Lock, Stock and Chitchat a Seacht

Base price · 28-01-2017 11:40PM

Grueller wrote: »

I would interpret that in the context of his recent declaration that payments will have a lot stronger environmental focus in future.

As I do too and I personally welcome it.
We on this island (North and South) have a great opportunity to really enforce our pasture fed milk, beef, lamb and horticulture that also accommodates our native species of fauna and flora. IMO we have neglected our natural environmental in the past due to our reliance on domestic "conglomerates" and their requirement for financial/boardroom success.

pedigree 6 · 28-01-2017 11:48PM

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Say what ever you like.
In Europe our costs are gone too high to make a margin on commodity output, the top end high value is the future until the next food shortage or the rest catch up in cost.

There is an argument that costs increase when a farmers income increases.
E.g animal medicine manufactured in Ireland is cheaper in New Zealand after being exported there and is dearer here in the country of origin.

A lot of unnecessary profiteering goes on in this country especially.

ganmo · 28-01-2017 11:50PM

TITANIUM. wrote: »

Oh Lord God. Will you hold your horses and think before you jump right in.
I was attempting to make the point that in many instances unproductive farms Are rewarded purely on there size. While many productive farms ate being cut because of there stock to acreage ratio.
The guy with the big mountain can sit on his hole and get paid more and more every year. While the man managing his farm well looking after the place and turning as much stock as he can (thus contributing towards the food demand) will see his payment decrease,

Which one of the above 2 examples do you think is "FARMING".

And since you seem like a very informed man,
Why in your opinion do we get a SFP?

To keep ppl attached to the land instead of leaving it. Well that's what it's turned into.

Since we're asking questions...Tell me which is better, the guy who is productive today or the guy who was productive 16 years ago?

TITANIUM. · 29-01-2017 08:21AM

ganmo wrote: »

To keep ppl attached to the land instead of leaving it. Well that's what it's turned into.

Since we're asking questions...Tell me which is better, the guy who is productive today or the guy who was productive 16 years ago?

I would have said that it was to have a reliable source of food to feed the growing EU population into the future, hence why the people who actually produce that food should benefit.
Your advocating farming the subsidies not the farm, While this may be a harsh reality for some, it's something that I could never agree with on a personal or professional level.

Your question is abit of a silly one.
The man who was productive 16 years ago was rewarded for it. If he ceases to be productive he should be cut accordingly, the currently productive man should have to operate under similar rules.

Reggie. · 29-01-2017 08:24AM

TITANIUM. wrote: »

I would have said that it was to have a reliable source of food to feed the growing EU population into the future, hence why the people who actually produce that food should benefit.
Your advocating farming the subsidies not the farm, While this may be a harsh reality for some, it's something that I could never agree with on a personal or professional level.

Your question is abit of a silly one.
The man who was productive 16 years ago was rewarded for it. If he ceases to be productive he should be cut accordingly, the currently productive man should have to operate under similar rules.

+1

rangler1 · 29-01-2017 08:31AM

TITANIUM. wrote: »

I would have said that it was to have a reliable source of food to feed the growing EU population into the future, hence why the people who actually produce that food should benefit.
Your advocating farming the subsidies not the farm, While this may be a harsh reality for some, it's something that I could never agree with on a personal or professional level.

Your question is abit of a silly one.
The man who was productive 16 years ago was rewarded for it. If he ceases to be productive he should be cut accordingly, the currently productive man should have to operate under similar rules.

No one seems to think of those that are still farming well,their income is being reduced to be be given to farmers that haven't the least intention of farming well, being given to young farmers that are probably home one weekend a month, to hill farmers that are complaining about having to keep land in GAC.
When I become a sofa farmer next year, it won't bother my conscience at all because all this was what the begrudgers lobbied for,

kowtow · 29-01-2017 09:44AM

TITANIUM. wrote: »

I would have said that it was to have a reliable source of food to feed the growing EU population into the future, hence why the people who actually produce that food should benefit.

Well if that's the purpose it has failed totally.

We throw almost half the food away, and and a massive swathe of the population across every EU country is obese and likely to die early from it.

naughto · 29-01-2017 09:46AM

Don't have much of a clue about grant side of things. Does thepart time farmer get the same grants as the full time farmer? Surly if your full time you should get more

Username John · 29-01-2017 09:58AM

TITANIUM. wrote: »

I would have said that it was to have a reliable source of food to feed the growing EU population into the future, hence why the people who actually produce that food should benefit.
Your advocating farming the subsidies not the farm, While this may be a harsh reality for some, it's something that I could never agree with on a personal or professional level.

Your question is abit of a silly one.
The man who was productive 16 years ago was rewarded for it. If he ceases to be productive he should be cut accordingly, the currently productive man should have to operate under similar rules.

So - I think it's actually the total opposite of what you say titanium - if the SFP was for reliable food for a growing population, then it would have stayed tied to production.
But the tie to production was broken years ago, so the EU don't care if you produce or not - they still pay you the SFP...

I only started farming a few years ago, and the biggest mistake I made was to try to actually farm the land and not the subsidies... you might think 'good on you'
But in hindsight I would have a lot more money in my pocket now if I had farmed the subsidies as well or instead of putting money into the farm for minimal return...

I think the SFP is there to keep us farming, at minimum / zero profit... just keep us in the game... like feeding a drug addict a small bit every day to keep em addicted...
That way, the farmer keeps producing and everyone above / around the farmer is kept in business... we don't make any real money, but we turnover / spend a lot... which keeps a lot of others shows on the road...

kowtow · 29-01-2017 11:42AM

Username John wrote: »

I think the SFP is there to keep us farming, at minimum / zero profit... just keep us in the game... like feeding a drug addict a small bit every day to keep em addicted...
That way, the farmer keeps producing and everyone above / around the farmer is kept in business... we don't make any real money, but we turnover / spend a lot... which keeps a lot of others shows on the road...

I think that is exactly what it has become.

FWIW I don't question the motives of those who dreamed up farm support, or tried to improve it along the way, but it wasn't designed by farmers.

The lobbyists and experts who designed farm support - whether they see it that way or not - are more at home with the large corporate - the place with the warm reception desk and the name tags and the regular briefing papers and conferences. They speak the language of the organisation - not that of the individual farmer, out on the hill or in the parlour working away to produce the food with all the variables and vagaries that that involves.

It's unsurprising therefore that the solutions they arrive at inexplicably end up favouring the food industry rather than the farmers. When all you have in your hand is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

And so instead of acting at an individual level the unintended consequences of farm support tend to lock farmers into the industrial supply chain, making farmers miners of raw materials who must constantly produce more, risk more, and decrease costs in order to retain any margin at all. The financial risk which SFP was intended to remove, at the farm level, is replaced by price pressure from the supply chain until without the SFP the farmer would face certain ruin.

Grueller · 29-01-2017 11:47AM

naughto wrote: »

Don't have much of a clue about grant side of things. Does thepart time farmer get the same grants as the full time farmer? Surly if your full time you should get more

Why though? I know a lot of full time farmers producing less than part timers and farming less area. They are just less organised/time efficient or couldn't be bothered with trying to gather part time income. Your subsidy should be linked to farming output Imo not the amount of time that it takes you to produce it.

rangler1 · 29-01-2017 11:50AM

kowtow wrote: »

I think that is exactly what it has become.

FWIW I don't question the motives of those who dreamed up farm support, or tried to improve it along the way, but it wasn't designed by farmers.

The lobbyists and experts who designed farm support - whether they see it that way or not - are more at home with the large corporate - the place with the warm reception desk and the name tags and the regular briefing papers and conferences. They speak the language of the organisation - not that of the individual farmer, out on the hill or in the parlour working away to produce the food with all the variables and vagaries that that involves.

It's unsurprising therefore that the solutions they arrive at inexplicably end up favouring the food industry rather than the farmers. When all you have in your hand is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

And so instead of acting at an individual level the unintended consequences of farm support tend to lock farmers into the industrial supply chain, making farmers miners of raw materials who must constantly produce more, risk more, and decrease costs in order to retain any margin at all. The financial risk which SFP was intended to remove, at the farm level, is replaced by price pressure from the supply chain until without the SFP the farmer would face certain ruin.

The nature of subsidies is that it doesn't allow the market to work, if we didn't have subsidies there would be a lot less beef/lamb produced and price would rise hopefully......it would probably be a volatile but more sustainable price

kowtow · 29-01-2017 11:56AM

rangler1 wrote: »

The nature of subsidies is that it doesn't allow the market to work, if we didn't have subsidies there would be a lot less beef/lamb produced and price would rise hopefully......it would probably be a volatile but more sustainable price

I think that is basically true.

Ireland of course is one of those special cases, if we didn't have subsidies I suspect we would produce less food but of higher quality, with more premium products and prices to match. We'd not be trying so hard to export commodity products far and wide I think.

"Ireland's mission to feed the world" is largely a solution looking for a problem - it's interesting to speculate how much of that is driven by subsidy and what the place would look like without them.

Water John · 29-01-2017 11:58AM

Think you the the nail on the head, there, Kowtow.

Waffletraktor · 29-01-2017 12:31PM

pedigree 6 wrote: »

There is an argument that costs increase when a farmers income increases.
E.g animal medicine manufactured in Ireland is cheaper in New Zealand after being exported there and is dearer here in the country of origin.

A lot of unnecessary profiteering goes on in this country especially.

Look up the ratio of N to Wheat prices for the last decade, hence why most farms here are moving to mostly liquid so you can buy cheap crap you cant spread but can melt.

Waffletraktor · 29-01-2017 12:33PM

Base price wrote: »

The devil is in the detail - "If farmers want to get direct subsidies, they need to contribute more to achieve common goals," he told the magazine.
One wonders what the common goals are :rolleyes:

Flooding the field next to the river because some ckever person built on a floodplain on the other side, rinse and repeat.....

Mac Taylor · 29-01-2017 12:37PM

Very interesting discussion. What are the solutions though? At this stage are we looking at the survival of the fittest and what that brings, hormone & steroid beef etc, gm inputs. The consumer who doesn't want this type of food will have to pay more and those of us who want to produce this type of niche product can do so.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 29-01-2017 01:06PM

Grueller wrote: »

Why though? I know a lot of full time farmers producing less than part timers and farming less area. They are just less organised/time efficient or couldn't be bothered with trying to gather part time income. Your subsidy should be linked to farming output Imo not the amount of time that it takes you to produce it.

Looking for the return of quotas?

Water John wrote: »

Think you the the nail on the head, there, Kowtow.

That's because he has a hammer in his hand.....:pac:

Grueller · 29-01-2017 03:46PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Looking for the return of quotas?

That's because he has a hammer in his hand.....:pac:

TBH I don't know what I want. I don't know if there is any solution.
I do know the current situation of being linked to historic production is absurd.
I also know that quotas don't work.

I am not sure that I want total abolition of subsidies either as this will lead in the long term to factory farming and even further rural depopulation and all the environmental issues that will come with it.
I really was only posting that just because a man has tried to better his situation by obtaining off farm employment is no reason to support him less than anyone else. That avenue is open to all.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 29-01-2017 05:58PM

Grueller wrote: »

TBH I don't know what I want. I don't know if there is any solution.
I do know the current situation of being linked to historic production is absurd.
I also know that quotas don't work.

I am not sure that I want total abolition of subsidies either as this will lead in the long term to factory farming and even further rural depopulation and all the environmental issues that will come with it.
I really was only posting that just because a man has tried to better his situation by obtaining off farm employment is no reason to support him less than anyone else. That avenue is open to all.

I agree with you there. I cannot fathom how a system was allowed to evolve that 'capped' a farm income to what that farm was doing 16 years ago.

There are talks atm that the EU are considering a tiered payment syatem where the first, say, 20 Ha are given a higher payment than any further payments but all that will happen is farms being split to maximise the payments and more being allocated for 'environmental' benefits and LFAs.

But all that's going to happen is even more of those payments will have to be spent on compliance with the rules and paying consultants to ensure compliance so even less of the spend will be making its way into farmers pockets than now:(

Username John · 29-01-2017 06:25PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I agree with you there. I cannot fathom how a system was allowed to evolve that 'capped' a farm income to what that farm was doing 16 years ago.

There are talks atm that the EU are considering a tiered payment syatem where the first, say, 20 Ha are given a higher payment than any further payments but all that will happen is farms being split to maximise the payments and more being allocated for 'environmental' benefits and LFAs.

But all that's going to happen is even more of those payments will have to be spent on compliance with the rules and paying consultants to ensure compliance so even less of the spend will be making its way into farmers pockets than now:(

It's a bit mad all right, but sure look at milk quotas, how long were they around? I know it's not exactly the same but it's based on the same principle of an arbitrary reference year...

Even if something is decided at EU level - what leeway does each local country have?
Even if the tiered system came in - how would they tie that into the current system / payments?

Also - am I right in saying you can't really trade entitlemts any more?

Waffletraktor · 29-01-2017 06:34PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I agree with you there. I cannot fathom how a system was allowed to evolve that 'capped' a farm income to what that farm was doing 16 years ago.
(

If farm income is what you draw in sfp, you get out and stop expecting someone else to fund your hobby.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 29-01-2017 06:36PM

Username John wrote: »

It's a bit mad all right, but sure look at milk quotas, how long were they around? I know it's not exactly the same but it's based on the same principle of an arbitrary reference year...

Even if something is decided at EU level - what leeway does each local country have?
Even if the tiered system came in - how would they tie that into the current system / payments?

Also - am I right in saying you can't really trade entitlemts any more?

Milk quotas were around for 31 years.

On the leeway for each country, the richer countries will pay more to their farmers than poorer ones with things like payments per head in France for sucklers and sheep and extremely attractive energy subsidies and attractive per unit payments for any energy produced in Germany. There is no level playing field anymore.

The tiered system would be simply introduced, I'd say. The Ag budget is a fixed amount so they will pay x/first 20 Ha and the balance over the remaining hectares.

I'm beating the same drum here again but the Ag budget has been seriously cut in the last 15 years between modulation cuts and inflation. At best, your payments are worth only 60% of what they were worth the first time it was paid with two 5% cuts and inflation of 2% a year, probably less in truth.:(

kowtow · 29-01-2017 06:49PM

What if we imposed VAT at 7% on food that was grown more than 100km away and gave food stamps worth 20EUR to everyone in receipt of child benefit for use at farmers markets.

rangler1 · 29-01-2017 07:01PM

Waffletraktor wrote: »

If farm income is what you draw in sfp, you get out and stop expecting someone else to fund your hobby.

Why get out if your income is better than you'll get elsewhere,
While farmers are capable operators, they're used to being self employed and wouldn't take kindly to being ordered about.

Waffletraktor · 29-01-2017 07:14PM

rangler1 wrote: »

Why get out if your income is better than you'll get elsewhere,
While farmers are capable operators, they're used to being self employed and wouldn't take kindly to being ordered about.

Are you really saying in a recovering economy there is no possibility of a new career? Set or sell some land go back and re-train if needed, this type of martyrdom of the farm does no one any favours least of all themselves.
As for not taking orders to do a job for which they are being paid, are they 2 or are you that closed off from reality?

Username John · 29-01-2017 07:26PM

kowtow wrote: »

What if we imposed VAT at 7% on food that was grown more than 100km away and gave food stamps worth 20EUR to everyone in receipt of child benefit for use at farmers markets.

In theory it sounds ok...

You'd need farmers markets to open in the evenings, but if there was a market am sure they would spring up around the place...

On the 100km thing - how would you enforce that? Does such a rule exist anywhere else?

But, we all know that even if it was the best idea ever, there would be no political appetite to make such a move...

rangler1 · 29-01-2017 07:49PM

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Are you really saying in a recovering economy there is no possibility of a new career? Set or sell some land go back and re-train if needed, this type of martyrdom of the farm does no one any favours least of all themselves.
As for not taking orders to do a job for which they are being paid, are they 2 or are you that closed off from reality?

People capable of earning big salaries away from farming probably aren't farming, do you think that the rest are going to change for an average industrial wage,
There's people going to Dublin from around here at 5.30 in the morning to work for very simple money and will come to their senses when the depreciation on their car comes home to roost.
My point was that getting out just because your subsidy is your income should be optional.
My sheep keep my farm cross compliant and my Farm income/ subsidy ratio has been 50/50ish for the last number of years so not really defending my own position here

Buford T. Justice XIX · 29-01-2017 07:55PM

Waffletraktor wrote: »

If farm income is what you draw in sfp, you get out and stop expecting someone else to fund your hobby.

You're choosing to forget that the BPS is partly used to compensate for farmers stewardship of the countryside.

You are also choosing not to direct the same advise to unemployed/underemployed who are in receipt of Government funding. Indeed, I would be interested to see the reaction your advise would generate should you chose to share that wisdom with them:)

Waffletraktor · 29-01-2017 08:07PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

You're choosing to forget that the BPS is partly used to compensate for farmers stewardship of the countryside.

You are also choosing not to direct the same advise to unemployed/underemployed who are in receipt of Government funding. Indeed, I would be interested to see the reaction your advise would generate should you chose to share that wisdom with them:)

Do you think the country side would be in better or worse condition if farmers were not active? Are current farmer efforts having any impact in a positive nature on wildlife while so much monoculture exists. I suspect left long enough you'd be back to large hardwood forest after the bracken.
That's abit of a miss nomer, not many dole birds have assets worth many 10's of thousands to cash in. What would your advise be for instance or response are you expecting to be offered up, you didn't quite give a sufficient background scenario here.

Lock, Stock and Chitchat a Seacht

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