You and your land

Qualitymark

How do you see your relationship to your land?

Do you hold it as a sacred trust?

Do you, like the old Planters, feel you should improve it with tree-planting and hedge-planting?

Or do you see it as a business purely, and view the land as a factory owner views the machinery?

Arrow in the Knee

In my opinion its more than just a piece of land.

I like to think of the farm as a business purely but its so much more!

reilig

Family Asset passed down through 5 generations with each generation adding more to it to ensure that it would support the next.

Its a business, but I don't feel that I own it. I have use of it for my lifetime and I would like to add to it and improve it for the next generation.

Financial experts and farm planners don't want you to think of land in this way but that's how it is for me.

Juniorhurler

Our family are traced back to 1640 in the family farm so damned if I'll be the one to break that sequence. As reilig said I am a guardian of it for one generation only. It is a business, but one which can only be expanded, we can never sell it on without being forever remembered as the one who did.

Qualitymark

And do you plant trees and hedges, keep the microherd healthy?

restive

I am trying my best to view the whole farm as a business, but i inherited from my Father after he died a few years back and it has been in the family for generations so obviously it means more than just money.

1chippy

Qualitymark wrote: »

How do you see your relationship to your land?

Do you hold it as a sacred trust?

Do you, like the old Planters, feel you should improve it with tree-planting and hedge-planting?

Or do you see it as a business purely, and view the land as a factory owner views the machinery?

All the above,its like watching an animal thrive really well. you try to mimic this with the rest of your animals. then find all the other little things like neat yard, hedgerows and clean fields. its about having aspirations and growing from what you have.
Finances are the main issue though and we all have to live, which takes money. and from this you have to run your farm to its best potentialand this is where the business kicks in. the whole thing is parcel and parcel with each other.
personally the home farm was doubled by my father and doubled by his father.(its still not that big) i know it may be crazy but currently i'll have to stick with renting, god knows if i can double it. (it wont be on this years profit though).

whiskey_bar

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

In my opinion its more than just a piece of land.

I like to think of the farm as a business purely but its so much more!

some say that is both equally a good and a bad thing in this country , from an expansion POV , it leaves it near impossible for anyone with a small amount of land with ambitions to grow as such few farms come up for sale

Arrow in the Knee

There was a programme on RTE One a good while ago and someone on it said that a farm in France goes on sale on average every 70 years 'a generation' while a farm in Ireland goes on sale once every 700 years IIRC!!

kerryjack

Some people have a better relationship to the land than others for some of us older lads who did not inherit the farm when we were in our prime and worked long hours for very little pay. this was before the early retirement scheme came in which changed things for some lads but for others all we had to live on was all this will be yours some day, that was a lot of good to a lad that wanted to go out for a few pints . The money was spent educating other siblings and the fool was left at home working for nothing while other siblings got good jobs but its funny the same siblings taught there were entitled to something when the day finally came for the old lad handed it over. Its nice to be romantic when it comes to land but the reality can be quite different.

Mickey H

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

There was a programme on RTE One a good while ago and someone on it said that a farm in France goes on sale on average every 70 years 'a generation' while a farm in Ireland goes on sale once every 700 years IIRC!!

I remember that programme. It was called "A year on the land" or something like that.

She also said a quote that still stands out: "You don't own the land, you are merely a tenant...".

leg wax

not attached to land here.it will be sold for my pension and for me to see a bit of the world before i die.

reilig

Qualitymark wrote: »

And do you plant trees and hedges, keep the microherd healthy?

Yes, indeed we do. New hedgerows are planted regularly. Old hedgerows are thinned out and allowed to regenerate. Some of the larger trees that begin to suffer decay are chopped down before they become dangerous and used for firewood - in all cases, more than 1 tree is planted in their place!

grumpyfarmer

I'm with leg wax on this i will farm and work the farm for my time and then when I'm no longer able or have had enough it is my pension be it selling or leasing...

Black Smoke

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

I'm with leg wax on this i will farm and work the farm for my time and then when I'm no longer able or have had enough it is my pension be it selling or leasing...

And if you have a son or daughter who wants to farm, what will you do?

Arrow in the Knee

Mickey H
A Year on the Land was on TV3 last year during the summer and it wasn't the programme I was on about.

Interesting to see how the oulde lads have the land as a pension pot!

Muckit

Nobody owes their kids anything in the line of inheritance, nor should a child feel they owe a debt to their parents. This is where a lot of the 'trouble' lies IMO in 'the passing on of a farm to the next generation' scenario.

If you like working the land so be it, do it for the love of it. But seek out your own livelihood besides. This is looking at it from a parttime farming situation.

If your family are working fulltime on the farm and you are working fulltime on the farm, you are entitled to a wage, or some form of remuneration. This may be in the line of accommodation, meals etc etc.. Would you work for another employer, in a factory or a shop for instance, for nothing?? Oftentimes lads living at hoem on the farm discount this. Food had to be bought, clothes laundered, ESB bills paid.

As time progresses, if you want to farm the home farm, you must plant the seed in your parents heads, that a partnership with your parents, or an amicable gradual transfer is what you would like to see happen. One would be a fool to wait around for years based on empty promises.

Sometimes those of us that were reared on farms forget that there are people outside of farming that do not have assets to pass onto their kids after their passing. And if they do, oftentimes between nursing home fees and funeral expenses this inheritance is non existant. But they do not rely on inheritance, why? Because they have long since flown the nest. They eeked out their own living. They stood on their own two feet and worked the body that God gave them.

Life is what we make of it for ourselves. If you want something, go after it yourself.

grumpyfarmer

Black Smoke wrote: »

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

I'm with leg wax on this i will farm and work the farm for my time and then when I'm no longer able or have had enough it is my pension be it selling or leasing...

And if you have a son or daughter who wants to farm, what will you do?

Well i wouldn't actively encourage them to farm and if were still wanting too I'm sure there could be some kind of share farm agreement came too...

reilig

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

Well i wouldn't actively encourage them to farm

:eek:

I would be terribly disappointed if I felt that I could not encourage mine to farm from a young age. Not because I didn't have an heir, but because they would miss out on the way of life. I think that there is so much to be said for growing up on a farm, and so many things that urban kids miss out on.

From very small kids who may keep a few hens and grow a few vegetables, to older kids who have a sheep or a calf for the show, to the teenagers who's urban friends are playing computer games while they are stacking round bales or milking the cows, farming is such a healthy and important aspect of the life that I want my kids to have. When they finish college and have to choose a career, that will be their own decision, but if they are anything like me or their mother, they'll want to play some part in the future of the farm.

I am of the opinion that there's no better way of life for children and no better way to grow up than on a farm.

JohnBoy

It's not my land. It's her's

Black Smoke

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

Well i wouldn't actively encourage them to farm and if were still wanting too I'm sure there could be some kind of share farm agreement came too...

Why specifically wouldn't you encourage them to farm?

F.D

The land is in my fathers name, i would hope to have it in mine someday when ever he's ready to pass it on, one think the generation above him made him promise was never to sell it, and he will be expecting the same from me i'm sure, and i wouldn't ever sell it and loose all the history and work that went in over the years, it will keep its self either by me farming it or renting it..

on the sowing hedgerows trees etc, theres not enough done to encourage it, if you leave a piece of land to grow firewood or sow a line of trees in the hedge for fuel in the future, you either get peanalised for the ground not been productive or told you cant cut down the trees for what ever reason, even though you will replace them anyway!

PatQfarmer

leg wax wrote: »

not attached to land here.it will be sold for my pension and for me to see a bit of the world before i die.

How will you know when to pull the trigger...:)

Black Smoke

leg wax wrote: »

not attached to land here.it will be sold for my pension and for me to see a bit of the world before i die.

But you will have a warchest of cash built up from the blues:cool: No need to sell the underlying land;)

robp

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

There was a programme on RTE One a good while ago and someone on it said that a farm in France goes on sale on average every 70 years 'a generation' while a farm in Ireland goes on sale once every 700 years IIRC!!

Do you remember the name of that show? I'm guessing farms pre-dating Cromwell are rare indeed.

daenerysstormborn3

This is a good thread and something quite close to my heart as I come from a large farming family and my boyfriend has just inherited the family farm (and part of his mum's farmland) after the passing of his father.

My boyfriend is very much married to the land. He had a very close relationship with his father (he was his carer for 8 years before he passed away) and he knows how much that land meant to his father and his ancestors. All his father ever knew was farming, that was his whole life. The hours were crap, sometimes the yields were even more crap but he just kept going. His father wasn't a wealthy farmer but he made enough money to support his family and never found himself in a position where he considered taking up other work and my boyfriend's mum never had to work outside of the home and the farm. She was a traditional farmer's wife, kept chickens and pigs, made as much of their food from scratch from produce from the farm, vegetable garden, the whole lot. Farming has always been a part of my boyfriend and it always will be.

About 4 months before my boyfriend's father passed away, the council approached him in relation to purchasing more of his land to build another bloody road (the New Ross by-pass) and we are now awaiting a Compulsory Purchase Order as the work is scheduled to begin by 2014 (this has been confirmed in the past few weeks). The council taking more of his land tore him apart. He was the type of farmer who knew everything about his land, everything about his animals, he had that farmer's intuition that is so rare now.

My boyfriend is fortunate enough that he also has a college education so when the council do buy 80% of the inherited farmland he has that to fall back on but farming and the farm is all he has ever wanted. It's all he and his father talked about. He holds it now as one of the final strings tying him to everything his father worked painstakingly hard for. Since the council approached them about the land, my boyfriend has waivered between nurturing the land and ignoring it but he has now come back around to nurturing it until the council take the land.

leg wax

PatQfarmer wrote: »

How will you know when to pull the trigger...:)

i only have 35 acres and its not mine until my so called mother passes on,so its not a viable farm for anyone but its in side the city bounds, pulling the trigger will be easy to decide, when i am not bothered to get up and go out to a cow to see her calving,i have had enough by then,or if someone comes in with a big cheque.

reilig

leg wax wrote: »

i only have 35 acres and its not mine until my so called mother passes on,so its not a viable farm for anyone but its in side the city bounds, pulling the trigger will be easy to decide, when i am not bothered to get up and go out to a cow to see her calving,i have had enough by then,or if someone comes in with a big cheque.

Ah jasus, You're sitting on a pot of gold. Some time in the next 30 years property prices will rise and there will be a demand for deveopment land - you just have to bide your time.

I'm 7 miles from the nearest village and 10 miles for the nearest town. I'll never have that option.

bob charles

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

Well i wouldn't actively encourage them to farm and if were still wanting too I'm sure there could be some kind of share farm agreement came too...

agreed, I would discourage any child that I may have in time to come to be a farmer. I would also discourage my female friend from having much to do with a full time farmer trying to make a life on the land, I would consider it an unfair life for a girl to marry into. As a kid I just always remember my dad not being at home late at nights as he was still on the road. Just my opinion

Black Smoke

leg wax wrote: »

i only have 35 acres and its not mine until my so called mother passes on,so its not a viable farm for anyone but its in side the city bounds, pulling the trigger will be easy to decide, when i am not bothered to get up and go out to a cow to see her calving,i have had enough by then,or if someone comes in with a big cheque.

And when you are on your way out of this world, this is the last image you will see, leaning in over you

pakalasa

You'd be amazed how much land was handed down, through the generations, from Cromwellian times, to the present day farmers.

Username John

pakalasa wrote: »

You'd be amazed how much land was handed down, through the generations, from Cromwellian times, to the present day farmers.

Hi Paka,
Where can you get that info? I have looked up the census, and the Griffith valuations, but that only tells you as far back as about the 1850 or so?

Is there somewhere else online that allows you to trace back further?

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

Ah jasus, You're sitting on a pot of gold. Some time in the next 30 years property prices will rise and there will be a demand for deveopment land - you just have to bide your time.

I'm 7 miles from the nearest village and 10 miles for the nearest town. I'll never have that option.

..... and you live in .... ahem.... leitrim

Muckit

bob charles wrote: »

As a kid I just always remember my dad not being at home late at nights as he was still on the road. Just my opinion

... and what did you learn from that experience bob? :rolleyes:

pakalasa

Username John wrote: »

Hi Paka,
Where can you get that info? I have looked up the census, and the Griffith valuations, but that only tells you as far back as about the 1850 or so?

Is there somewhere else online that allows you to trace back further?

The Cromwellian Settlement
...Members of the army were the first to be settled on the land vacated by the Irish, followed by the adventurers...
...A new Ireland emerged after the Cromwellian Plantation. Land ownership and political authority passed from the older inhabitants to the new colonists, from Irish and Old English Catholics to a landed ascendancy of English Protestants who were to control the life of Ireland until the twentieth century...

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/cromwell_settlement.htm

This is info specific to Co. Clare.
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/survey_distribution/baronies.htm

Qualitymark

pakalasa wrote: »

The Cromwellian Settlement
...Members of the army were the first to be settled on the land vacated by the Irish, followed by the adventurers...
...A new Ireland emerged after the Cromwellian Plantation. Land ownership and political authority passed from the older inhabitants to the new colonists, from Irish and Old English Catholics to a landed ascendancy of English Protestants who were to control the life of Ireland until the twentieth century...

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/cromwell_settlement.htm

This is info specific to Co. Clare.
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/survey_distribution/baronies.htm

"Land vacated by the Irish"! Hahaha!

grumpyfarmer

Black Smoke wrote: »

Why specifically wouldn't you encourage them to farm?

cos i feel they could find a better way for them to make a living, one which means they could have a life, time off, holidays, a decent living without having to physically kill themselves working all the hours and days available to scrap by at the bottom of the food change...

cow man

While it is a nice idea for farms to be handed down from generation to generation but the odds are that there will be 25% less land owners in 50 years time

Black Smoke

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

Black Smoke wrote: »

Why specifically wouldn't you encourage them to farm?

cos i feel they could find a better way for them to make a living, one which means they could have a life, time off, holidays, a decent living without having to physically kill themselves working all the hours and days available to scrap by at the bottom of the food change...

You take a fair auld bit of time off yourself according to this post a while back, so what's with the poor mouth now? Have you the tickets booked for the Oktoberfest yet???


grumpyfarmer
Member 3 months ago26/06/2012 20:41
Used to never go on hols until i started going out with my OH 4 years ago, now we go for a week in Sept/Oct. we each choose location on alternate years. London 1st year, tenerife the next, Scotland last year and i think its Munich this year...
ReplyThank (0)

grumpyfarmer

Black Smoke wrote: »

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

Black Smoke wrote: »

Why specifically wouldn't you encourage them to farm?

cos i feel they could find a better way for them to make a living, one which means they could have a life, time off, holidays, a decent living without having to physically kill themselves working all the hours and days available to scrap by at the bottom of the food change...

You take a fair auld bit of time off yourself according to this post a while back, so what's with the poor mouth now? Have you the tickets booked for the Oktoberfest yet???


grumpyfarmer
Member 3 months ago26/06/2012 20:41
Used to never go on hols until i started going out with my OH 4 years ago, now we go for a week in Sept/Oct. we each choose location on alternate years. London 1st year, tenerife the next, Scotland last year and i think its Munich this year...
ReplyThank (0)

1 week out of 52 wow I'm a total dosser sure i would know work if it bit me in the arse...

Black Smoke

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

Black Smoke wrote: »

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

Black Smoke wrote: »

Why specifically wouldn't you encourage them to farm?

cos i feel they could find a better way for them to make a living, one which means they could have a life, time off, holidays, a decent living without having to physically kill themselves working all the hours and days available to scrap by at the bottom of the food change...

You take a fair auld bit of time off yourself according to this post a while back, so what's with the poor mouth now? Have you the tickets booked for the Oktoberfest yet???


grumpyfarmer
Member 3 months ago26/06/2012 20:41
Used to never go on hols until i started going out with my OH 4 years ago, now we go for a week in Sept/Oct. we each choose location on alternate years. London 1st year, tenerife the next, Scotland last year and i think its Munich this year...
ReplyThank (0)

1 week out of 52 wow I'm a total dosser sure i would know work if it bit me in the arse...

-:). -:) -:) -:)

Dont be daft

I'm of the same kind of mindset as Reilig

Its looking like I probably wont be left any land which at first pissed me off to no amount. I'd felt that I'd sacrificied the most for the farm.
I went to college and all that malarky but every bit of spare time, holidays, weekends etc. I spent on the farm when my siblings werent around at all.

But lately I see it as almost liberating. There are three significant farms locally which will be sold in the next ten years and I'm hoping to buy one of them.

Business wise its absolute idiocy to buy land.
But the way I see it if it can pay for itself mostly (with a small amount of part-time input from me) then after 30 years I'll be left with a sizeable asset.
If I have a young lad that wants to farm he'll have the opportunity I never had and if not I'll have a nice little asset to sell to fund my later years.
If I inherited land I wouldnt have the second option without feeling guilty baring in mind what my father went through to pay for the home farm.

In the mean time I'll be able to run a small business that I love, I'll be able to live in a beautiful area and control the vicinty which surrounds me and my kids can grow up on a farm.
I'd place a lot on emphasis on my last point as I really do believe its the best possible environment for kids to grow up in.

ABlur

I bought mine as I wasnt deemed 'qualified' to be the guardian of the home farm for this generation! Its an asset, a hobby that will never make any money as I didnt get it free. I'd like to think my son would hang onto it when I'm gone but if he wants to cash in so be it.

leg wax

big dairy farm up for sale beside me, it will be in the comic this week i think ..the old man is turning in the grave over it for sale i would say,as a business worth 2.5 mil he wont make as much farming it as he will if he sells it and lives off the interest.

Mo60

Being left land is more a curse than a blessing, jealousy and greed rears its ugly head. At least in our family.

OH left land and everyone else thinks they are entitled to make use without paying any cost of upkeep. Lease arranged for relative and now we have problems with the payment of the rent.

Black Smoke

leg wax wrote: »

big dairy farm up for sale beside me, it will be in the comic this week i think ..the old man is turning in the grave over it for sale i would say,as a business worth 2.5 mil he wont make as much farming it as he will if he sells it and lives off the interest.

This man is turning a hard asset, into cash at the same time as Mario Draghi, has announced that the ECB will purchase "unlimited" amounts of soverign bonds of highly indebted countries in the Euro. In the same week, Ben Bernanke, anounces the imminent launch of the third tranche of quantitive easing. PIMCO the most successful asset management company on the globe, says that the whole world, has now entered an unstoppable period of inflation. Probably sharp inflation, which may last decades

What would you rather have, in a long cycle of sharp inflation, cash or land?
Cash you see can be printed, and is being printed, on a scale never before seen. It's purchasing power, is set to start falling for a long period of time to come.
Land on the other hand, has a finite supply and cannot be expanded. In fact qulaity food producing land with an adequate supply of water, is in decline globally, with ever increasing droughts around the world.

I'm with the Bull McCabe on this one ..... the land, the land, the land:cool:

bob charles

Black Smoke wrote: »

Land on the other hand, has a finite supply and cannot be expanded. In fact qulaity food producing land with an adequate supply of water, is in decline globally, with ever increasing droughts around the world.

I'm with the Bull McCabe on this one ..... the land, the land, the land:cool:

Travel and see if you still have the same opinion. there is massive tracts of land still with little or nothing being produce. you dont even have to go outside your parish to see acres and acres of close on idle land. I estimate that Ireland is only producing about 40% of what it could be with its land.

Qualitymark

bob charles wrote: »

Travel and see if you still have the same opinion. there is massive tracts of land still with little or nothing being produce. you dont even have to go outside your parish to see acres and acres of close on idle land. I estimate that Ireland is only producing about 40% of what it could be with its land.

Including forestry. Planting deciduous trees on that idle land would be a good action, especially with more people buying modern stoves.