COP the more pressure there will be on prices, and the weaker position we will be in to respond.
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
The buyers can only force down prices as far as there are sellers willing to sell.

And there's always a farmer desperate to sell so they can force the price down in many cases. The buyers (the processors/retailers) have far more market power than the producers (farmers). How many milk processors are there in the UK vs how many dairy farmers? Who holds the whip hand? Not the farmer for sure. The processors can dictate prices far more than farmers can. As can suppliers of farming inputs - ever wondered why the price of fertiliser goes up at the same time the price of grain does?
 
And there's always a farmer desperate to sell so they can force the price down in many cases. The buyers (the processors/retailers) have far more market power than the producers (farmers). How many milk processors are there in the UK vs how many dairy farmers? Who holds the whip hand? Not the farmer for sure. The processors can dictate prices far more than farmers can. As can suppliers of farming inputs - ever wondered why the price of fertiliser goes up at the same time the price of grain does?
That is all a reason for farmers to form co-operatives to gain more market power. It isn't a reason to not engage in knowledge exchange and to help each other increase profitability.
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
I don't want to disrupt a good debate, please continue, it's very interesting. The problem I have with current knowledge transfer is you'll find some decent info on some website, you'll make a note of the page but lose the address and never find/ look for it again. Theres lots knowledge out there bit it's all fragmented throughout the net. What's needed is a site that links info from other sites with a good search facility.
 
I don't want to disrupt a good debate, please continue, it's very interesting. The problem I have with current knowledge transfer is you'll find some decent info on some website, you'll make a note of the page but lose the address and never find/ look for it again. Theres lots knowledge out there bit it's all fragmented throughout the net. What's needed is a site that links info from other sites with a good search facility.
That is absolutely what we are trying to solve with Farm-PEP - see our thinking at www.farmpep.net Great if you could complete the quick survey there or on this link - https://farmpep.creative.coop/form/user-survey

Thanks!
 
We have now got the first iteration of the Farm-PEP knowledge exchange website up at www.farmpep.net

Interested in your views and what can be improved (bearing in mind that the site functionality and views are still being developed, and we've only just started adding content).
 
Bugs me that’s it’s not a mobile friendly site…yet
Struggling to see how it all works, but maybe I’m a bit too old school.
I think there’s got to be a real need for something like this for it to provide good value to the target audience
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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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