Is this the end of the small farmer

buffalobilly · 21-03-2022 9:11pm #1

Just sitting here thinking with the price of everything is it time for the small farmer to sit back and forget about farming the land it will be impossible to make ends meet with the price of inputs I know our own situation it will be the last year we will be working for nothing just going to keep enough stock to get our payment so in reality we will be down stocking by at least 75% and I honestly believe we will have as much if not more money in the farm account at the end of the year anyone else feeling like this

893bet · 21-03-2022 9:13pm

The “payment” is getting smaller and smaller. And inflation is going to flog it.

Keep going and keep costs down and just make sure the taxman gets as little as possible.

Danzy · 21-03-2022 10:36pm

It certainly feels like it, Just thinking today as I was flying around after a particularly wild limousine tore down fences and made a short job a 2 hour one.

The place gets better each year, the stock better but the earnings from the farm get worse in real terms. Inflation battering the payments and costs have left reality. Add on to that what is left buys even less now.

It's frankly very disheartening, and there is no effort or sign of will in society or govt to reverse it. If society could even tolerate farming providing a poor living it would nearly be enough. It's turning into a money pit.

Europ, society and Govt have no interest in food supply, production or security.

Even Vlad using that as a weapon won't change that.

This is a problem for the bigger lad as well, they are viewed as even lower than the average farmer.

JustJoe7240 · 21-03-2022 10:39pm

Quite possibly, I stand to inherit a reasonably substantial area of land, and the way things are going, in the near future, it will make more sense to plant It with trees.

StevenToast · 21-03-2022 10:46pm

Get yourself a cushy number off farm that pays the bills....

Dont be expecting the farm to be supporting a family....just enough to wash its own arse....

Birdnuts · 21-03-2022 11:11pm

Scale isn't exactly the path to riches either as margins continue to get eroded and inputs cost get ever higher. The crisis in the pig industry is evidence enough for that. Also if you look at farming in the US where the scale is off the charts compared to here, a large majority of farmers there could not survive without their version of CAP whose budget is actually bigger than the EU's despite having a lot less farmers!!

tommybrees · 21-03-2022 11:15pm

I think small farms have an amazing chance to diversify into something different.

Ask any big farmers with big numbers and big debt how there getting on this year.

Dickie10 · 21-03-2022 11:24pm

i think the easiest way for a farmer to diversify is to get an off farm job, its mad how many famrers on average sized places in midlands and west are still farming away full time i dont know how they make it pay tbh

SuperTortoise · 21-03-2022 11:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816537#Comment_118816537

I don't know a single beef farmer that's farming "full time", even going back 20 odd years i don't think i've ever come across one.

maestroamado · 22-03-2022 12:05am

Irish farming is all about the payment... i read in the last couple of days land value has increased by 50% so like the housing i expect non farming people are buying up... Why would a business person pay a bank to keep money on deposit... better buy a bit of land and if it does not a profit day on day it will be there and likely gain value...

JohnChadwick · 22-03-2022 12:32am

Yea find that owning land can feel like a total trap.

Looking at my figures it is clear keeping animals is a solid waste of time. But grass still needs to be grazed. You still have to put the time into it.

Planting or selling up are not options. No part time farming enterprise seems financially viable now. Not one. Not sheep, not Sucklers, not drystock.

endainoz · 22-03-2022 12:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816488#Comment_118816488

Totally agree, divergence of payments will affect the big fellas a lot too.

Donald Trump · 22-03-2022 12:39am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816488#Comment_118816488

Once the lads with big debt get over the initial hurdles, they'd be dying for inflation to rocket up.

When the inflation bites, it's the fella with his pennies saved in the bank who gets stung. He often just doesn't see it

tractorporn · 22-03-2022 12:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816488#Comment_118816488

Diversify into what exactly? I hear this a lot but nobody gives viable options. Apart from an off farm income which most small farmers already have, I have yet to see any diversification options that 1. don't involve spending lots of money or 2. provide the same income as an off farm job.

maestroamado · 22-03-2022 12:45am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816892#Comment_118816892

even though i totally agree with all of your comments... why is moving on not an option if its not viable...

Ash.J.Williams · 22-03-2022 12:47am

Saw a delivery of fertiliser today while out driving and thought “oooh la la “ rich fucker 😂😂

maestroamado · 22-03-2022 12:53am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816955#Comment_118816955

It may be a blessing when people find out how much cost v gain for small holder... i expect the guys who need two crops will feel it...

amacca · 22-03-2022 12:56am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816939#Comment_118816939

Diversify into giving diversification advice to lads wanting to diversify...how much worse could you be at it than the scale up max production ever decreasing profit margins crew? ....tell them to do a bit of wild honey and some native breeds, set up a petting zoo, start making your own balsamic vinegar out of spuds etc etc....air dried spring lamb jerky and wild garlic aoili with pre prepped nettle soup like those two twin pains in the hole extolling the virtues of veg and saving the planet while filling the super market shelves with plastic packaging for their vegan butternut squash ding dong a long katsu curry doo dah etc etc

It's not as if there would be huge set up costs, red tape, haccp guidelines etc (not that I disagree with those)....just that the route to market here and be compliant seems a lot more "red tapey" than other jurisdictions.

22-03-2022 1:09am

I think the price of land, the sfp and amount of manual labour in farming is keeping small farms viable.

As ageing farmers retire, technology improves, the sfp shrinks and as a result margins per acre fall more land will come on stream and big farmers will get bigger.

Danzy · 22-03-2022 1:14am

The idea of diversified farming falls in to the same crisis, people not willing to pay for food and it not meeting cost of living in a meaningful way, inputs and inflation breaking those apart.

I've diversified some bit but it's just the same problems but a different take on it.

Selling price goes up a little, inputs and other expenses, living expenses go up by multiples.

Below cost selling could be ended for starters, should have been never allowed.

It's really mad we are facing in to a billion people going hungry next year as black sea grain dries up, nevermind the sharp reduction in yield across Europe.

If there is a drought in North America again then the world food supply will be in big trouble.

No one cares though, food comes from a fridge.

paddysdream · 22-03-2022 2:11am

Fair bit of depression on here tonight.Lots of full time farmer's around here and not all dairying.

Every one of the adjoining farms to me is run as a full time enterprise bar one .Area would vary from 80 acres to 300 plus .

Reading through thread on here often wonder if I live In some sort of parallel universe where everyone has an off farm job and the farm is used as a tax deductible expense.

DBK1 · 22-03-2022 2:51am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817146#Comment_118817146

Yea plenty of full time farmers around here as well, in all the various different enterprises. The age profile however is getting older. The youngest, non dairy, full time farmer I can think of would be early 30’s.

22-03-2022 3:02am

Wont be end of small farmers,as they can trim back and absorb price shocks for a year ir two as most wouldnt rely on farm for income

But may leave many medium (80 to 110ish acres) farms,who would have had reasonable drawings/pension contributions,wondering as to rationale behind pushing it intensivly along side full time work.....most,if not all could likely make as much with a 25% reduction in stock along with less stress/worry and improved work/life balance.....or let it out tax-free

arthursway · 22-03-2022 4:02am

I'm not a farmer but likewise I do live in the countryside and I do worry what tthis squeeze and the next recession will have on our way of life.

Let's be real 2008 killed our way of life, the pubs we all loved full with our friends Friday Saturday Sunday night most of them closed to never open their doors again. Other friends emigrated to never return.

Our country towns never recovered once vibrant now only filled with takeaways and vape shops and closed pubs to remind of us of more youthful happier times.

Some lads who went for trades are doing well now again but how long will that last till recession comes and we lose more friends and family to emmigration.

The countryside never recovered and prospered again like Dublin.

I am very concerned for the next recession as rural Ireland is still on its knees from 2008 the next recession will be lights out if you ask me.

herdquitter · 22-03-2022 9:03am

The end of the small farmer? No. The end of the system on farms where the farmer and possibly spouse is subsidising the farm system, possibly.

endainoz · 22-03-2022 12:11pm

The next recession is just around the corner, but of all the sectors around these parts in the west that were devastated for a few years, (hospitality, tradesmen, hauliers, countless other professions) farmers were relatively recession proof. Not completely of course, particularly with the ones with big loans out after listening to teagasc, but the blow was not felt as much in the farming sector at all.

epfff · 22-03-2022 12:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118818111#Comment_118818111

Have to disagree.

The fall was felt by farmers just the drop didn't come from such a hight and they were better able/more flexible to adjust to the lows.

Siamsa Sessions · 22-03-2022 2:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817187#Comment_118817187

I'm a small part-timer at the moment but the plan is to become a medium-sized full-time farmer in 2024 when land we have leased out reverts to me. It'll be around 85 acres of well-drained ground in the south-east of the country. I'll be 48 at that stage. I wouldn't rule dairying out but it's not what I'm thinking at the moment.

Re small farmers surviving: I work off-farm currently where researchers and others are constantly trying to second-guess what technology they could sell to farmers. The biggest mistake they make is failing to appreciate that many farmers have been running their own business for 20, 30, 40 years and have lived thru all sorts of crisis on-farm and in the wider world. I don't know any other sector where there is such resilience to internal and external strife. Some lads are fools and slaves but there's plenty (big and small) who keep the show on the road with minimum fuss no matter what else is happening.

endainoz · 22-03-2022 2:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118818143#Comment_118818143

You just proved my point, they weren't hit anywhere near as hard as other sectors.

epfff · 22-03-2022 3:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118818844#Comment_118818844

Think you misunderstood my thinking or are trying to twist what I said to make out there was a living to be made out of farms in the last boom.

I think you need very creative accounting to match a aldi or lidl wage for any farming in this boom or the last.

If you lose half of zero is much less than losing half of something.

Or in the worst case if you lose all of zero you are no worse off.

Rusheseverywhere · 22-03-2022 4:09pm

All Irish farms are small scale. You prob saw farm in Ukraine on RTE news and issues they having anyway that 1 farm they did article on was the size of County Leitrim. Also intresting annual average salary in Ukraine is €2000 per year. No way Irish farms are competative against that. Subsidies are worth less and less I am maxed in every scheme ie ANC, SFP, GLAS, BDGP, BEEP and Organic but the money is either staying the same or being cut ie my SFP which I got as a young farmer from National Reserve is being cut. My organic payment will be the same per acre in 2028 as it was in 2015. Future is dairying on a largish scale, a bit of summer grazing or planting. In nearly every type the reality is Farming will be a tax write off.

Is this the end of the small farmer

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