Big J on radio 4..

[Big J]

2 minutes ago, MattyF said:

Aye but you can’t have it all and every thing right now , it can’t take a life time or generations to build it up get it right or find a balance and even if you do I don’t think it will ever be enough for some... I think your lucky to be in the position your in a beautiful part of the country.

Fair enough, but I have been self employed for almost 10 years, ploughing everything into that and having spent around £170,000 in housing and premises rent in that time. The wish to get away from rentals and into something suitable that we own isn't unreasonable.

[Conor Wright]

2 minutes ago, AHPP said:

See for yourself with this helpful website Kevin Johnson of this parish recently posted.

Explore European Common Agricultural Policy farm subsidy payments | FarmSubsidy.org

FARMSUBSIDY.ORG

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FarmSubsidy shows who gets subsidies under the European Common Agricultural Policy

 

 

That's what I used, I went through about a dozen large and small farms, some only receive a few hundred, most a modest few thousand. one was in excess of 50k.

I've used the site before. It can be useful when pricing work for "poor ould farmers" which may not be so poor after all! Some are genuinely struggling but lack of education and lack of willingness to change their practices is a major factor too, as is depression, inability to access funding and pure ignorance. It cant be all about cows and corn.

[difflock]

1 hour ago, eggsarascal said:

Chuck the envious and jealous in and think people take notice of it. According to your logic people who have worked hard and done well should be entitled to state hand outs yet if you've worked hard in a low paid job or fallen on your arse and need a lift from the state you can fuck right off, and that makes me Stalin like, righto.

 

And before you start I've never defended the feral, the feckless and long term useless.

Eggs, Where did I ever say or state that I felt farmers should be entitled to State handouts?

BUT

If the State controls how they farm, what crops they produce, how much they are allowed to produce, and bytimes the price they could sell the produce for, plus  control the timing of slurry application/hedge cutting  etc etc, surely there is room/should be room, for some "sweetners".

The farmers are absolutely not free to farm to make money based on a free market economy,

so why should they refuse to accept the compensatory handouts?

 and as Conor says,

the big AgriBizz outfits are much better at exploiting the made-up rules than the average family owned farm farmer is.

And a lot of the flash new gear is on the never-never, sometimes rather heavily subsidized by the manufacturers, who no doubt get various regional kick-back grants.

Regards,

Marcus

P.S.

My brother got stupidly good SFP, based on the pure happenstance that Dad had had built up his suckling cow numbers, for "year zero", and even more preversley, he continued to get this sub, long after he got rid of the cows. BUT my brother  did not make up the convoluted and stupid Government subsidy scheme.

He merely "gamed" the system.

[AHPP]

1 hour ago, ESS said:

Without subsidies food bills could easily double

IF that happened, without people paying the extremely high taxes that pay the subsidies (and the cost of administering collecting the taxes and divvying them out), people could easily pay double.

[AHPP]

20 minutes ago, Big J said:

That's great to hear. The woodland I mentioned is a lovely mix of douglas and sitka (both really needing thinning) combined with some completely mixed softwood/broadleaf areas and then a really interesting pocket of alder coppice under oak and ash standard. It'll be lovely once we're finished.

That sounds excellent. Keep us posted.

[Big J]

1 minute ago, AHPP said:

That sounds excellent. Keep us posted.

Much of the douglas is over 40m tall. It's well overdue a thin and we're programming in a series of 2-3 thins at 7 year spacings, aiming to clearfell what'll be then 50m trees with the view to producing some really high quality long length douglas for timber framing. Lots of potential there

[difflock]

20 minutes ago, AHPP said:

See for yourself with this helpful website Kevin Johnson of this parish recently posted.

Explore European Common Agricultural Policy farm subsidy payments | FarmSubsidy.org

FARMSUBSIDY.ORG

---

FarmSubsidy shows who gets subsidies under the European Common Agricultural Policy

 

 

I wonder would "they" produce such helpful figures in respect of the top benefits claiming families, or would that be accused of impinging on their "human rights", so why are farming families fair game then?

[Chalgravesteve]

On 27/08/2019 at 18:17, Big J said:

 There is a nice enough 4 bed house over the hill with small outbuildings and 3 acres of land, but that's £650k. Loopy money!

I'm not being sarcastic or trying to be clever or anything. An honest and straightforward question really:

 

So if you owned it at the moment, would you sell it to someone else for £300,00 or whatever you think is not loopy money, instead of taking whatever the market determines as its value? If someone pays £650k for it then it must be worth it? If no one does, it will reduce in price until someone does go for it? 

 

 

[AHPP]

2 minutes ago, difflock said:

I wonder would "they" produce such helpful figures in respect of the top benefits claiming families, or would that be accused of impinging on their "human rights", so why are farming families fair game then?

I'd be delighted.

[Big J]

1 minute ago, Chalgravesteve said:

I'm not being sarcastic or trying to be clever or anything. An honest and straightforward question really:

 

So if you owned it at the moment, would you sell it to someone else for £300,00 or whatever you think is not loopy money, instead of taking whatever the market determines as its value? If someone pays £650k for it then it must be worth it? If no one does, it will reduce in price until someone does go for it? 

 

 

I don't begrudge any individual for selling their house for as much as they can get for it. It's only human nature and I'd do the same thing. 

 

My point is that the land it sits on is second rate pasture, and 3 acres would post £20k. I could commission a house build, using a kit from a Polish company for about £1400 a square metre, including all service connections. So a 200 square metre house would be around £280k. The construction quality of such a house far exceeds almost anything on the market, with triple glazing, MVHR, EPC standard B.

 

Agricultural sheds and on site circulation (roads/drives/tracks) might set me back another £40k.

 

So for £340k, I'd have the same amount of space as the £650k house, but with a much better quality house. This is my point about the state of planning in this country at this point. Where is that gap of £310k? There is no tangible value in the extra £310k that you're paying, it's just deemed to be the price of paying market rate. There is no shortage of land here in Devon, but there is no desire to broaden planning laws to allow smallholders to build affordably.