Education and farming

Bullocks

Keepgrowing wrote: »

I'm not sure you should ever make changes just for tax purposes. By all means limit it.

We changed things here but took education, sucession, future borrowing and tax planning into account when doing. Spent 2 years transitioning to do it the way we wanted.

All I say is consider more than just tax of making any changes

What do you mean by education and succession ? How did it fit in with the tax planning ?

rangler1

Bullocks wrote: »

What do you mean by education and succession ? How did it fit in with the tax planning ?

You'd need to be optimistic to put those two in the one sentence.....will there be another generation farming if there's a proper education available to them.

Bullocks

rangler1 wrote: »

You'd need to be optimistic to put those two in the one sentence.....will there be another generation farming if there's a proper education available to them.

If they have any sense then no , but alot of us wouldnt be bursting with sense when it comes to farming
It wouldnt really be viable on our farm for the kids to bother but you never know whats coming down the line either

Keepgrowing

rangler1 wrote: »

You'd need to be optimistic to put those two in the one sentence.....will there be another generation farming if there's a proper education available to them.

Lol
Proper education is the building block for proper farmers.

Succession is about more than farming it's about the transfer of high value assets and that takes planning, not the day you get sick but years in advance.

J.O. Farmer

rangler1 wrote: »

You'd need to be optimistic to put those two in the one sentence.....will there be another generation farming if there's a proper education available to them.

Depends on your definition of proper education. Maybe it could mean sending the smart child to ag college and the idiot children to the priesthood or the nuns.

I got a proper education and went to college got a good degree and postgrad and I'm still farming although it was never and will never be a full time enterprise here.
I have siblings who were less interested in academics and are successful too in their areas but no interest in farming.
My point is that a proper education won't put off a successor to carry on in some capacity if they have the interest and the lack of it won't keep them at it if not interested.

Welding Rod

Thought there was no money in farming. Where's all these tax bill coming from?
If you want no or low tax bills try sucklers. They give plenty headaches but tax isn't the bigger one

rangler1

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Depends on your definition of proper education. Maybe it could mean sending the smart child to ag college and the idiot children to the priesthood or the nuns.

I got a proper education and went to college got a good degree and postgrad and I'm still farming although it was never and will never be a full time enterprise here.
I have siblings who were less interested in academics and are successful too in their areas but no interest in farming.
My point is that a proper education won't put off a successor to carry on in some capacity if they have the interest and the lack of it won't keep them at it if not interested.

Think you;ve answered your own query there, I'm referring to fulltime farming, you're talking about farming instead of laying golf on a Saturday.
Each to their own, but if you're on a good salary and doing parttime farming well and making maybe 10 or 20000 out of it, Whatever about getting disillusioned with the extra work, you'd definitely cop on when you pay the 52% tax on the profits and realise the time it takes you away from real life

J.O. Farmer

rangler1 wrote: »

Each to their own, but if you're on a good salary and doing parttime farming well and making maybe 10 or 20000 out of it, Whatever about getting disillusioned with the extra work, you'd definitely cop on when you pay the 52% tax on the profits and realise the time it takes you away from real life

See that's where the system of farming may change in future generations. The full time dairy farm may change to something else more suited to part time with more help hired in.
It depends on how you look at farming. If you enjoy farming more than playing golf paying 52% on profit might be better than spending money on golf.
On the other hand if you prefer golf and are disillusioned with the extra work then farming isn't for you and you'll know long before you reach leaving cert.

kowtow

"Only doing it part time" is not a solution to the future of an industry.

If we can't have a farming industry which is a place that our educated children will be proud to work then we have only ourselves (and perhaps our parents) to blame.

We need to stop bemoaning it and start doing something about it.

Bullocks

Welding Rod wrote: »

Thought there was no money in farming. Where's all these tax bill coming from?
If you want no or low tax bills try sucklers. They give plenty headaches but tax isn't the bigger one

Its probably lack of income making it hard to keep back money for tax moreso than the tax itself . Im a fecker for not planning ahead with regards to tax but I'm slowly getting better as the years go on

Panch18

kowtow wrote: »

"Only doing it part time" is not a solution to the future of an industry.

If we can't have a farming industry which is a place that our educated children will be proud to work then we have only ourselves (and perhaps our parents) to blame.

We need to stop bemoaning it and start doing something about it.

Why isn't it the future though Kowtow? Plenty of European countries have dairy farmers who are part time. With tillage and beef it is becoming near impossible for either to provide a proper sustainable household income

Now it's a major problem, because the guy who has a job doesn't need to make any money from the place, the full timer has to make his living. So part timer can sustain much longer periods of low prices. That's just the way it is. Going part time might actually keep farmers going longer than being full time

Keepgrowing

Could the mods seperate this into an "education" thread on f&f. Would be very interesting.

Just a thought

J.O. Farmer

kowtow wrote: »

"Only doing it part time" is not a solution to the future of an industry.

If we can't have a farming industry which is a place that our educated children will be proud to work then we have only ourselves (and perhaps our parents) to blame.

We need to stop bemoaning it and start doing something about it.

I think it's not an issue of pride but more financial. Compare the average industrial wage with the average farm income. Perhaps big dairy farms can compete or maybe tillage? But the other sectors not so much unless we go down the poultry route of contract rearing for meat factories and I don't see that happening.

You're right though we do need to do something.

Buford T. Justice XIX

As requested, I'm copying the relevant posts to a new thread.

Fire away

Jexbullcalf

Great thread I think the smarter the people working in the front line of the industry would really help improve it.
I'm not saying people with a third level education it's people who embrace new ideas are progressive and work together to help the farming sector as a whole not just milk, beef, tillage or sheep.

The day of the big thick ignorant farmer is coming to an end with the help of god.
Back when I was in ag college there was lads that couldn't write their name, farming might have seemed like a good idea for them but ultimately it was probably the worst thing that happened to them.

kowtow

Panch18 wrote: »

Why isn't it the future though Kowtow? Plenty of European countries have dairy farmers who are part time. With tillage and beef it is becoming near impossible for either to provide a proper sustainable household income

Now it's a major problem, because the guy who has a job doesn't need to make any money from the place, the full timer has to make his living. So part timer can sustain much longer periods of low prices. That's just the way it is. Going part time might actually keep farmers going longer than being full time

Oh absolutely, from the perspective of an individual farms survival, there is nothing wrong with part time farming. Indeed if you count cheese making and milk processing as a different industry that definitely will make me a part time farmer and a very contented one (I also don't expect to lose money regularly).

But as you rightly point out, investing further capital in more and more technology and automation to free up time to generate an external income and subsidise the production of a commodity is probably closer to reality for many small farms (although perhaps not those in Europe).

And that raises a much more fundamental question. Growing and selling food is, and always was, a profitable endeavour. Food is not cheaper today than ever when you account for the increased taxes paid by the consumer, and few would argue that it is better quality or better for your health.

The difference between 100 years ago and today is that we have allowed a massive and almost unbelievably complex distribution and processing complex to grow up in between the soil and the human mouth - a complex which, it is increasingly evident, does neither the farm nor the consumer many favours and may well be damaging the health of both.

As that industrial and retail complex has grown, so the role of the farmer has been redefined - where once he grew and sold food he is now characterised as a miner of raw material, who must continually add his own capital (or work another job) in order to extract a diminishing return from the resources at his command. The supply chain has monopolised the mouths of his consumers, and the point where once the product actually has the highest value (when it leaves the field) is now the point at which it has the lowest price.

Contrary to popular wisdom, this is not an inevitable side effect of globalisation, or competition, or progress, and nor indeed is it good for everybody (or perhaps for anybody) involved. There is no sensible economic rationale for a supply chain of this complexity - that point was left behind long ago. The industry of today exists only for the benefit of it's stakeholders - employees, shareholders, upstream manufacturers, bankers, regulators, governments, downstream retailers yes - but not farmers.

Such a behemoth of an industry is not unique, expect perhaps in the extent to which it has captured the regulatory and tax environment as a weapon for itself. Plenty of other industries, from data processing and computing to car manufacture and publishing went through such phases a generation or more ago when the incumbents grew so important and indispensable that they disconnected themselves and their products from their customers.

And those industries fell, torn to bits and remade not by governments - but by tiny intelligent startups from two bit offices in Seattle, and Manchester, and Silicon Valley - intelligent people who understood the value of connecting the product directly with the customer - something the farmer once knew how to do instinctively, because he and his ancestors had been doing it daily at the farm gate for thousands upon thousands of years.

And they will do it again, or something close to it. Fifty years from now it's my guess that the farmers will be closer to their customers than they are today, and the "agrifood industry" will be a shadow of what it is today. Good farms will be profitable because they will know their customers and their customers will be willing to pay for quality.

Such is the cycle of capital - of creation and destruction - and it will happen again - which is why we need educated youngsters who could go to the square mile, or to wall street, or to silicon valley to go instead to their farms and figure out where our generations let it all go wrong, see what we cannot or will not see, and put their heads together to catch the customers and get the value back where it belongs.

patsy_mccabe

Jeez Kowtow, the CPU is at full steam today.

Agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying. I'm working full time and part-time farming. In the middle of the summer, if the weather is good I regurly clock on over 15 hours a day.
Had an interesting conversation with someone yesterday . This woman telling me that it wasn't worth her husbands while working, as he was better off on the dole even though he was a qualified tradesperson. He hadn't worked in seven years and wasn't planning on either even though he was just 50 .

Muckit

A beast of a post kowtow!! Anyone know how a standing ovation works on boards?

paddysdream

Panch18 wrote: »

Why isn't it the future though Kowtow? Plenty of European countries have dairy farmers who are part time. With tillage and beef it is becoming near impossible for either to provide a proper sustainable household income

Now it's a major problem, because the guy who has a job doesn't need to make any money from the place, the full timer has to make his living. So part timer can sustain much longer periods of low prices. That's just the way it is. Going part time might actually keep farmers going longer than being full time

This attitude annoys me at times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok I understand that nobody is guaranteed a income from farming but to base an industry (and one that is vital to people staying alive,we can all survive without smart phones and satellite tv etc but try going a week with no food) on the premise that it is an ancillary to your main job is a little shortsighted.

The food industry ie processors,supermarkets etc would love to be purchasing their raw materials from a whole country of part time farmers who don't really depend on the income from farming.If they felt that farmers could sustain long periods of low prices and break even returns then what do you think they would do?
I feel that at the moment its a fine balancing act where they need us to provide the raw materials at a low price but one that at least might provide a semblance of a return.Things like the SFP,Glas,Tams etc etc are an indirect subsidy to the price paid for our produce and food industry know this and obv. work this into their long term plans as without these supports they would lose a lot of their raw materials overnight as most Irish farms could not sustain producing at present prices without the aforementioned supports.

The above is the theory.In reality part time looks like the future for many holdings as economic necessity overrides all else.Maybe that is our problem ie attitude as many feel content to farm part time as a hobby/extra income etc etc.Not knocking those who do but are we just clinging to the pretence that someone running a few bullocks at 1 to the hectare and looking at them after work every evening,catching up on things at the weekend and happy to break even most years is a farmer?
Not that they aren't farming but to me if you are not depending on it for the majority of your income then your priorities lie elsewhere.On the one hand it makes sense to farm part time but on the other it makes expansion very difficult for the few who wish to do so as much of the land they would need is being run by those who want to keep farming who,in many cases,run a more extensive and less time consuming system.As well (not all accusing part time of being soft sellers !!)if you don't really want to feed those stock for the winter and are not relying on them making the mortgage payments for the next 6 months then will people really be as worried if they make 950 or 1050 a head?

Would a short sharp shock ,ala New Zealand in the 1980's,change things?Or do we even want that,a major culture change and probably a major and irreversible change to the fabric of rural Ireland?
Are we fooling ourselves and slowly seeing an industry dwindling away or are we being realistic and changing to the reality of modern farming in Europe?
Around me,in an area of good land and reasonable sized holdings,I could count on the fingers of one hand the amount of families surviving on farm income alone and none of these are(I think!!) paying a mortgage or with college going kids.

Hope nobody takes this as an attack on their particular set up.Everyone has their own priorities,problems and a unique set of circumstances and a one size fits all solution is not the answer.

One other little thing that can annoy me(very easily upset here!)is how many esp those from the outside looking in,ask why can't farmers sell direct at farmers markets etc or set up artisan production etc etc.All thats fine and well if you are selling 20 lambs a year but try hawking 1000 around over 50 Saturdays a year and tell me that that would be a sustainable way to make money.The reality is that a niche market is just that ,niche,and if everyone is producing grass fed green cheese from handpicked organic rare breed ewes reared on sustainably grown wild flower silage then the novelty soon wears off.The reality is that most of us are average(same as every transport specialist ie taxi driver,can't be Michael O Leary and every cattle dealer won't morph into Larry Goodman in 20 years) and we produce commercial produce that is sold into a basic,non premium market.

Rant over(for now!)

kowtow

paddysdream wrote: »

Are we fooling ourselves and slowly seeing an industry dwindling away or are we being realistic and changing to the reality of modern farming in Europe?

I think the answer is that both are true; but neither are important.

If Ireland is changing to the "reality of modern farming" in Europe we are - not for the first time - going to arrive a day late and a dollar short.

The evidence is - slowly but surely - that the modern consumer has about as much affection and trust in industrial food as the farmer does.

We'd be better - IMO - to leapfrog the tired old industrial agricultural industry and connect our products (which are, or can be, the best of their kind) with their customers in a way which is suited to the 21st century and not the 1970's... if we don't take that opportunity then I suspect things are going to get worse before they get better.

On our side as a country we are small, well liked, close to big markets, and we have a global brand way bigger than we ought to. Against that we are easily led, prone to lazy thinking, lacking in self confidence, easily corrupted (in the widest sense of the word) and we have a track record of putting comfort and cash over integrity, history, and beauty.

But we shouldn't forget that if push comes to shove a farmer can feed his customers without the agri-food industry, but the most complex distribution system in the world wouldn't last a day without it's farmers.

But it is easy to analyse the problems of an industry, and to write them down - as others have pointed out the reality of farming today is that money must come in the door and families must eat (we're so clever that we've created a world in which the children of Irish farmers can go to school hungry or malnourished... Trevelyan would be proud). Second incomes and cash shortages won't be going anywhere quickly.

The question is - when we educate our children - are we doing so to save them from farming, or to save farming for them?

patsy_mccabe

And then again an upswing in Oil Prices and everything would be honkey dorey again.

20silkcut

kowtow wrote: »

"Only doing it part time" is not a solution to the future of an industry.

If we can't have a farming industry which is a place that our educated children will be proud to work then we have only ourselves (and perhaps our parents) to blame.

We need to stop bemoaning it and start doing something about it.

Disagree with this. Market manipulation at government level the advent of mechanisation and globalisation etc have farming the way it is today not anything we done or our parents done.

freedominacup

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

I think it's not an issue of pride but more financial. Compare the average industrial wage with the average farm income. Perhaps big dairy farms can compete or maybe tillage? But the other sectors not so much unless we go down the poultry route of contract rearing for meat factories and I don't see that happening.

You're right though we do need to do something.

The other sectors can compete quite happlily simply a question of scale. I was speaking to a young bank manager this time two years ago. He's a farmers son managing a branch in an area with a lot of large farms. I said to him that he must have been snowed under with applications for loans for dairy conversions as there are a lot of large beef and tillage farms in his area. No not really was the reply, "they don't need to and aren't in any hurry to change, they're doing fine as they are".

20silkcut

freedominacup wrote: »

The other sectors can compete quite happlily simply a question of scale. I was speaking to a young bank manager this time two years ago. He's a farmers son managing a branch in an area with a lot of large farms. I said to him that he must have been snowed under with applications for loans for dairy conversions as there are a lot of large beef and tillage farms in his area. No not really was the reply, "they don't need to and aren't in any hurry to change, they're doing fine as they are".

In fairness beef / tillage farming have a better quality of life than dairying in terms of work life balance. If there was any income equity between the sectors very few would sign up for dairying in my opinion .

Icelandicseige

Just need to put these few questions out there..

What is the story with farmers not able to put their cap on right?
Also
Throw that jacket in the wash like for fcuk sake?
And
When you wash it took in your shirt and put the jacket on properly not to have it hanging off you.!.

Was in the mart today and the amount of lads that look rough out and fooked is unreal!

Waffletraktor

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Just need to put these few questions out there..

What is the story with farmers not able to put their cap on right?
Also
Throw that jacket in the wash like for fcuk sake?
And
When you wash it took in your shirt and put the jacket on properly not to have it hanging off you.!.

Was in the mart today and the amount of lads that look rough out and fooked is unreal!

The mirror is too caked in shyte and the phone screen cracked and scratched for a pre mart selfie check :pac:.

patsy_mccabe

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Just need to put these few questions out there..

What is the story with farmers not able to put their cap on right?
Also
Throw that jacket in the wash like for fcuk sake?
And
When you wash it took in your shirt and put the jacket on properly not to have it hanging off you.!.

Was in the mart today and the amount of lads that look rough out and fooked is unreal!

These would be the guys that are buying. You don't want to ever look like you've got money when you spending it. You wont have much bargaining power.

mf240

You see Aould lads in the mart giving 1200 for bullocks but they would be to mean to get the dinner.

As for education it don't know. Some of the lads I seen in at college would make forest Gump look intellectual.

Username John

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Just need to put these few questions out there..

What is the story with farmers not able to put their cap on right?
Also
Throw that jacket in the wash like for fcuk sake?
And
When you wash it took in your shirt and put the jacket on properly not to have it hanging off you.!.

Was in the mart today and the amount of lads that look rough out and fooked is unreal!

What does it matter?

What about all the mechanics that have black hands from oil? Should they be ashamed?

What about the lads in IT (where I work) that look like their mother dressed em for their confirmation and they pushing 40 and over

So what if lads look shook, if they don't care more power to em...

Can I ask Icelandic - what were you wearing on your mart expedition? And if you say anything less than a full 3 piece tweed suit, then I shall say you looked shook, and should be ashamed of yourself, when you could be out there trying to look your best... no, I don't give a fcuk what you were doing in the mart or that you didn't have time for the tie, isn't what you look like the most important consideration here...

Who2

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Just need to put these few questions out there..

What is the story with farmers not able to put their cap on right?
Also
Throw that jacket in the wash like for fcuk sake?
And
When you wash it took in your shirt and put the jacket on properly not to have it hanging off you.!.

Was in the mart today and the amount of lads that look rough out and fooked is unreal!

If you keep going I guarantee you there'll be one there some day that will take your fancy. There's plenty of fish in the sea as they say and it's great to see someone being a bit more diverse in where they look for a man.

Muckit

mf240 wrote: »

You see Aould lads in the mart giving 1200 for bullocks but they would be to mean to get the dinner.

I could never understand this! I make it a day out for myself and the oul lad and totally milk it. Once cattle are checked in straight to canteen for tea and scone each.... €4 total. Then head out and depending on draw have dinner before or after selling.. . €20 total.

€24. ... where the f**k would you get it??

The way l look at it it's a cheap respite for my poor Mother!!

Reggie.

Muckit wrote: »

I could never understand this! I make it a day out for myself and the oul lad and totally milk it. Once cattle are checked in straight to canteen for tea and scone each.... €4 total. Then head out and depending on draw have dinner before or after selling.. . €20 total.

€24. ... where the f**k would you get it??

The way l look at it it's a cheap respite for my poor Mother!!

Used to be the same. Hot food poisoning from a mart one day. Can't stomach eating in one ever since

Who2

Reggie. wrote: »

Used to be the same. Hot food poisoning from a mart one day. Can't stomach eating in one ever since

Exact same here, never again, I'd usually head for a bit of pub grub if I wasn't too destroyed in dung.

blue5000

What has an airplane and a mart got in common?

In both cases it pays to go to the jax early.

kowtow

This thread is certainly offering an education in farming.

mf240

Muckit wrote: »

The way l look at it it's a cheap respite for my poor Mother!!

reminds me of pat short . Saying that his father used to take his mother and seven children to a small caravan in courtown for a week...........to give her a break!

Muckit

My oul lad is hard work. He's all on to go somewhere, then once he hets there he wants to go home. I telll ya kids are easy!

Reggie.

Muckit wrote: »

My oul lad is hard work. He's all on to go somewhere, then once he hets there he wants to go home. I telll ya kids are easy!

My father is the same or in a panic to get home, telling ya he has things to do and you know well he has nothing

pedigree 6

Reggie. wrote: »

My father is the same or in a panic to get home, telling ya he has things to do and you know well he has nothing

He must have been a dairy farmer.:pac:
The best one here and we've done it ourselves is go to a wedding.
Out of the church, do the milking and on to the hotel before the meals start.:P

mf240

pedigree 6 wrote: »

He must have been a dairy farmer.:pac:
The best one here and we've done it ourselves is go to a wedding.
Out of the church, do the milking and on to the hotel before the meals start.:P

I skip the god squad completely and go to weddings just in time for the meal.

Bullocks

pedigree 6 wrote: »

He must have been a dairy farmer.:pac:
The best one here and we've done it ourselves is go to a wedding.
Out of the church, do the milking and on to the hotel before the meals start.:P

Yer doing it wrong , no mass and straight in for the meal (get someone to ring when they start calling to come into the dining area ). Use the excuse that there was a cow calving

whelan2

Bullocks wrote: »

Yer doing it wrong , no mass and straight in for the meal (get someone to ring when they start calling to come into the dining area ). Use the excuse that there was a cow calving

Around here now the receptions are miles away from the church sometimes over an hours drive, no consideration for those wanting to milk cows before the reception.

Reggie.

Bullocks wrote: »

Yer doing it wrong , no mass and straight in for the meal (get someone to ring when they start calling to come into the dining area ). Use the excuse that there was a cow calving

Ive heard that one a few times. the FIL is a serial offender of that

Keepgrowing

Reggie. wrote: »

Ive heard that one a few times. the FIL is a serial offender of that

Lol
I've a friend who is eternally late, just cannot be on time. When courting his now wife who's a city girl he used the cow calving every time.

During her speech she spoke of how dissappoined she was to learn he only had 50 cows as she assumed he must've had hundreds and a Charolais stock bull, pure class :)

Keepgrowing

pedigree 6 wrote: »

He must have been a dairy farmer.:pac:
The best one here and we've done it ourselves is go to a wedding.
Out of the church, do the milking and on to the hotel before the meals start.:P

I wouldn't go if I had to do that. Wedding to go to next Sat so it'll be get jobs done, kids to rugby match, home, suit up and let fly till Sunday night. Back milking on Mon am