The small farmer, a dying breed?

yosemitesam1

https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/publications-mainmenu-30/2210-dairy-and-poultry-in-india-growing-corporate-concentration-losing-game-for-small-producers

https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/human-rights-mainmenu-40/peasants-right-resources/2223-lvc-seaf-condemns-recent-criminalisation-of-traditional-seed-exchange-in-tanzania

https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/news-from-the-regions-mainmenu-29/2209-removal-of-import-duty-on-wheat-will-destroy-north-indian-farmers-warns-bharatiya-kisan-union

https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/10-years-of-wto-is-enough-mainmenu-35/2226-peasants-union-spi-calls-upon-indonesian-government-to-reject-wto-and-ftas-after-wto-panel-rules-in-favor-of-us-and-nz

A few different articles all worth a read. The small farmer in Asia, Africa and South/Central America is really getting an awful lot of hardship constantly being undermined by big agri-business, NGO's and governments/free trade deals.
Instead of focusing on robust low input sustainable systems its certainly looking like the powers that be won't be happy until the small farmer is erased by high input, high risk and highly unstable industrial systems of farming...

rangler1

Same as any industry, small is beautiful as long as you don't try to make a living at it

djmc

To be brutally honest I think small farmers are almost finished already and need to adopt to change.
Most small suckler and drystock farmers are either in or seeking off farm employment.
It's starting to become that way for smaller dairy farms too.
A lot of smaller pig and poltery farms closed in the last 20 years as well.
We should be thinking about using our time more wisely even if that means retraining and doing something else.
For some scaling up is possible but for other parts of the country it's neither practical or possible.

Markcheese

With most things in life it's get bigger, get better ...or get out...
Most small Irish farmers are producing commodity products ... they're not able to get bigger without huge debt - most don't seem to get better so that just leaves .....

Feckoffcup

Absolute rubbish, the small farmer in the uk and ireland will always exist. Most small farms are part time anyway.

TITANIUM.

Feckoffcup wrote: »

Absolute rubbish, the small farmer in the uk and ireland will always exist. Most small farms are part time anyway.

Do you know your right they'll be there long after allot of "Big farms" are gone bust.

Genghis Cant

What would be defined as a small farmer nowadays? Is small 40, 60, 80, 100 acres?

When I was growing up there were families reared on 40 acres of land. I thought they were great farms. They seem a lot smaller nowadays!

djmc

I agree with that too their will always be small farmers with off farm jobs
It's the full time small farmers that will have to change.
There will be a lot more hobby farms in the West of Ireland around in the future which might be no bad thing.

djmc

Genghis Cant wrote: »

What would be defined as a small farmer nowadays? Is small 40, 60, 80, 100 acres?

When I was growing up there were families reared on 40 acres of land. I thought they were great farms. They seem a lot smaller nowadays!

Depends on the type of land.

Genghis Cant

djmc wrote: »

Depends on the type of land.

And I'm sure 40 acres in a block is a much better proposition than 4 blocks of 10 acres miles apart!

troyzer

One of my mates is a beef farmer and I always rip the piss out of him for his relatively right wing views on social welfare, affordable housing etc particularly in Dublin (where I'm from) despite his farm being in receipt of thousands in grants from Ireland and the EU.

At the end of the day, these grants are unjustifiable and no other industry is so systemically protected from the usual course of action following decades of loss making and inefficiency except maybe bankers. When it comes down to brass tacks all he can say is that the grants make it possible to protect their way of life without a shadow of irony considering he criticised inner city workers who can't afford to live where they work.

I have no doubt that small farmers are here to stay, no politician is going to yank the grants but if I ever hear a farmer criticise the welfare state I can't help but start an argument with them. The bottom line is that small farmers in general are run badly and are incapable of making a profit at market rates. The typical response is to complain about market rates while ignoring that the Ireland is already one of the top five most expensive countries in Europe for basic produce.

yosemitesam1

Feckoffcup wrote: »

Absolute rubbish, the small farmer in the uk and ireland will always exist. Most small farms are part time anyway.

I was mainly thinking of the lads in the tropics with a handful of acres. The world seems to be trying to eradicate them even though its simply not possible to run any of the type of systems you see in europe sustainably or more productively than what is currently out there.

troyzer

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

I was mainly thinking of the lads in the tropics with a handful of acres. The world seems to be trying to eradicate them even though its simply not possible to run any of the type of systems you see in europe sustainably or more productively than what is currently out there.

I would have thought most of the small farmers in developing countries are subsistence farmers with only a small surplus to buy other bits and pieces. Open to correction though?

yosemitesam1

troyzer wrote: »

I would have thought most of the small farmers in developing countries are subsistence farmers with only a small surplus to buy other bits and pieces. Open to correction though?

Ye that's them but they still manage to feed the majority of the world's population

Base price

troyzer wrote: »

One of my mates is a beef farmer and I always rip the piss out of him for his relatively right wing views on social welfare, affordable housing etc particularly in Dublin (where I'm from) despite his farm being in receipt of thousands in grants from Ireland and the EU.

At the end of the day, these grants are unjustifiable and no other industry is so systemically protected from the usual course of action following decades of loss making and inefficiency except maybe bankers. When it comes down to brass tacks all he can say is that the grants make it possible to protect their way of life without a shadow of irony considering he criticised inner city workers who can't afford to live where they work.

I have no doubt that small farmers are here to stay, no politician is going to yank the grants but if I ever hear a farmer criticise the welfare state I can't help but start an argument with them. The bottom line is that small farmers in general are run badly and are incapable of making a profit at market rates. The typical response is to complain about market rates while ignoring that the Ireland is already one of the top five most expensive countries in Europe for basic produce.

After reading this ^^^ one would presume that Agriculture is the only beneficiary of EU funding :rolleyes:

greysides

troyzer wrote: »

At the end of the day, these grants are unjustifiable and no other industry is so systemically protected from the usual course of action following decades of loss making and inefficiency except maybe bankers.

The 'loss-making' was started so that the work force could afford food in the aftermath of WWII. The grants were to compensate the farmer for lowered selling prices. Since then they've morphed into other things.... control mechanism comes to mind.... and given the consequent lack of freedom to farm as you'd like it's hard to blame people who give up and just play the system.

Cattlepen

troyzer wrote: »

One of my mates is a beef farmer and I always rip the piss out of him for his relatively right wing views on social welfare, affordable housing etc particularly in Dublin (where I'm from) despite his farm being in receipt of thousands in grants from Ireland and the EU.

At the end of the day, these grants are unjustifiable and no other industry is so systemically protected from the usual course of action following decades of loss making and inefficiency except maybe bankers. When it comes down to brass tacks all he can say is that the grants make it possible to protect their way of life without a shadow of irony considering he criticised inner city workers who can't afford to live where they work.

I have no doubt that small farmers are here to stay, no politician is going to yank the grants but if I ever hear a farmer criticise the welfare state I can't help but start an argument with them. The bottom line is that small farmers in general are run badly and are incapable of making a profit at market rates. The typical response is to complain about market rates while ignoring that the Ireland is already one of the top five most expensive countries in Europe for basic produce.

Blah blah blah.
The road networks you drive on were built with EU grants, broadband roll out, infrastructure etc are all funded be it partially by EU.
What about corporate and manufacturing tax rate? Is that not a grant or subsidy of sorts?
I'd love to know the dark hole u pulled the fact about the price of basic produce from. If there is any truth in it, blame processors and corporations like Tesco.
And what qualifies you to say small farms are badly run?
But getting back to the thread, I think farms as we know them, small and medium, have a very finite lifespan right now

20silkcut

troyzer wrote: »

One of my mates is a beef farmer and I always rip the piss out of him for his relatively right wing views on social welfare, affordable housing etc particularly in Dublin (where I'm from) despite his farm being in receipt of thousands in grants from Ireland and the EU.

At the end of the day, these grants are unjustifiable and no other industry is so systemically protected from the usual course of action following decades of loss making and inefficiency except maybe bankers. When it comes down to brass tacks all he can say is that the grants make it possible to protect their way of life without a shadow of irony considering he criticised inner city workers who can't afford to live where they work.

I have no doubt that small farmers are here to stay, no politician is going to yank the grants but if I ever hear a farmer criticise the welfare state I can't help but start an argument with them. The bottom line is that small farmers in general are run badly and are incapable of making a profit at market rates. The typical response is to complain about market rates while ignoring that the Ireland is already one of the top five most expensive countries in Europe for basic produce.

In fairness to your friend he probably just accepts the subsidies because he is entitled to them. Irish farmers aren't exactly a militant bunch. The strongest action Irish farmers ever took was the peaceful but very determined march on Dublin 50 years ago.
Subsidies exist because of continental European farmers and the French in particular being an extremely powerful lobby who have no qualms about spreading ****e in the streets of France and are often supported by the French public. That's why their governments back them to the hilt and by extension the entire EU gets subsidies. Subsidies and intervention were unheard of in Irish farming up until 1973.
Most Irish farmers I have encountered are not overly enthusiastic about the idea of subsidies and would rather earn their money through the fruits of their labour and not have the shackles of protection limiting their potential. But because we were so far behind pre 1973 the protected EU market was a vast improvement. But the reality of protection bit in 1984 with quotas and once the Chinese baby powder ceiling is hit it will bite again.

blackdog1

The grants give you affordable food. Farmers would just charge more without them. It's not free money, they use it to control what we produce.... If there was a food shortage in the morning in grain the European union could make us all grow 10% more wheat. The payment is a control mechanism... Keeps the European union in charge of agricultural policy. I personally think people have no respect for the people who keep them fed. A good famine and there would be no more complaints about farmers.

Feckoffcup

blackdog1 wrote: »

The grants give you affordable food. Farmers would just charge more without them. It's not free money, they use it to control what we produce.... If there was a food shortage in the morning in grain the European union could make us all grow 10% more wheat. The payment is a control mechanism... Keeps the European union in charge of agricultural policy. I personally think people have no respect for the people who keep them fed. A good famine and there would be no more complaints about farmers.

Good grief

Waffletraktor

TITANIUM. wrote: »

Do you know your right they'll be there long after allot of "Big farms" are gone bust.

Small farms don't go out of business, they just cut back. Maybe rent a few acres out down the road away from home. Keep a few dry stock for summer grazing rather than winter as it fits well with the new job. Buy less stock as gone too dear and sell a cut of silage mid summer, renting out shed space to the farm taking some of the land and so forth....

Waffletraktor

blackdog1 wrote: »

The grants give you affordable food. Farmers would just charge more without them. It's not free money, they use it to control what we produce.... If there was a food shortage in the morning in grain the European union could make us all grow 10% more wheat. The payment is a control mechanism... Keeps the European union in charge of agricultural policy. I personally think people have no respect for the people who keep them fed. A good famine and there would be no more complaints about farmers.

Bit of cold weather in southern spain has the vegans worrying about their kale and spinach on the radio.

_Brian

troyzer wrote: »

One of my mates is a beef farmer and I always rip the piss out of him for his relatively right wing views on social welfare, affordable housing etc particularly in Dublin (where I'm from) despite his farm being in receipt of thousands in grants from Ireland and the EU.

At the end of the day, these grants are unjustifiable and no other industry is so systemically protected from the usual course of action following decades of loss making and inefficiency except maybe bankers. When it comes down to brass tacks all he can say is that the grants make it possible to protect their way of life without a shadow of irony considering he criticised inner city workers who can't afford to live where they work.

I have no doubt that small farmers are here to stay, no politician is going to yank the grants but if I ever hear a farmer criticise the welfare state I can't help but start an argument with them. The bottom line is that small farmers in general are run badly and are incapable of making a profit at market rates. The typical response is to complain about market rates while ignoring that the Ireland is already one of the top five most expensive countries in Europe for basic produce.

Usual stuff from the closed minded brigade...

How about the deal Apple gets, or Intel, HP the list is endless.. we bring them here, the pay near to no corporate tax, land owners are hounded to give up land to facilitate their existance.. Companies get "consessions" from the government all the time to produce goods here so all the jobs created are "supplemented" or they wouldnt exist..
How about the droves of employers that have interns or jobsbridge employees, the government supply them with endless cheap/free labour to produce their goods, this is another form of supports.. Farming isnt the only industry that gets supports for one reason or another..

Farms got support to ensure food security for europe, along with these subs farms are in return tied up in endless red tape and controls that other farms say in USA aren't, they throw hormones and routine antibiotics into cattle while benifeting from government subvented cheap grain feeds...

Really, without subs Europeans would be eating sub standard expensive food, farmers are subsidsed to control production methods and reduce final food costs..

Do you really think farmers have forgotten how to farm economically or profitability ?? Our farm along with a part time job my dad had raised a family of four and paid for its own purchase while interest rates were 19%, now without subs is little more than breaks even through reduced comodity prices.

greysides

Mod:

Okay folks, I think with the last post we've gotten a balance of replies on the subject of Farming Subsidies so we'll call a halt to it at that.

The original subject for discussion was 'The small farmer, a dying breed?' and we'll allow that discussion to continue now.

(I'm guilty on that count too.)

Thanks.

Lady Haywire

But how small is small....under 5 foot?

There's a lot around me but that's because Leitrim is quite fragmented and sons passed on to sons and so on since everyone was sent west o' the shannon.
What I'm seeing a lot of now is renting out, then the long term renter is losing out as someone new with money & a part time job is coming in and buying the land and draining/cutting/fencing etc it to the last. Wonder how well it'll all look in 10 yrs time, I liked all the trees.

freedominacup

These discussions are always a bit pointless because there's no agreement about what constitutes a "small farm/farmer". Compared to waffletrakors boss we're all small farmers for example. What's the cutoff point. During the recent unpleasantness over CAP reform the was a huge clamour for a cap on payments per hectare but those who were shouting for this wouldn't countenance a cap on the number of hectares. Funny one that.

kowtow

troyzer wrote: »

At the end of the day, these grants are unjustifiable and no other industry is so systemically protected from the usual course of action following decades of loss making and inefficiency except maybe bankers.

It strikes me as curious that many of those who decry farming as "an inefficient, loss making industry" are equally quick to complain about "factory farming".

Which is it to be?

And of course bankers have to be protected, we're a dying breed.

pedigree 6

This small farmer thing is very complex.
As Freedom said who is a small farmer and what do you measure it off.

We see this thing of foreign governments looking abroad at systems here and the U.S for example and being in awe of these systems compared to their own home grown systems and wanting to implement them rightly or wrongly in their country.

Then we have the Human element now that everyone wants to wear a suit, play golf and drive a Mercedes. Anything less and your a nobody who doesn't matter.
You can see this attitude playing out with governments around the world and who also want to live this lifestyle for themselves and their children by cosying up to big business with flights around the world and conferences with cavier.

Then the links in yosemitesam's post brought in suicide amongst farmers.
This can be a state of the mind and can link up to the everyone wanting to wear a suit, play golf and drive a Mercedes and falling short is a failure.
Some of the unhappiest people I've met would be classed as "big" farmers and I think their whole live will be lived that way.
That's no life either.

Then you have the government funded farming in this continent with farming being controlled by the elites in Brussels. This was supposed to keep people on the land and it did for a while. But now you have one of the oldest farming populations in the world in this country farming till death. Contrast this with countries with no support and you have a much more fluid land market and no protests.

Actually on the subject of protests. The system has turned farmers into glorified welfare recipients instead of farmers. It has castrated farmers in this country and turned them into self entitled, keep the land in the family name, if things get bad put the hand out and look for compensation foolers.
It's not surprising that the countries that have the highest suicide amongst farmers are also the most government protected.
I'm not sure but I think maybe in these countries they have lost the will to think for themselves and the first port of call is protest and when things don't go their way, they can blame it on someone else and then the bad thing happens. But then the flash suit and flash car and if you don't have that you're a nobody maybe comes into it as well.

The system as it currently is in this country (and I blame the E.U) and will be, will be reducing stock numbers by paying subsidies (welfare) planting more forestry (which also receives grants and wouldn't be feasible on it's own).
Paying off farmers landholders to do nothing with their land so that the E.U can buy more produce from abroad where people farm for a living.

I'll stop now as I'm depressing myself.:p

rangler1

pedigree 6 wrote: »

This small farmer thing is very complex.
As Freedom said who is a small farmer and what do you measure it off.

We see this thing of foreign governments looking abroad at systems here and the U.S for example and being in awe of these systems compared to their own home grown systems and wanting to implement them rightly or wrongly in their country.

Then we have the Human element now that everyone wants to wear a suit, play golf and drive a Mercedes. Anything less and your a nobody who doesn't matter.
You can see this attitude playing out with governments around the world and who also want to live this lifestyle for themselves and their children by cosying up to big business with flights around the world and conferences with cavier.

Then the links in yosemitesam's post brought in suicide amongst farmers.
This can be a state of the mind and can link up to the everyone wanting to wear a suit, play golf and drive a Mercedes and falling short is a failure.
Some of the unhappiest people I've met would be classed as "big" farmers and I think their whole live will be lived that way.
That's no life either.

Then you have the government funded farming in this continent with farming being controlled by the elites in Brussels. This was supposed to keep people on the land and it did for a while. But now you have one of the oldest farming populations in the world in this country farming till death. Contrast this with countries with no support and you have a much more fluid land market and no protests.

Actually on the subject of protests. The system has turned farmers into glorified welfare recipients instead of farmers. It has castrated farmers in this country and turned them into self entitled, keep the land in the family name, if things get bad put the hand out and look for compensation foolers.
It's not surprising that the countries that have the highest suicide amongst farmers are also the most government protected.
I'm not sure but I think maybe in these countries they have lost the will to think for themselves and the first port of call is protest and when things don't go their way, they can blame it on someone else and then the bad thing happens. But then the flash suit and flash car and if you don't have that you're a nobody maybe comes into it as well.

The system as it currently is in this country (and I blame the E.U) and will be, will be reducing stock numbers by paying subsidies (welfare) planting more forestry (which also receives grants and wouldn't be feasible on it's own).
Paying off farmers landholders to do nothing with their land so that the E.U can buy more produce from abroad where people farm for a living.

I'll stop now as I'm depressing myself.:p

I'm old enough to have been farming without subsidies.........won't be going back to it thanks

pedigree 6

rangler1 wrote: »

I'm old enough to have been farming without subsidies.........won't be going back to it thanks

Too comfortable??

20silkcut

rangler1 wrote: »

I'm old enough to have been farming without subsidies.........won't be going back to it thanks

I'm presuming your talking about Ireland pre 1973 when we were just a cheap food producer for Britain. Nobody wants to go back to that and that's not what anyone advocating subsidy abolition is proposing.

rangler1

20silkcut wrote: »

I'm presuming your talking about Ireland pre 1973 when we were just a cheap food producer for Britain. Nobody wants to go back to that and that's not what anyone advocating subsidy abolition is proposing.

McSharrys subsidies in 1990s were the first one to be any good, It took a while for prices to drop and we still got the subsidies to compensate for falling prices,
(don't think the prices ever really dropped as expected)
The eighties were a nightmare if you were borrowed......here anyway. 90s turned round this farm

_Brian

Farms are morphing here..

As I look about I'm landlocked with small farms ran by bachelors, they have essentially no cost of living and as such it provides a living, two of the five are drawing pensions so that helps too..

But, there's a steady change as I see it, these farms are moving into ownership of younger men with off farm work, typically theres investment in sheds/drainage/equipment and the farms are being ran as part time concerns often even hobby farms..

Some have a lad working on the farm full time but in truth the gig is being funded by a laying hen and the "full time" farmer is also house husband doing school runs, dinner and irish dancing duties typically the domain of the "housewife".

Small farms will no doubt continue but I see them becoming the hobby aspect of the lad with the full time job, I'm particularly aiming this towards maybe 40acre marginal land type farms not unlike what were working here. With costs like insurance/diesel/fertiliser all going one way these farms seem to become less and less likely to turn profit on their own merit..

There's no consolidation of such farms happening here that I see, large very fragmented marginal farms arent an attractive option, some have been planted but I don't see the financial attractiveness of this, I know of one 60acre farm clear felled 6 miles from me and it was never replanted 5 years on, seems no payment on second plantings leave it not worth while, its just growing scrub, reinforcing the notion that "land that goes into forestry is lost forever"

pedigree 6

_Brian wrote: »

Farms are morphing here..

As I look about I'm landlocked with small farms ran by bachelors, they have essentially no cost of living and as such it provides a living, two of the five are drawing pensions so that helps too..

But, there's a steady change as I see it, these farms are moving into ownership of younger men with off farm work, typically theres investment in sheds/drainage/equipment and the farms are being ran as part time concerns often even hobby farms..

Some have a lad working on the farm full time but in truth the gig is being funded by a laying hen and the "full time" farmer is also house husband doing school runs, dinner and irish dancing duties typically the domain of the "housewife".

Small farms will no doubt continue but I see them becoming the hobby aspect of the lad with the full time job, I'm particularly aiming this towards maybe 40acre marginal land type farms not unlike what were working here. With costs like insurance/diesel/fertiliser all going one way these farms seem to become less and less likely to turn profit on their own merit..

There's no consolidation of such farms happening here that I see, large very fragmented marginal farms arent an attractive option, some have been planted but I don't see the financial attractiveness of this, I know of one 60acre farm clear felled 6 miles from me and it was never replanted 5 years on, seems no payment on second plantings leave it not worth while, its just growing scrub, reinforcing the notion that "land that goes into forestry is lost forever"

That's depressing.

My greatgrandfather sold a 40 acre farm and bought a 140 acre farm for the same money the next year

Then bought a 130 acre farm for a son and paid for it with the crop of hay saved on it the next year.

That's farming and business acrumen.

Username John

pedigree 6 wrote: »

That's depressing.

My greatgrandfather sold a 40 acre farm and bought a 140 acre farm for the same money the next year

Then bought a 130 acre farm for a son and paid for it with the crop of hay saved on it the next year.

That's farming and business acrumen.

Fair play - some work in 130 acres of hay, especially back then... you'd want an army of men...

If you don't me asking pedigree, when was all this?

pedigree 6

Username John wrote: »

Fair play - some work in 130 acres of hay, especially back then... you'd want an army of men...

If you don't me asking pedigree, when was all this?

I suppose back in the 20's and the next one was the 30's.

Five sons were a big help.:)

A lot of empires were built then. The empires that are built now were built from knowing how to play the sub game.

The only bit of exciting bit of true farming and progress being made now is coming from the dairy side. But a lot of this is coming from new entrants with large bps who can afford all bells and whistles. But dairy will have it's downturn too.

I wouldn't be a fan of any government payments or intervention as what we have atm is the result of it.

There was a new entrant to dairy farming declaring to everyone at an open day that a milk price of 19cent was a breeze for him and a lot better than sucklers.
He failed to tell everyone of his bps of e100,000. As I say this sub business is bullcrap. Why should one get e100,000 and another get e4,000. Especially when the one getting e100,000 doesn't need it if they could farm properly.

Anyway back to the current ag malaise and stagnation.:rolleyes:

rangler1

pedigree 6 wrote: »

I suppose back in the 20's and the next one was the 30's.

Five sons were a big help.:)

A lot of empires were built then. The empires that are built now were built from knowing how to play the sub game.

The only bit of exciting bit of true farming and progress being made now is coming from the dairy side. But a lot of this is coming from new entrants with large bps who can afford all bells and whistles. But dairy will have it's downturn too.

I wouldn't be a fan of any government payments or intervention as what we have atm is the result of it.

There was a new entrant to dairy farming declaring to everyone at an open day that a milk price of 19cent was a breeze for him and a lot better than sucklers.
He failed to tell everyone of his bps of e100,000. As I say this sub business is bullcrap. Why should one get e100,000 and another get e4,000. Especially when the one getting e100,000 doesn't need it if they could farm properly.

Anyway back to the current ag malaise and stagnation.:rolleyes:

It was a great opportunity to change over from suckling, some guys got more for their sucklers than they had to pay for the dairy cows, the guy i knew never even bought quota, think he was only caught once for levy, probably caught at the end of quota as well, wasn't talking to him since

_Brian

pedigree 6 wrote: »

That's depressing.

My greatgrandfather sold a 40 acre farm and bought a 140 acre farm for the same money the next year

Then bought a 130 acre farm for a son and paid for it with the crop of hay saved on it the next year.

That's farming and business acrumen.

Those times are gone, long gone !!
Try buying anything with a crop of 140acres now !!

The age of easy expansion by hard work is gone, you either stay static or Take on serious debt. I'd wager it's near on impossible to service such debt on very marginal land, many of us don't want our full time earnings to go towards servicing debt to buy marginal land that's not profitable to farm.

pedigree 6

_Brian wrote: »

Those times are gone, long gone !!
Try buying anything with a crop of 140acres now !!

The age of easy expansion by hard work is gone, you either stay static or Take on serious debt. I'd wager it's near on impossible to service such debt on very marginal land, many of us don't want our full time earnings to go towards servicing debt to buy marginal land that's not profitable to farm.

Bring back volatility and people going bust.

Base price

20silkcut wrote: »

I'm presuming your talking about Ireland pre 1973 when we were just a cheap food producer for Britain. Nobody wants to go back to that and that's not what anyone advocating subsidy abolition is proposing.

Not much has changed since other than SFP :rolleyes:
I (like Rangler) remember farming pre subs. I remember when the £5 calf sub was introduced. Calf prices in Maynooth and Ashbourne marts rose by £5 the following week..

DX85

This post has been deleted.

Who2

Is the small farmer with the job not going to be a hard man to move on. I for one couldn't give a monkeys about driving a merc or public perception and I'd say I'm not alone. If people's thoughts on success are based on these perceptions then they need to re- prioritise.

DX85

This post has been deleted.

20silkcut

DX85 wrote: »

There was definitely more money in tillage years ago, as in in the 80s / early 90s There was loads of small "market gardeners" dotted around North County Dublin. A fella across the road from me used to farm two acres of white cabbage every year and make a living out of it supplying shops etc... My father used to do tillage and used to also sell vegetables to the public as a side earner... I would love to know what 50 pence is worth now from say 1988 in euros today.. cause that's what he used to sell bags of sprouts, carrots.. the same size bags as are in the supermarkets now. Also there was no subsidies as far as I know in tillage back then ? My father certainly got nothing from the government... But people with small amounts of land used to make a living out of it...

On the other end my grandfather had a small farm in Galway and used to milk 2 or 3 cows a day, and have some bullocks on 20 acres and he made a living... without any subsidies.. and again looking around most of the neighbours also would only have 20 acres or so and made a living...

I think the value of fresh food in general has gone down the tubes.. people don't give a f** if it's flown in from Brazil or produced locally... once it's got a label like "honestly grown produce" ( feck it how do you get them smilies! ) people will buy it and not think twice about local produce... I was in a well know supermarket there with my brother last year and we looked through all the origins of vegetables and this is when Irish vegetables were being harvested and in season

Courgettes - two origins.. one from Spain and one from one of the lads in Dublin... guess which one was dearer ? the Irish one... even though the ones from Spain would have to be flown in...

Beetroot - Origin South Africa... even though there could be loads of Irish produced Beetroot... again flown in...

Broccoli - Germany and Holland... prime season for Irish broccoli... yet none to be seen anywhere

This really gets my hackles up when you see on the TV the ads about local produce..Irish Supermarkets supporting local produce me arse !!

Apologies for the long post... but that's my eulogy to the small Irish farmer..

The only thing that might get small farmers going again is what I heard on the news today about the droughts in Spain... I remember talking to a large supplier there two or three years ago and he said there was a shortage of courgettes in Ireland... so much so they were taking anything that anyone was bring up to them...

Right better give the keyboard a break! apologies if this put you asleep !

First off tillage was dealt a fatal blow in this country when the sugar beet industry shut down. Lots of tillage farmers used to use barley as a rotation crop with their main crop of sugar beet. They never had to depend on one crop like they do now. Tillage had a few good years in 07/08/09 when prices were high and the sugar beet compensation money was still sloshing around but it is nearly wiped out in the last few years.

It was easier to make money years ago from farming when most farms were limited to 15-20 cows and 5 or 6 acres of tillage crops by a lack of mechanisation.
When I was very young back in the early 80's I remember seeing some of the old timers around here giving the entire spring Feb/march early April ploughing and tilling fields between six and ten acres sowing mangolds or turnips or beet or barley. They used to do a few hours in the evening after they had the daily chores done. Same fields would be set now tilled and sowed in a matter of hours. Same with milking the most the average farmer could manage in the 1950's was about 14 or 15 cows and that was with another milker be it a workman or family member. Most milk in those days ended up in the table. I don't know when exactly powder came in but I doubt there was much excess milk powdered in the 40's and 50's.
Once the milking machine came in then overproduction became an issue. As we all know overproduction kills profit.
Especially when markets are limited.
The only way to get new markets is to liberalise trade. There are 7 billion people on this planet and we only have access to a fraction of them.

kowtow

DX85 wrote: »

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Notice that the major thing which has changed there is the supply chain.

Both those models (or something close to them) would still make a living, of some decent sort without SFP, in today's world - indeed similar businesses do so today. People are looking to farmers to supply direct more than at any time in recent memory.

On the production side, however, we're geared up to supply more than Ireland could ever produce, and the individual farmer would need, compared to those days, five times more capital invested for half the living with twice the volatility. As others have pointed out above, this is almost entirely a result of the industrial supply chain we have allowed ourselves to be subsumed into.

DX85

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DX85

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Ubbquittious

I think the EU want there to be 3 or 4 big corporate farms in each country that own 100% of the land and farm completely by robot. The only employees they'll have will be inside big glass corporate offices in Dublin.

Then the big boys in Germany/France swoop in and buy "all those pesky inefficient individual farms in the individual little member states". Eventually there will be 3-4 corporate farms in Europe that occasionally merge before getting split up by the competition commission for the good of consumers.

DX85

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Waffletraktor

DX85 wrote: »

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In a few years you will have one or 2 guys for going out to check on a robot doing the work.

DX85

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