Who said farmers were poor?

TCR4x4

TCR4x4

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Tom
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We all know the joke, farmers moaning they are struggling to live as they walk over to their £80k Range Rover to drive to their £500k combine.

However I had a job to do at a farm the other day and the address didn't seem right to me, so I googled it and the first page that came up was a website detailing the subsidies that farms get, and the totals throughout the year.

This particular farm is a very small arable farm with no animals, and only a few acres.

Since 1999 up to 2009 this farm received an estimated £343,310.96 in EU subsidies. That works out around £38k a year!


Being nosey, I started looking at some other farms I go to.

One is a very large estate, certainly not short of a bob or two..

Since 2008-2012 they received an estimated £757,000 in subsidies.. Thats £189k a year!!



Then it gets really silly.. Nestle.. we all know them, huge multi million pound company.. Oh yes, they get subsidies too...

One location in the Uk belonging to Nestle received over £80 Million from 2001-2005.

Now these figures aren't 100% accurate as some of the info is duplicated, some is missing and some is over inflated.

Another that caught my eye though.. Tate and Lyle..

From 1999-2009 Tate and Lyle have had £439,166,271.11 in subsidies from the EU. I make that about almost £44 million a year..
Craziness.

Again, the figures aren't 100% accurate, but even so, there is some huge sums of money involved!

*I know farmers work hard and some do struggle, this isn't a rant at them, just a tongue in cheek look at the CAP payments and other EU subsidies.
 
Not sure where that leaves the dairy farmers who are struggling, at one point not paid this year, many who don't even come close to the minimum wage. You can't just be a farmer any more, you really have to diversify, own shop or attend local markets to sell the product for more than (or often below cost) to the supermarkets, visitor centres, wildlife areas. If the subsidies are there and they can possibly get them,(many cant), then it's to provide them with a way to live rather than profit.

Farmers are generally truely shafted int his country. There's no appreciation where the food comes from.
 
not to mention that there's no indication of what their overheads and running costs are - its generally accepted down here that the single farm payment 'subsidy' covers the land rent (its generally about £60/acre) so that the farmer then lives on his business ... bearing in mind that he is probably also renting a house and barns etc and having to buy in winter feed, supplements, repairs to machinery/machinery hire , vetinary costs etc , most of the farmers i know aren't coining it

SPS comes with a bunch of cross compliance obligations to do , while ELS and HLS (now new countryside stewardship) rarely cover the full cost of implementing them.

also even with arable farmers it is rare for the small ones to own the 500k combine ... generally these are hired in , even the range rover may have hire purchase etc still payable on it (and tbh most farmers do have genuine need of a 4x4 , it not being easy to drive a car across a field
 
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The subsidies are only half the story, farms have to be very large or intensively farm to make a profit and that's not looking at Dairy. Its very easy to pluck figures from the subsidy without really understanding the farming industry. The UK farming industry is woefully undersold by the EU and their markets because in reality we don't care where our food come from allowing the supermarkets to shaft their suppliers the farmers. We should be self sufficient in food not importing New Zealand Lamb, Russian Grain, Polish Milk and Argentinian Beef. WE grow andrear some of the best food in the world but unfortunately we don't appreciate it or our farmers hence the hysteria about farming subsidies.
 
It's nowhere near as simple as you may think.
We own a small farm and yes, we get the Single Farm Payment, but it doesn't amount to much because we don't own much land.
The single farm payment is however a travesty, because it's paid to the owner of the land just for owning it. The land doesn't actually need to be used at all, let alone efficiently, and the people who are making massive amounts of money from it are the rich landowners who inherited their land, in other words the people who support the political party that introduced it.

Medium sized to large farms generally do pretty well, because they own enough land and have enough resources to put their eggs into a lot of different baskets, and so avoid being caught out by bad luck. Small farms are very different.
For example, we don't do milk production, if we did we would not have survived the last couple of years.
For years, sheep were fetching such a low price that it was loss making. As a result, a lot of the farmers who were able to do so moved away from sheep, so the law of supply and demand increased prices to the point where they are reasonably profitable.
Hay making this year was a total washout (literally) and although we got a very large crop in terms of quantity, the quality is very poor and good quality hay (for horses) is now in short supply and very expensive. Poor quality hay (for cattle) is very plentiful and cheap.

And as for all that expensive machinery, that's generally owned by the contractors who go from farm to farm, not by the owners. And of course the large customers have priority over the small ones, and sometimes it's impossible to get a contractor at the right time, which means that the farmer ends up doing it himself with slow tools and working 20-22 hours a day for virtually no pay.
 
At one point my relatives owned a significant part of Northamptonshire. These days most have left the industry, one by committing suicide
 
Byker28i said:
one by committing suicide
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I'm sorry to hear that - but its regrettably common for farmers , not least because they often have the means to hand when it all gets too much

Garry Edwards said:
The single farm payment is however a travesty, because it's paid to the owner of the land just for owning it. The land doesn't actually need to be used at all, let alone efficiently,.
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That's not entirely true - if the land is declared NA on the return you get a nil subsidy - it has to be in farming or forestry use (my employer is the largest landowner in the uk after the crown, so i have a lot of experience with the joy of SPS and the associated paperwork) , plus of course you still have cross compliance to think about , and for a large landowner the fines for non compliance can be considerable. Also a lot of the time the entitlements will be with the farm tenants (though the landlord will generally get the same amount as rent)

that said i do agree with you that the little business are getting stiffed , both by the government and by the supermarkets - but at the end of the day the real blame rests with the consumer not being willing to pay a realistic price for food
 
Garry Edwards said:
It's nowhere near as simple as you may think.
We own a small farm and yes, we get the Single Farm Payment, but it doesn't amount to much because we don't own much land.
The single farm payment is however a travesty, because it's paid to the owner of the land just for owning it. The land doesn't actually need to be used at all, let alone efficiently, and the people who are making massive amounts of money from it are the rich landowners who inherited their land, in other words the people who support the political party that introduced it.
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I'm sure there is a whole thread on this from not so long ago.
 
Can't comment in too much detail for professional reasons, however some of the farmers round here are extremely well off... some struggle...

Mostly 90%+ arable, and top of the range JD's are not cheap.... but there's a few around.
 
yeah but you are from the shire which is almost completely flat - its a bit different in the yonder hill country
 
big soft moose said:
yeah but you are from the shire which is almost completely flat - its a bit different in the yonder hill country
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Yes, but the Bentley V8 supercharger makes mincemeat of the flatlands...
 
My family own around 35,000 acres but they don't get much at all for it, some of it is let to the local farmers for hay and medical opiates but the rest is forest of which they use it for a small shoot every year - when you factor in the costs of staffing etc there isn't much money left in it. The bills are covered but only just! The fact that the farmers rent the land makes me feel even worse because I know that they are getting f*** all for all the hard work that's involved. Can you imagine working every day of the year throughout the night for most of your life because the customer dictates what he should pay you? Yes some of them are rich but a lot of them aren't. A lot of people may laugh at the farmers who own Range Rover sports etc but when you factor in it may be a pricey 4x4 but it's a tool for the job in many cases plus I guess if you can't afford time off for holiday etc then where else should the money go? It's swings and roundabouts and nobody should be judged because of another person in the same trade ;-)
 
A couple of years ago, a dairy farm very near me, grubbed out a couple of hundred yds of roadside hedgerow & put up a temporary wire fence. Not only did it look a mess, but not good for our dwindling wild birds & plants.

Last Spring they re-planted with wispy young sapplings.

Apparently there is/was a grant or subsidy for this sort of thing.
 
OldCarlos said:
A couple years ago, a dairy farm very near me, grubbed out a couple of hundred yds of roadside hedgerow & put up a temporary wire fence. Not only did it look a mess, but not good for our dwindling wild birds & plants.

Last Spring they re-planted with wispy young sapplings.

Apparently there is/was a grant or subsidy for this sort of thing.
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Yes, I believe grants are given for leaving a set area along each field border unworked and giving it over to natural flora and fauna....there's a lot of it in these parts.
 
viv1969 said:
Yes, I believe grants are given for leaving a set area along each field border unworked and giving it over to natural flora and fauna....there's a lot of it in these parts.
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Yep, but digging it up first JUST to re-plant is wasting resources.

This dairy farmer has spent a fortune over the last 4 - 5 yrs. He has erected 2 VERY large buildings adjacent to the old farmhouse, built a new house & just completed an automated milking parlour.
He has around 250 cattle atm, but think he has the potential for more.
 
viv1969 said:
Yes, I believe grants are given for leaving a set area along each field border unworked and giving it over to natural flora and fauna....there's a lot of it in these parts.
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Same around us. And to be fair it is really nice, it flora and fauna is thriving. As is the wild life and red kites etc.

But plenty of range rovers here as well, although a fair few actually just use pickup trucks and normal cars like Audi s8 and Alpinas around us :) good for them.
 
OldCarlos said:
Yep, but digging it up first JUST to re-plant is wasting resources.

This dairy farmer has spent a fortune over the last 4 - 5 yrs. He has erected 2 VERY large buildings adjacent to the old farmhouse, built a new house & just completed an automated milking parlour.
He has around 250 cattle atm, but think he has the potential for more.
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Perhaps some research was carried out to establish what, in the long term, would make an ideal environment.
Perhaps the existing hedgerow was diseased.
Who knows?
 
viv1969 said:
Perhaps some research was carried out to establish what, in the long term, would make an ideal environment.
Perhaps the existing hedgerow was diseased.
Who knows?
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Defra? Natural England?
 
dejongj said:
Defra? Natural England?
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Well, quite.
I meant on a slightly more insular level.
The existing hedgerows may not have been replaced just for the sake of it, and therefore it nay not have been the waste of resources that @OldCarlos believes it was.
 
OldCarlos said:
Yep, but digging it up first JUST to re-plant is wasting resources.

This dairy farmer has spent a fortune over the last 4 - 5 yrs. He has erected 2 VERY large buildings adjacent to the old farmhouse, built a new house & just completed an automated milking parlour.
He has around 250 cattle atm, but think he has the potential for more.
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Well he won't be making any profit from 250 cattle

Figures released by the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for June 2015 put the average farm-gate price - which is the amount of cash farmers receive - at 23.66 pence per litre (ppl), the lowest for five years and down 25% in the last 12 months. However, farmers estimate that it costs between 30 and 32p to produce a litre of milk.

The number of dairy farmers in the UK was estimated to be at 25,000 in 2000. In December 2014, the number had dipped below 10,000 for the first time - a 50% fall since 2001 - according to the NFU. AHDB Dairy figures for July 2015 show there are now 9,724 farmers in England and Wales.

Hence all the protests recently.
 
OldCarlos said:
A couple of years ago, a dairy farm very near me, grubbed out a couple of hundred yds of roadside hedgerow & put up a temporary wire fence. Not only did it look a mess, but not good for our dwindling wild birds & plants.

Last Spring they re-planted with wispy young sapplings.

Apparently there is/was a grant or subsidy for this sort of thing.
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you wouldnt get a subsidy for removing a hedge to replant it - NE arent that stupid , also 100% cost of the work is very rare in HLS and ELS (and new CS even more so) schemes these days - fencing and hedging are generally on a per meter payment and it generally only covers about 60% of the cost. The only circumstances I could see where removing a hedge to replant it might be covered is if the hedge was in very poor condition to the point where laying or coppicing wasn't an option , or if it was entirely composed of an undesirable species such rhododendron
 
big soft moose said:
you wouldnt get a subsidy for removing a hedge to replant it - NE arent that stupid , also 100% cost of the work is very rare in HLS and ELS (and new CS even more so) schemes these days - fencing and hedging are generally on a per meter payment and it generally only covers about 60% of the cost. The only circumstances I could see where removing a hedge to replant it might be covered is if the hedge was in very poor condition to the point where laying or coppicing wasn't an option , or if it was entirely composed of an undesirable species such rhododendron
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Another possibility is that the farmer ripped out the original hedgerow and replaced it with wire fencing in an attempt to keep out undesirable, and was then forced to make good, possibly by his local planning authority. I've known that to happen a few times, the farmer often gets away with it, but not always.
 
this is true - you need a consent for removal of more than 25m as i understand it, so if he didnt have the consent when he removed it forced reinstatement is certainly an option
 
Pete, it was a neighbour of mine (who is a farmer not too far away & knows the said farm) that said it was `financially beneficial` for him to do so.
The roadside hedge was mature English mixed hedging & no `exotics`.

The farmer I mentioned had quotes/prices for building & installing the new automated parlour. Apparently there was a difference of around £130k between highest & lowest. (presume you get what you pay for)
I'm not saying he paid cash for all the work he's had done/invested but ............... `poor farmer`?
 
Garry Edwards said:
Another possibility is that the farmer ripped out the original hedgerow and replaced it with wire fencing in an attempt to keep out undesirable, and was then forced to make good, possibly by his local planning authority. I've known that to happen a few times, the farmer often gets away with it, but not always.
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Possibly. There was a bit of local disappointment at the time, but who knows for sure.

I thought farmers (agriculture in general) weren't bound by the same planning limitations as most of us?
 
OldCarlos said:
I thought farmers (agriculture in general) weren't bound by the same planning limitations as most of us?
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you are probably thinking of the agricultural dwellings thing - where a farmer can sometimes build a house even though hes outside of a zoned development area. That loophole has been substantially closed now , but that apart farmers are subjct to the same planning rules as every one else (they may get more leeway on permissions for barns etc if they can demonstrate a true need)

with regard to hedges the hedgerow regulations 1997 require consent for the removal of more than (i think) 25m - so you can take out a short section for a new gateway or similar , but not grub out a whole hedge without consent
 
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OldCarlos said:
Possibly. There was a bit of local disappointment at the time, but who knows for sure.

I thought farmers (agriculture in general) weren't bound by the same planning limitations as most of us?
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See BSM's reply, to which I will add...

I've met a few farmers who seem to think that none of the planning rules, H&S regulations, use of red diesel regulations or any other laws apply to them, and they certainly seem to get away with very poor enforcement, most of the time.
 
of course if the farmer is a councillor or knows a councillor (or funny handshakes etc) the planning officer can find himself under a lot of pressure not to act...added to which that planning enforcement is mostly reactive rather than proactive so if no one complains...
 
OldCarlos said:
I'm not saying he paid cash for all the work he's had done/invested but ............... `poor farmer`?
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almost certainly its all on mortgage , so more debt to service if he wants to keep his farm/house etc - and as a dairy farmer he definitely wouldn't have done it if he didn't need to (i live on a dairy farm , and renting the house to us it pretty much the only thing standing between our landlord and insolvency)
 
big soft moose said:
almost certainly its all on mortgage , so more debt to service if he wants to keep his farm/house etc - and as a dairy farmer he definitely wouldn't have done it if he didn't need to (i live on a dairy farm , and renting the house to us it pretty much the only thing standing between our landlord and insolvency)
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I don't think it will all be on a mortgage. It's been an owned family farm for many years & the farmer is In his 60's.
His sons mainly run it now. The old farmhouse is rented out apparently & he built a largish new house/dwelling several years ago on part of the land.
About 4 years ago they built a large steel framed barn/shippen & 2 years ago another.

The cattle only very rarely get outside & graze on the land these days, but I guess that's the price of cheap milk. :(
 
there really is b****r all money in dairy these days - so if its not on mortgage he must have family money or another income stream - it certainly isnt coming from the farming (the only exception is those farms that add value by making their own cheese, ice cream etc)
 
OldCarlos said:
Pete, it was a neighbour of mine (who is a farmer not too far away & knows the said farm) that said it was `financially beneficial` for him to do so.
The roadside hedge was mature English mixed hedging & no `exotics`.

The farmer I mentioned had quotes/prices for building & installing the new automated parlour. Apparently there was a difference of around £130k between highest & lowest. (presume you get what you pay for)
I'm not saying he paid cash for all the work he's had done/invested but ............... `poor farmer`?
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Out of interest, has said farmer ever claimed poverty?
 
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