the future for food, farming and the environment

[Vespasian]

19 hours ago, Billhook said:

One more thing I would like to add is the question of subsidies.  We have had subsidised farming since the war for reasons already mentioned.  My father benefited from deficiency payments from the war until we joined the EU.

These payments only stepped in when grain prices went below a certain value which was negotiated by the NFU with the government and was only a figure to stop farmers going under rather then making them profit.

I never heard or saw any complaint about these subsidies in all those years.

The trouble started when it became a political weapon to control farmers in the 1980s and turned into a single farm payment which was seen by many as a way of paying farmers to do nothing.  This was quite correct in some high profile cases, but for the majority it meant running around like blue arsed flies trying to fill in forms and tick a load of boxes just to make a living.

Most farmers would rather just be paid a fair price for their produce and forget subsidies.

In fact subsidies are subsidising the general population to provide cheap food.  This is made worse by the super markets making food so ridiculously cheap that people do not value it any more.

Not only do we have a huge obesity problem causing a nightmare for the NHS, but also a huge food waste scandal, again not helped by sell by dates and demands for ever more exotic non seasonable food.

 

The simple answer is to make food more expensive which would mean the end of subsidies and obesity but it would be political suicide.

 

People laugh at me when I say that wheat should be £1000/ton.  But in 1978 I was paid £100/ ton and a Ford tractor was £6600.  The equivalent tractor is now ten times more at over £66000.  The wheat price is not much different today forty years later at £140. it should be ten times this.

A  £1 loaf of bread should really cost £10. Bet you wouldn't chuck it out for the birds in that case!

Ten quid for a loaf?..   you must be out your mind..

 

I'm surprised you got 100 quid for a ton of wheat and only get 140 today mind..   still, it proves how much more efficient farming has become.. we should all tip our hat in that regard..

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CHC]

Ten quid for a loaf?..   you must be out your mind..
 
I'm surprised you got 100 quid for a ton of wheat and only get 140 today mind..   still, it proves how much more efficient farming has become.. we should all tip our hat in that regard..
 
 
 
 
 
 

The thing is the price of every thing else has gone up as well not just the price of a tractor.

[Vespasian]

1 minute ago, CHC said:

32 minutes ago, Vespasian said:

Ten quid for a loaf?..   you must be out your mind..
 
I'm surprised you got 100 quid for a ton of wheat and only get 140 today mind..   still, it proves how much more efficient farming has become.. we should all tip our hat in that regard..
 
 
 
 
 
 

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The thing is the price of every thing else has gone up as well not just the price of a tractor.

Something else that went up was a ton of wheat per acre. I do believe its now four tons as opposed to one...  would he like to go back to getting just the one ton out?...   somethin tells me he wouldn't.. 

[Richard 1234]

Something else that went up was a ton of wheat per acre. I do believe its now four tons as opposed to one...  would he like to go back to getting just the one ton out?...   somethin tells me he wouldn't.. 

They were getting 3 and a half to four tonne an acre back then too. Don’t believe everything you see on YouTube

[Vespasian]

Just now, Richard 1234 said:

They were getting 3 and a half to four tonne an acre back then too. Don’t believe everything you see on YouTube

Oh, might of been pre war I reading about just the other day...   makes sense when I think of it..

 

 

[Richard 1234]

Oh, might of been pre war I reading about just the other day...   makes sense when I think of it..[emoji5]
 
 
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It might not quite have been that high but certainly by the late eighties it was up there as that’s when the higher yield wheat came out. They have tinkered with it since and the feeds and chemicals but it’s not changed much since 1990

[Billhook]

Yes, our yields were well over 3 tons average by the late seventies.   As subsidies came in the merchants and supermarkets were able to calculate just how much they could screw the farmers.  That is what I meant about the subsidy being used to make food cheap rather than farmers rich.  Good politics, keep the nation well fed and it will be peaceful, otherwise we would have the Vespacians of the world yelling "Wot, ten pounds for a loaf of bread, bleedin' daylight robbery!"

Might just make people think a bit more carefully about what they eat and how much of it.

[drinksloe]

Plus not every farm will be getting yields like that,only the better ground farmed well.

But u will also get poor years when the weather is terrible yields could crash.

 

In my area which is not an arable area but a few of the better farms grow it to feed there stock it is not unusual in a bad summer/back end  for fields not to be havested, mibee 10yrs ago 1 estate lost hundreds of acres of crops unharvested, which was the same all over the area.

 

I imagine most on here will do tree work etc, to make a living.

I imagine most will go out to price a job knowing ur hourly/daily rates and estimate from there, some u win others u lose a wee bit, but generally with exp u should be up on most jobs.

And get paid on completion of the job or thereabouts after it.

 

How would u feel working away for 3-4 months or even the whole year in case of arable or hill sheep farmers and only getting paid then?

And not even a price u have dictated but a price the supermarkets and foriegn imports/weather have deicided

 

Probably the arb equivalent would be working all year at an unkown day rate (still paying staff and working chippers etc) while a load of foriegn/cheap labour flooded the arb scene so rates plumetted so when it comes to the square up day the rates are 50-100% lower than they need to be.

 

 

If i won the lottery (a real big win) i'd love to buy a big piece of land/small upland estate to farm, as  a lifestyle choice.

but things are easy when u have plenty of cash to employ folk so wether the farm makes money it doesnae really matter.

An awful lot of farmers will have millions tied up in the business (land, stock, tractors sheds etc) yet only making a few % profit if lucky. Not a great business model really, most would be better selling up and living of the interest

[Richard 1234]

Oh, might of been pre war I reading about just the other day...   makes sense when I think of it..[emoji5]
 
 

Interestingly in the states they only get 3 tonne per hectare even now. So just over a tonne per acre.
They have plenty of cheap land though obviously.

[Billhook]

And another thing..................................!

 

Land is so expensive due to lack of it and a vast population wanting it, that  to go to Agricultural Mortgage Corporation and borrow it would cost over £300/acre a year just for the interest but £500/acre to pay the capital, whereas average farm rent for an arable farm is less than half that.

Even at a rent of £100 acre many farms are making ends meet by diversification or living off the proceeds of selling a bit of land for building.  Maybe a second job, a farm shop, a wood business or contracting.

The point being that the farm itself if generally just turning money round.

How are the young people of today going to be interested in a future like that?

I live in a county with good arable land and know many farmers, some with large farms of many thousands of acres, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of farmers sons or daughters who want to stay and run the business.

There is a perfect storm brewing.