Future Agri-environment schemes

[YoungFarmerBen]

I am curious to see what people think of the new 'Health and Harmony' published by DEFRA.

If you're a farmer in the UK what will you do when your basic payment no longer exists and is replaced by ‘public money for public goods’?

Please tell me your thoughts on Agri-environmental schemes post Brexit by filling out my quick questionnaire for me to complete my dissertation.

https://harper-adams.onlinesurveys.a...es-post-brexit

It would be extremely appreciated

Ben

[Gee]

Nothing like free research...
Strange how ....Consumers, Government.....the Media all seem to assume that farmers will continue to produce .....regardless.
Whats the figure??? 50 or 60% of Farmers are cash rich?
Able to if they feel the need to wind the business down.....more profitable to do nowt!
Instinct would be against it, but needs most.
Either invest a few £million or pay rent on it, work seven days a week and end up with F ### all to show for it!
Not much of a business plan.
Previous generations in our family farmed through the Twenties and Thirties up to the Second World War.....each year the end of year valuation was less than the year before.....but they were in good company....world wide depression meant the most of the population were in similar circumstances.
War was Salvation......followed by governments that appreciated a consistent supply of readily available cheap food, rationing continued for several years. Difficult to appreciate today.
I was often told that those that came through best were the larger farmers with large numbers of staff......all were paid off, the business was shut down to “dog and stick” farming....cattle grazed through the summer and that was it.....when the scent of recovery appeared they had the cash to take farms that no one else could or wanted.
Given the choice.....I would say goverment could shove their Health and Harmony somewhere “dark and warm”......just another transient politician pedalling his bike up the greasy pole!
Is it too late to change your course to something not related to agriculture?
gee

[Jack_Caley]

Nothing like free research...
Strange how ....Consumers, Government.....the Media all seem to assume that farmers will continue to produce .....regardless.
Whats the figure??? 50 or 60% of Farmers are cash rich?
Able to if they feel the need to wind the business down.....more profitable to do nowt!
Instinct would be against it, but needs most.
Either invest a few £million or pay rent on it, work seven days a week and end up with F ### all to show for it!
Not much of a business plan.
Previous generations in our family farmed through the Twenties and Thirties up to the Second World War.....each year the end of year valuation was less than the year before.....but they were in good company....world wide depression meant the most of the population were in similar circumstances.
War was Salvation......followed by governments that appreciated a consistent supply of readily available cheap food, rationing continued for several years. Difficult to appreciate today.
I was often told that those that came through best were the larger farmers with large numbers of staff......all were paid off, the business was shut down to “dog and stick” farming....cattle grazed through the summer and that was it.....when the scent of recovery appeared they had the cash to take farms that no one else could or wanted.
Given the choice.....I would say goverment could shove their Health and Harmony somewhere “dark and warm”......just another transient politician pedalling his bike up the greasy pole!
Is it too late to change your course to something not related to agriculture?
gee

Gee,
Have you had a go at filling in Goves consultation?
I think they are living in cloud cuckoo land.
They are going to remove most of the farm payments without any real replacement of that need. Putting their faith in electronic weeding machines. What does happen if European farmers still get payments?
As you know I was and still am in favour of Brexit, but I always thought we were going to lose subsidies Europe wide.
I would have been in favour of WTO tariffs, but I cannot see a conservative government pushing up the price of food.
Still struggling with the consultation.
jack caley

[Gee]

Gee,
Have you had a go at filling in Goves consultation?
I think they are living in cloud cuckoo land.
They are going to remove most of the farm payments without any real replacement of that need. Putting their faith in electronic weeding machines. What does happen if European farmers still get payments?
As you know I was and still am in favour of Brexit, but I always thought we were going to lose subsidies Europe wide.
I would have been in favour of WTO tariffs, but I cannot see a conservative government pushing up the price of food.
Still struggling with the consultation.
jack caley

Waste of time Jack,
Watching the dawning light of realisation sweeping through the fishing industry, nothing better is in store for us.
“Electronic weeders” etc etc.....nothing more than the “cloak to conceal the dagger”!
Subsidies are to a degree irrelevant......without an open and free export market we are stuffed!
The removal of subs would at least remove the nutters from the industry.....£200 an acre FBT’s will become a thing of the past.
Landlords wanting all the SFP plus a bit more.....£10000 an acre land all gone.
A whole tranche of Land Agents well and truly on the SFP drip.....intravenously administered, gone!
Get up in the morning......the day is yours!
Run YOUR business what ever way YOU want.
FOR YOUR BENEFIT AND SATIFACTION!

[Jack_Caley]

Waste of time Jack,
Watching the dawning light of realisation sweeping through the fishing industry, nothing better is in store for us.
“Electronic weeders” etc etc.....nothing more than the “cloak to conceal the dagger”!
Subsidies are to a degree irrelevant......without an open and free export market we are stuffed!
The removal of subs would at least remove the nutters from the industry.....£200 an acre FBT’s will become a thing of the past.
Landlords wanting all the SFP plus a bit more.....£10000 an acre land all gone.
A whole tranche of Land Agents well and truly on the SFP drip.....intravenously administered, gone!
Get up in the morning......the day is yours!
Run YOUR business what ever way YOU want.
FOR YOUR BENEFIT AND SATIFACTION!

I think you are probably right in that it is a waste of time, but we really have to try to make Gove and all the others see the total picture, because it is obvious they do not see it now.
Just like the fishing industry, agriculture faces a period of total decline, a repeat of the repeal of the corn laws, cheap imports destroying the industry.
You say the end of £10000 an acre, you are probably right to a certain extent, but Dyson did not buy 24000 acres to make money farming, he bought it to avoid losing money by putting it in a bank. Nothing to do with agricultural value.
If it were not for the end of animal exports, I would say it might return to the days when an ex employee of mine took on land rent free for two years and went round picking up dead sheep as the only job he had to do apart from shearing.
jack caley

[Gee]

Gove is nothing more than a “talking cosmetic placebo”.
His task is to deliver the headline grabbing announcements....ban live exports etc. anything that may grab a bite or two of the days headlines and puncture another opposition balloon.
The real agenda is that For the government to walk away from agriculture......dressed up as every loopy environmental scheme possible.
Compliance will be virtually impossible, apart from for the Dysons of this world.
Land ain’t much use if you are required to allow it to flood every time it rains, just to protect those nice newly moved in neighbours down the road.....in the houses built on the haugh that everyone knew flooded at the back of the village.
Nope Gove is too busy pedalling his own bike up the greasy pole to worry about the future of Agriculture.