ever experienced Bitterness towards you as Farmer?

Dickie10

I am just interested to know of anyones experience of bitterness, disdain, jealousy or negativity/aggresivness towards them when people find out you are a farmer?

I cant say I have experienced major aggresivness, not that i would give a damn but I can definitly say i have experienced negativity in regard to answering the question of what I do for a living. its usually a surprising, fairly disintersted reaction or else a real disdainful long hard look at me, which i take to be fairly negative and usually very little conversation after that!

cant understand this reaction to some people you would just think you saud you were a lawyer or priest, the level of distrust that some have in their eyes is comical. very few look on me as ordinary working class on the same level as a chippy, brickie, plasterer etc as i would see myself as having a trade in being a farmer.

i always find that those working classes of a leftist view give me the worst reaction. do any of you ever feel downright uncomfortable to say you are a farmer?

larrymiller

Dickie10 wrote: »

I am just interested to know of anyones experience of bitterness, disdain, jealousy or negativity/aggresivness towards them when people find out you are a farmer?

I cant say I have experienced major aggresivness, not that i would give a damn but I can definitly say i have experienced negativity in regard to answering the question of what I do for a living. its usually a surprising, fairly disintersted reaction or else a real disdainful long hard look at me, which i take to be fairly negative and usually very little conversation after that!

cant understand this reaction to some people you would just think you saud you were a lawyer or priest, the level of distrust that some have in their eyes is comical. very few look on me as ordinary working class on the same level as a chippy, brickie, plasterer etc as i would see myself as having a trade in being a farmer.

i always find that those working classes of a leftist view give me the worst reaction. do any of you ever feel downright uncomfortable to say you are a farmer?

All people think is millionaire and grants. And that grass grows for free.
That's my experience anyway

satstheway

What would the world look like if it was not for farmers.
And as for the animal campaigners. Where would the animals be if it not for farmers.

BoatMad

satstheway wrote: »

What would the world look like if it was not for farmers.

wild , untamed and verdant , think amazon

And as for the animal campaigners. Where would the animals be if it not for farmers.

considerable more species diversity , greater biodiversity

Farming is a Business and thats fine , and I have not issue with that. Lets not rose tint it, however

Speedwell

People who look down their noses at farmers are just plain ignorant. You tell me you're a farmer and I think, "Cool, you make food" or "Cool, you make things grow". I work in front of a computer in a home office and I think I have a lot to do. You get out there early and get your hands dirty and deal with weather and things that smell and things that live and die, and on top of that run a small business, including working in front of a computer in a home office. I couldn't do it. I would be challenged by a smallholding. I'm frankly challenged by three cats and a few pots of herbs. Oh, and I'm a leftist. My father and mother both came from artsy-fartsy musical and literary families. If you'd expect anyone to look down on farmers, it would be me. But instead I look down on my plate, and around my house at all the things produced from plants and animals.

"Wild, untamed, and verdant" is for Amazon rain forest tribes with no word for the number three. Biodiversity is not always a good thing from the perspective of the human species (just ask the people who design your flu shot each year). We have a responsibility to the environment, and good farmers understand this and promote this, but I'll hear no talk about "humans are a scourge on the earth".

RobertKK

Farmers are among the most important people in society.

As an example, look at Zimbabwe, they were known as the bread basket of Africa, until racist Mugabe decided that white farmers were there due to imperialism and should be replaced with black people whose only qualification was - they had the right skin colour.
From bread basket to basket case, hyper inflation and turmoil, queues for food, it all went downhill.

The Arab spring started over high food prices, and the affordability of food and progressed into something entirely different.

There is a reason the EU pays such a high proportion of it's budget towards agriculture. Farmers produce one of the very most important things in society - food and play a role in protecting water.

Anyone who has disdain for a farmer who is doing nothing wrong, are just being incredibly ignorant, and quite frankly, I find such people to be rather stupid in general.

fepper

Most of the working class are probably financially better off,more time off,more holidays,better lifestyle overall than genuine farmers, if anything I'd say they pity us!!

Muckit

Irish people especially want to pigeon hole a person straight away. And 'what do you work at?' is one of the first questions asked!

BoatMad

People who look down their noses at farmers are just plain ignorant.

I dont think inreality there are many people in ireland that genuinely look down their noses at farmers. There are many issues that farmers have not dealt well with in the past , and many groupings feel there is legitimate grounds for complaints

but thats different to " looking down they noses " at farmers

BoatMad

Anyone who has disdain for a farmer who is doing nothing wrong, are just being incredibly ignorant, and quite frankly, I find such people to be rather stupid in general.

yes but I dont think there are many people that actually do have such disdain, there are those that have issues with certain aspects of farming , thats entirely different

Arrow in the Knee

Probably the same people who given a chance would sell the land inherited to them straight away.

Sam Kade

BoatMad wrote: »

wild , untamed and verdant , think amazon


considerable more species diversity , greater biodiversity

Farming is a Business and thats fine , and I have not issue with that. Lets not rose tint it, however

Running wild spreading diseases like tb and the like which used to be rampant in humans before they were kept under control in animals. Likewise don't rose tint your animals roaming free either

BoatMad

Sam Kade wrote: »

Running wild spreading diseases like tb and the like which used to be rampant in humans before they were kept under control in animals. Likewise don't rose tint your animals roaming free either

theres actually no evidence for what you claim

Im not rose tinting animals, but the natural world existed long before organised widespread agriculture

todays intensive farming is a business, pure and simple ( and thats fine ) , its happens to use elements of the " natural " world ( if you can still argue that ), for its inputs, thats about the extent of its connection to nature

Farmers are no "white knights" of the natural world

gctest50

Dickie10 wrote: »

I am just interested to know of anyones experience of bitterness, disdain, jealousy or negativity/aggresivness towards them when people find out you are a farmer?

I cant say I have experienced major aggresivness, not that i would give a damn but I can definitly say i have experienced negativity in regard to answering the question of what I do for a living. its usually a surprising, fairly disintersted reaction or else a real disdainful long hard look at me, which i take to be fairly negative and usually very little conversation after that!

cant understand this reaction to some people you would just think you saud you were a lawyer or priest, the level of distrust that some have in their eyes is comical. very few look on me as ordinary working class on the same level as a chippy, brickie, plasterer etc as i would see myself as having a trade in being a farmer.

i always find that those working classes of a leftist view give me the worst reaction. do any of you ever feel downright uncomfortable to say you are a farmer?

Just start this craic and watch them have a meltdown :

ganmo

according to my townie mates I LET the sheep/lambs die.

and then murder the rest.

needless to say i don't talk too much about farmin with them

Nekarsulm

Sat at a table at a wedding once, listening to a nurse berate me personally, and farmers in general for most of the worlds ills.
She had the fish, because it "wasn't farmed or force fed antibiotics".
She wasn't amused when I pointed out that while she was condemming farming for the countries ill health, she had put away at least a bottle of wine on her own and was starting on a second.
Was in the humour for a row, so questioned her about everything from liver disease, obesity, A & E admissions to spouse abuse .

longgonesilver

I know a farmer who when younger and asked what he did he told people he was an Agricultural Engineer.

We should probably invent elaborate job descriptions for ourselves that more accurately describe what we do. For a start most of us can say we are Farm Manager, CEO, PRO, Chief Sectary, I could add more but that brings me up to 1 million euro, plus bonuses and the extra tax is going to make the whole thing unviable.

cjmc11

Yup I experience it regularly, not bitterness though, more you poor, stupid uneducated idiot type of response.
With increasing urbanization this is only going to continue unfortunately.
It's not just farmers though, I find tradespeople or anyone with a job which didn't require them to go through full time 3rd level education are usually seen as lesser than those who do, doesn't matter how successful or otherwise the person is. Even people who drop out of college are seen as better than people who never went. Makes no sense but unfortunately when you have an education system in place which drills into students 'University and move to Dublin or bust' that attitude isn't going to change any time soon.

Bullocks

I can't say I have , but I'm an awful nice lad that you couldn't help but like !!!!

butt1

Yes once...when i was spreading slurry beside our local golf club and misjudged the boundry fence...and ended up sprayin three dubs ....with slurry.couldnt exactly make out what they said.. something about eyesight and glasses..and a license...i just welcomed them to the area..

red_diesel

I was in the company of an employee of Irish Water on a night out recently. The bile and bitterness towards her were on another level!
Teachers sometime get a hard time too.

I'm a part time farmer, never experienced any bitterness. In general I find most people very inquisitive and genuinely interested in Farming and the path food takes from farm to table.

_Brian

The majority of non farmers have no idea at all about farms and farming. No idea of the actual hours needed to run a farm or the level of multi skills needed to be successful. How unsocial the work is.

Most cannot understand the difference between having an asset and making a profit. There is a refusal to understand that the premiums paid to farmers are in return for work and that the premiums subsidises food prices.
The general population just cannot understand why on earth someone would do such hard manual dangerous work for essentially well below minimum wage and so just don't believe that there is so little profit in farming. Many or most beef farmers in my area would have better incomes working in Aldi stacking shelves at minimum wage.

No understanding about the difference in a cheap product and a quality product. Most believe that meat is meat and importing cheap meat from south america etc is an acceptable food source.

For me the biggest turn off is that the general public just don't support Irish farmers and make no effort to buy Irish produce. We have essentially no food culture here and the majority are quite happy to sit back and buy huge volumes of cheap muck to eat and feed to their kids. If farmers do protest at poor farm gate prices there is no support from the public and all they can see is an asset rich farmer "moaning again".

Now, in the same way many farmers have no understanding of the problems of working in a factory/office 39 hours a week and how antisocial that work is too.

satstheway

BoatMad wrote: »

wild , untamed and verdant , think amazon


considerable more species diversity , greater biodiversity

Farming is a Business and thats fine , and I have not issue with that. Lets not rose tint it, however

Jees the world you talk about sound like the film Jurassic Park.
Thank God for farmers.

But seriously where would the food for the world population?

Suckler

What I've gathered so far:

1. Farmers = Heroes. Don't say a bad word about us.
2. Everyone else = Idiots. Should grovel before us.

There was a saying about self praise....

satstheway

Suckler wrote: »

What I've gathered so far:

1. Farmers = Heroes. Don't say a bad word about us.
2. Everyone else = Idiots. Should grovel before us.

There was a saying about self praise....

I work full time farm part time and I see the both sides. Working in a well to do house one day and. Mother asked daughter how her night out went. Grand she said but the fellas were all farmers. And she did not see the good side of it.

Suckler

satstheway wrote: »

I work full time farm part time and I see the both sides. Working in a well to do house one day and. Mother asked daughter how her night out went. Grand she said but the fellas were all farmers. And she did not see the good side of it.

So?

_Brian

BoatMad wrote: »

wild , untamed and verdant , think amazon


considerable more species diversity , greater biodiversity

Farming is a Business and thats fine , and I have not issue with that. Lets not rose tint it, however

i had to google Verdant

satstheway wrote: »

Jees the world you talk about sound like the film Jurassic Park.
Thank God for farmers.

But seriously where would the food for the world population?

I think balance is key between both these points. In many cases we are producing food that's being wasted. This requires land and inputs that could otherwise be used to enrich the countryside. I think it was ETTG that I watched and one Scientist said we already produce enough food for 10Bln people but waste ~30%. In the same program a market gardener from Ireland was on saying to supply 1 tonne of veg to the supermarket he has to harvest 2 and they reject half because of how it looks, the other half goes back to animal feed which is damn expensive animal feed.

I disagree with the notion that we'd all be better off without farming and let the place go wild like the amazon. But I've also fallen out with the current drive in farming to produce more and more food, much of which is really just supplied to super companies to turn into commodities or non essential products from which they make extortionate sums of money. The farmer has made nothing extra because its more output at lower margins, and the excessive inputs into this excessively commercial scale of farming is bad for the environment.

satstheway

Suckler wrote: »

So?

So people need to stop treating farmers like second class citizen's.

Suckler

satstheway wrote: »

So people need to stop treating farmers like second class citizen's.

Absolutely no evidence of that. Do farmers have to go to a separate line in the shop or use different toilets than others? You'll be looking for Nelson Mandela next to ease the social injustices. Second class citizens my arse.

MF290

satstheway wrote: »

I work full time farm part time and I see the both sides. Working in a well to do house one day and. Mother asked daughter how her night out went. Grand she said but the fellas were all farmers. And she did not see the good side of it.

Ah they should have introduced themselves as landed gentlemen from the fertile pastures of wherever if they wanted people to have notions about them

tractorporn

cjmc11 wrote:

Yup I experience it regularly, not bitterness though, more you poor, stupid uneducated idiot type of response.

This with added "why would you want to do that?" Usually accompanied by a look that suggests that you told them your mother was also your sister.

red_diesel

_Brian wrote: »

The majority of non farmers have no idea at all about farms and farming. No idea of the actual hours needed to run a farm or the level of multi skills needed to be successful. How unsocial the work is.

With respect, but the same applies to the successful running of any business.

_Brian wrote: »

For me the biggest turn off is that the general public just don't support Irish farmers and make no effort to buy Irish produce. We have essentially no food culture here and the majority are quite happy to sit back and buy huge volumes of cheap muck to eat and feed to their kids. If farmers do protest at poor farm gate prices there is no support from the public and all they can see is an asset rich farmer "moaning again".

Now, in the same way many farmers have no understanding of the problems of working in a factory/office 39 hours a week and how antisocial that work is too.

In my experience this is not true and people mostly like to buy Irish, but again this is only my experience. Sometimes its hard to find Irish product. Even Irish carrots are hard to find in some Supermarkets. Is this the big chains fault, is it something could be covered off by legislating for undercost selling, is it the representative bodies fault (IFA?), is it governments fault, is our cost base too high? I don't know.

Whilst beef and dairy have been hugely successful for this country maybe we need to invest a little more in PR, Research and Marketing on other areas of Farming. A Bord Bia marketing campaign promoting Irish Carrots!

Sean O Hara

Farming is a bit of an odd profession.

You do manual and often dirty work which makes you feel working class.

However, you also own assets worth large amounts of money which is different from most working class people in other areas. Unfortunately it's very hard to get cold hard cash out of the assets without selling them which would often mean you are unemployed. Also farming is really more than a job, it's essentially a big part of many peoples identity.

Most of the real negative attitudes I hear centre around money.
Essentially, that you must be loaded owning all that land etc. This usually comes from poorer people who don't have any assets themselves.

Conversely, some people would look down on the perceived poverty of farmers too. This would be from people from long established professional backgrounds (or have notions/aspiration to such) and the likes. However, this really depends on how much land you have and where you have it. There is socially a world of difference between coming from 50 acres in the west and 500 acres in Meath etc.

Then there is the usual culchie stuff but that is mostly good natured.

Sam Kade

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Sat at a table at a wedding once, listening to a nurse berate me personally, and farmers in general for most of the worlds ills.
She had the fish, because it "wasn't farmed or force fed antibiotics".
She wasn't amused when I pointed out that while she was condemming farming for the countries ill health, she had put away at least a bottle of wine on her own and was starting on a second.
Was in the humour for a row, so questioned her about everything from liver disease, obesity, A & E admissions to spouse abuse .

What a lovely woman :rolleyes: Did you point it out to her that she is force feeding humans antibiotics?

DSN

fepper wrote: »

Most of the working class are probably financially better off,more time off,more holidays,better lifestyle overall than genuine farmers, if anything I'd say they pity us!!

This! I come from farming background, small farmers, worked all hours, never took holidays. My father loved it my mother had a love/hate relationship with it. I rem lot of rows about money being spent on the farm & her never getting a break etc. I hated it & swore I'd never be a farmers wife (I'm not!). I think it's one of the hardest jobs out there, physically as well as mentally. I really admire a person or couple who do it & love it & get on with it for what it is.

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Elemonator

I often joke that farmers are culchies but I don't mean anything by it and they know that. I used to work picking spuds in a field during secondary school myself. They have a huge contribution to society, sure they make the food that keeps us alive.

It isn't all millions and grants either, I discovered that too. Farmers work damn hard.

StupidLikeAFox

I think farming should be banned and everybody should get their meat from tesco like a normal person

Sam Kade

draiochtanois wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

He can only get €15000 tax free, I'm sure. Also renting isn't always as trouble free as some people think.

fepper

Sean O Hara wrote: »

Farming is a bit of an odd profession.<br />
<br />
You do manual and often dirty work which makes you feel working class.<br />
<br />
However, you also own assets worth large amounts of money which is different from most working class people in other areas. Unfortunately it's very hard to get cold hard cash out of the assets without selling them which would often mean you are unemployed. Also farming is really more than a job, it's essentially a big part of many peoples identity.<br />
<br />
Most of the real negative attitudes I hear centre around money.<br />
Essentially, that you must be loaded owning all that land etc. This usually comes from poorer people who don't have any assets themselves.<br />
<br />
Conversely, some people would look down on the perceived poverty of farmers too. This would be from people from long established professional backgrounds (or have notions/aspiration to such) and the likes. However, this really depends on how much land you have and where you have it. There is socially a world of difference between coming from 50 acres in the west and 500 acres in Meath etc.<br />
<br />
Then there is the usual culchie stuff but that is mostly good natured.

<br />
<br />
Even the other way around 50 acres in meath is away better than 500 acres in the west

kowtow

red_diesel wrote:

With respect, but the same applies to the successful running of any business.

Its not quite the same.

Pressure, stress, insane hours, multiple complex problems any one of which could seriously damage the business... these are the daily meat and drink of most high octane careers.

Just as they are for farmers. But farmers combine them with physical danger, little or no financial reward, and increasingly little ability to influence sales by harder or better work.

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

CloughCasey1

If anyone asks FIL what's his occupation he says
"I'm a farmer the next occupation to a tinker"
Do you have a slatted house?
"No a maceen I've a thatched house"
How are ya finding the farming at the minute
"I may as well be trying to keep the tide out with a pitchfork"
Needless to say there aren't anymore questions.

I said

draiochtanois wrote: »

Like so many farmers wrong and yet sure they are right

Leasing Farm Land

A lease of 10 or more years ...

Is he/she incapacitated?

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

I said

draiochtanois wrote: »

I'll give you a clue before you read it again, they are over 40.

Yes I see it now must look into it would be nice to get along with the full time job.
Thanks for the info.

Limestone Cowboy

No bitterness but have got the feeling I was being looked at as a bit of an uneducated baboon a few times and I'd play along with it aswell!

red_diesel

kowtow wrote: »

Its not quite the same.

Pressure, stress, insane hours, multiple complex problems any one of which could seriously damage the business... these are the daily meat and drink of most high octane careers.

Just as they are for farmers. But farmers combine them with physical danger, little or no financial reward, and increasingly little ability to influence sales by harder or better work.

Some business's start with nothing but an idea and lots and lots of risk and hard work. Many many farmers start with massive assets passed from generation to generation. I cant for the life of me understand why someone would persist with a career with little or no financial reward. Maybe some diversification and thinking outside the box is needed if this is the case.

05eaftqbrs9jlh

Dickie10 wrote:

i always find that those working classes of a leftist view give me the worst reaction. do any of you ever feel downright uncomfortable to say you are a farmer?

They're jealous because you own and control your own means of production whilst they're mere proles.

eorna

Normally find both: a Bit of jealousy as you own assets worth a lot (even more in non farming eyes) and a bit of 'why do you do that to yourself?'
I suppose the two views have a point...

Bullocks

Another way to look at it is do farmers look at others with bitterness ? I know a few that think everyone elses job is piss easy compared farming and of course better paid