Cap reform convergence

Dinzee Conlee · 28-05-2021 03:18PM

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

In all honesty wrangler, everyone here seems to be agreeing, bar yourself. Your defence seems to be basically soundbytes about the ifa reducing no payments, which falls flat at the first hurdle, whether convergence happens or not, as the budget is going to be lower than the last one.
There is no reasonable argument against convergence. Nobody has put one forward on this thread, or anywhere else for that matter. Personally I find the counter argument a bit insulting, not because of how it will affect me - in truth it wont put me up or down - but rather the dismissive attitude shown towards farmers on poorer ground.

Farmers awarded high entitlements in previous systems have had their soft run of it. They should be thankful for having something that nobody else is likely to ever get, instead of cribbing about the system releasing the chokehold it has on other farmers around the country.

I notice this sort of 'I worked the land and made something of it while others didnt etc etc' attitude in your posting. Christ man do you not see that your subs allowed you to go that road, and put that time into your own business and something that im sure you enjoyed doing, while the subs others got, who may be the same as yourself only born elsewhere, stopped them from doing the same? You seem to give yourself credit for things that, as I said before, others would have crawled over hot coals for the opportunity to do.

I am not this forum is a good representation of farmers in a way? I think it might be a bit skewed to part-time farmers, lads who aren't 100% dependant on the farm for their income?

I am not dependant on the farm for my income. But if the farm was putting all the bread and butter on the table, and there was talk of that income being cut - I would be against it... Purely for self interest reasons...

But the same goes for a lad who is full time on hill land (or lower payments wherever they are), who wants to see his bread and butter go up...

28-05-2021 03:28PM

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

I am not this forum is a good representation of farmers in a way? I think it might be a bit skewed to part-time farmers, lads who aren't 100% dependant on the farm for their income?

I am not dependant on the farm for my income. But if the farm was putting all the bread and butter on the table, and there was talk of that income being cut - I would be against it... Purely for self interest reasons...

But the same goes for a lad who is full time on hill land (or lower payments wherever they are), who wants to see his bread and butter go up...

The single most unfortunate part of CAP is in my belief the majority of farmers don't understand (due to it being a horrifically complicated thing where a lot is done behind closed doors) a significant amount of CAP through little fault of their own, which is a terrible thing given the effect CAP has on us all.

Donald Trump · 28-05-2021 04:25PM

You either go back to production based supports or you continue with decoupling and have convergence. I can't see a real justification for payments based on historical production to continue indefinitely.

All lads produce different amounts at different stages of their lives. Regardless of how hard a worker or how lazy they are. So anyone has to recognise that there is a fair amount of luck involved.

I'd be happy for it to either go back to a production based system or else go full convergence. The current system is no good for the fella working hard today whose father or grandfather had a bit of bad luck and was going through a rough patch during reference years or before.

MayoAreMagic · 28-05-2021 04:52PM

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

I am not this forum is a good representation of farmers in a way? I think it might be a bit skewed to part-time farmers, lads who aren't 100% dependant on the farm for their income?

I am not dependant on the farm for my income. But if the farm was putting all the bread and butter on the table, and there was talk of that income being cut - I would be against it... Purely for self interest reasons...

But the same goes for a lad who is full time on hill land (or lower payments wherever they are), who wants to see his bread and butter go up...

I dont think you are right in this instance. The fact is the debate is about an equal footing for all farmers at the starting gate. I dont think it is right for people to try to take from another at that point personally. To continue the hurling analogies, it is like one team starting out 10 points up. The other guys havent a chance at all.

How ever you farm and manage schemes etc from that point is your business and everybody will look to maximise that - where your logic does apply, I believe.

Re full time and part time. Well, has it not occurred to you that many of the full time lads are full time because of the payments they received? If when the deck is shuffled and sorted out fairly, their farm is no longer capable of supporting full time farming, then they will just have to go part time like the majority of farmers out there. If you think that unfair, consider the farms that were left unviable in the infinitly more biased system of the last cap. Personally I fell if those lads managed to keep plugging and are now going to see better days then they have earned it.

28-05-2021 05:11PM

On the fulltime/part time thing. It's my view, and the farm is my sole income, that if a farmer can satisfy the same criteria re inspections and t&c's of schemes and make all that work in their own life/24 hour day, then I don't have an issue if s/he has five other jobs.

DBK1 · 28-05-2021 05:23PM

Deleted User wrote: »

On the fulltime/part time thing. It's my view, and the farm is my sole income, that if a farmer can satisfy the same criteria re inspections and t&c's of schemes and make all that work in their own life/24 hour day, then I don't have an issue if s/he has five other jobs.

I agree, off farm income should have nothing to do with it. I know men with 50 acre farms and they do about 2 hours work a day but spread it out over the entire day and would tell you they’re wore out working. Then I know men with 150 acre farms that are stocked to the limit but because they are hard workers and have invested in good systems they can do all their farm work in a few hours morning and evening and still keep their off farm job as well. It wouldn’t be right that they would lose out and the lad dragging his arse around all day gets a bigger payment.

MIKEKC · 28-05-2021 06:25PM

Donald Trump wrote: »

You either go back to production based supports or you continue with decoupling and have convergence. I can't see a real justification for payments based on historical production to continue indefinitely.

All lads produce different amounts at different stages of their lives. Regardless of how hard a worker or how lazy they are. So anyone has to recognise that there is a fair amount of luck involved.

I'd be happy for it to either go back to a production based system or else go full convergence. The current system is no good for the fella working hard today whose father or grandfather had a bit of bad luck and was going through a rough patch during reference years or before.

Why do you say their fathers had a bit of bad luck or going through a rough patch?. People had different systems, some had heifers others simply drifted along and never made any effort to progress. The people who were progressive at the time were rewarded.

Say my name · 28-05-2021 06:45PM

To bring it back to the crux of the matter.

Was not the CAP's purpose to keep as many people as possible in rural areas while feeding the union?

It achieved on the latter brilliantly but the former continues to get smaller every year.
Why? Because it was a quantity and production based payment. So the more you farmed the more you got. The more you got allowed you to outbid and outgun those that received less.

It's nothing to do with working hard. The 60 acre farmer could be working twice as hard as the farmer with 1000 acres and a plethora of workers.

All that talk does is reward the production line and reduction of farmer numbers every year.

That's why these talks have stalled.
It's the same Europe wide.

Dinzee Conlee · 28-05-2021 06:53PM

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

I dont think you are right in this instance. The fact is the debate is about an equal footing for all farmers at the starting gate. I dont think it is right for people to try to take from another at that point personally. To continue the hurling analogies, it is like one team starting out 10 points up. The other guys havent a chance at all.

How ever you farm and manage schemes etc from that point is your business and everybody will look to maximise that - where your logic does apply, I believe.

Re full time and part time. Well, has it not occurred to you that many of the full time lads are full time because of the payments they received? If when the deck is shuffled and sorted out fairly, their farm is no longer capable of supporting full time farming, then they will just have to go part time like the majority of farmers out there. If you think that unfair, consider the farms that were left unviable in the infinitly more biased system of the last cap. Personally I fell if those lads managed to keep plugging and are now going to see better days then they have earned it.

It’s not fair, I’m not trying to say it is...

But the lads that are full time now, is it fair that they have to go part time cos of a reduction in funds?

I don’t know Mayo, I see how the low income farmers deserve more of the pie so to speak. But to reduce another lads income to facilitate this, in some cases it doesn’t seem right...

I think full time farners should be supported more - regardless of location or farm type. The BPS is supposed to be an income support - I‘m not sure it’s right a part time lad with an off farm job of 100k gets the the same BPS as a full time lad who only has the BPS (all other things being equal)
Lads who part time farm for the love of it, will still probably do it, to some extent...

If this is about the betterment of farming in ireland, I think more could be done to support full time farmers... But I know this is very much off topic...

MIKEKC · 28-05-2021 06:54PM

Say my name wrote: »

To bring it back to the crux of the matter.

Was not the CAP's purpose to keep as many people as possible in rural areas while feeding the union?

It achieved on the latter brilliantly but the former continues to get smaller every year.
Why? Because it was a quantity and production based payment. So the more you farmed the more you got. The more you got allowed you to outbid and outgun those that received less.

It's nothing to do with working hard. The 60 acre farmer could be working twice as hard as the farmer with 1000 acres and a plethora of workers.

All that talk does is reward the production line and reduction of farmer numbers every year.

That's why these talks have stalled.
It's the same Europe wide.

It may not have a lot to do with working hard manually but it certainly had a lot to do with working the head. How many times have you heard men boasting about the great price they got in the mart but never talk about their stocking rate .People that produced a large number of average cattle ended up with a larger payment than those that produced a smaller number of top quality cattle

28-05-2021 06:56PM

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

It’s not fair, I’m not trying to say it is...

But the lads that are full time now, is it fair that they have to go part time cos of a reduction in funds?

I don’t know Mayo, I see how the hill farmers deserve more of the pie so to speak. But to reduce another lads income to facilitate this, in some cases it doesn’t seem right...

I think full time farners should be supported more - regardless of location or farm type. The BPS is supposed to be an income support - I‘m not sure it’s right a part time lad with an off farm job of 100k gets the the same BPS as a full time lad who only has the BPS (all other things being equal)
Lads who part time farm for the love of it, will still probably do it, to some extent...

If this is about the betterment of farming in ireland, I think more could be done to support full time farmers... But I know this is very much off topic...

*In the voice of G. Hook* Back up the truck there now a minute.

There are many low income and low hectare farmers in Ireland that can't even see a hill from them.

Donald Trump · 28-05-2021 06:58PM

MIKEKC wrote: »

Why do you say their fathers had a bit of bad luck or going through a rough patch?. People had different systems, some had heifers others simply drifted along and never made any effort to progress. The people who were progressive at the time were rewarded.

Not that simple. There were plenty of progressive people who invested in the 70's who got severely punished in the 80's with the high interest which quickly snowballed out of control. See below for an example:

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/comment/darragh-mccullough-farmers-toxic-relationship-with-land-often-turns-its-ownership-into-a-curse-in-disguise-39699413.html

When I think of my own family's experience with buying and selling land, I can see where the passions begin to flicker — the pride that my grandfather was able to buy a farm three times as big as the one he was born into.But if I take a step back from this, I can see that while there was certainly a lot of hard work and sacrifice involved, there was also a large slice of lucky timing that made the investment sing.The opposite happened in the 1980s when the farm was crippled with exorbitant interest rates on loans that forced the sale of 80 acres of prime land to get the banks off our backs.It was sold for a song, and is worth at least 10 times today what we got for it then. I drive past this farm and in my more idle moments I find myself fantasising about what I could be making if we still owned that block.

He mentions it indirectly here - https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/comment/darragh-mccullough-a-trip-down-memory-lane-is-a-reminder-that-us-farmers-are-made-of-tough-stuff-39068314.html

Later in the '70s, my dad invested £170,000 (€1m today) in onion and grain stores. It was state-of-the-art stuff with bespoke ventilation systems for curing onions with heated air, along with refrigerated stores to prolong the storage life of the crop.

These days with zero interest rates, inflation is almost a forgotten concept. But as the figures above show, it has been an invisible force that changed the value of everything.

Compare the 8pc inflation of the decade just passed with 249pc of the '70s and 125pc in the '80s.

The resulting bank interest rate spike to 24pc in the '80s paralysed businesses everywhere, including our own.

The piles of meticulous cash-flows that my dad compiled for the banks during this period were proof of the pressure he was under for repayments, despite the money he was churning. The number of suicides in the farming community had worried wives afraid to let husbands go to the sheds on their own at night, for fear of what might happen.

It took the liquidation of our Charolais herd along with land before the ship was steadied again for the start of the '90s and another round of investment and expansion.

That is obviously a somewhat more extreme example but there were plenty of farmers who got a bad kicking during that time and it took a generation of hard work to overcome it. McCullough seems to have been fairly big operators so I'd imagine they still had some weight to throw around to turn it around later. It's easy to make money when you have money. People shouldn't confuse it with just working harder!

Dinzee Conlee · 28-05-2021 07:04PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

*In the voice of G. Hook* Back up the truck there now a minute.

There are many low income and low hectare farmers in Ireland that can't even see a hill from them.

Fair enough, edited...

wrangler · 28-05-2021 07:53PM

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

In all honesty wrangler, everyone here seems to be agreeing, bar yourself. Your defence seems to be basically soundbytes about the ifa reducing no payments, which falls flat at the first hurdle, whether convergence happens or not, as the budget is going to be lower than the last one.
There is no reasonable argument against convergence. Nobody has put one forward on this thread, or anywhere else for that matter. Personally I find the counter argument a bit insulting, not because of how it will affect me - in truth it wont put me up or down - but rather the dismissive attitude shown towards farmers on poorer ground.

Farmers awarded high entitlements in previous systems have had their soft run of it. They should be thankful for having something that nobody else is likely to ever get, instead of cribbing about the system releasing the chokehold it has on other farmers around the country.

I notice this sort of 'I worked the land and made something of it while others didnt etc etc' attitude in your posting. Christ man do you not see that your subs allowed you to go that road, and put that time into your own business and something that im sure you enjoyed doing, while the subs others got, who may be the same as yourself only born elsewhere, stopped them from doing the same? You seem to give yourself credit for things that, as I said before, others would have crawled over hot coals for the opportunity to do.

The subs were there for everyone when I was developing the farm in the eighties and nineties, The farm needed lots of work when I got it, interest rates were 20%. Smart alecs were saying that they're not encouraging interference from the the department and sure the subs were given in the price of the beast and they didn't need to be filling forms anyway.
Hard to understand why every farm didn't maximise their payments then, maybe like herd there they had some conspiracy theory about it

Donald Trump · 28-05-2021 08:12PM

wrangler wrote: »

[/B]
The subs were there for everyone when I was developing the farm in the eighties and nineties, The farm needed lots of work when I got it, interest rates were 20%. Smart alecs were saying that they're not encouraging interference from the the department and sure the subs were given in the price of the beast and they didn't need to be filling forms anyway.
Hard to understand why every farm didn't maximise their payments then, maybe like herd there they had some conspiracy theory about it

There were plenty of lads struggling to keep their heads above water Wrangler. They weren't thinking 5,10,15 years into the future. They were only thinking about how they were going to make that next bank repayment.............or more likely how they were going to make that bank repayment from a few repayments ago!

I gather that the way my grandfather thought was that if he brought an animal to the market that wasn't punched, there would be less of a chance that he'd be bringing him home. It was easier to sell him that way. He knew he could load up the animal, bring him over to sell him and then pay some bill. He'd done the work of rearing the animal but wasn't in a position to say "prices aren't great this month. I'll hold off til next month". The man was in his old age by then but still making the decisions. There was no internet for information etc. A lifetime of hardship like many others.

Does not claiming the subs make sense to you or me? Probably not. Should it be still affecting the place 20/30/40 years later?

Young95 · 28-05-2021 08:43PM

From a young farmers point of view I think convergence is the only way forward. The sooner all those beef farmers with beef and sucklers with high value entitlements get brought down to reality the better . A lot of lads renting land and losing there shirts on it only to be kept propt up and still leasing it with there high entitlements. It will free up land for young farmers .

DBK1 · 28-05-2021 11:53PM

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

It’s not fair, I’m not trying to say it is...

But the lads that are full time now, is it fair that they have to go part time cos of a reduction in funds?

I don’t know Mayo, I see how the low income farmers deserve more of the pie so to speak. But to reduce another lads income to facilitate this, in some cases it doesn’t seem right...

I think full time farners should be supported more - regardless of location or farm type. The BPS is supposed to be an income support - I‘m not sure it’s right a part time lad with an off farm job of 100k gets the the same BPS as a full time lad who only has the BPS (all other things being equal)
Lads who part time farm for the love of it, will still probably do it, to some extent...

If this is about the betterment of farming in ireland, I think more could be done to support full time farmers... But I know this is very much off topic...

I’d have to say I don’t agree on the full time farming bit. Who determines what full time farming is or what it should be? I gave examples earlier of how that could be unfair and both the examples I gave are true scenarios from neighbours of mine.

The 50 acre man drags his arse around all day doing very little but thinks he’s killed working.

The 150 acre man was rearing between 100 and 150 calves a year in a dairy calf to beef system. At certain times of the year he could have over 400 head of stock on the farm. Both him and his wife would be on the farm before 6 every morning feeding calves. He would pass my yard at ten to 8 and he would be 2 minutes into his hour and 10 minute commute to his 9-5 job. He would pass back at ten past 6 every evening and him and his wife, who would also just be home from her job, would face into feeding all the calves again and herding, feeding silage and whatever else has to be done and probably not be back in home until 10 or after it every night. Why should they get less than the 50 acre man going around doing shag all every day?

The 50 acre man also has a wife in a good well paying job so his farm doesn’t really need to make money, only cover itself. Does that mean he should be ruled out of the payments also as his wife is on a good salary?

If a lad was an Agri contractor as well as farming does that rule him out in your system? Technically the contracting is an off farm job.

The point I’m making is anyone farming should be entitled to the same payment regardless of what they do outside of their time farming. Otherwise who determines how big a farm or how high a stock number should require full time work and what should only be part time?

Donald Trump · 29-05-2021 12:07AM

DBK1 wrote: »

The point I’m making is anyone farming should be entitled to the same payment regardless of what they do outside of their time farming. Otherwise who determines how big a farm or how high a stock number should require full time work and what should only be part time?

Once they start putting in conditions like that, then who you end up benefiting are not necessarily the lads who are productive farmers of crops or animals, but the lads that are productive farmers of schemes.

Because there will usually be some sort of loophole that lads can use. Like I alluded to earlier, and wrangler also gave the example, of the "active farmers" who, on paper, "sell grass on the flat" to other lads for silage and keep claiming their entitlements but who in truth don't set foot in the field from one end of the year to the other.

DBK1 · 29-05-2021 12:27AM

Donald Trump wrote: »

Once they start putting in conditions like that, then who you end up benefiting are not necessarily the lads who are productive farmers of crops or animals, but the lads that are productive farmers of schemes.

Because there will usually be some sort of loophole that lads can use. Like I alluded to earlier, and wrangler also gave the example, of the "active farmers" who, on paper, "sell grass on the flat" to other lads for silage and keep claiming their entitlements but who in truth don't set foot in the field from one end of the year to the other.

What I should have also said in my previous post is that the only way to get a fair distribution between what are full time farmers, paper farmers etc. is to go back to a production based model. Then those who are more actively farming get more but that’s never going to happen.

Bass Reeves · 29-05-2021 12:27AM

Donald Trump wrote: »

Once they start putting in conditions like that, then who you end up benefiting are not necessarily the lads who are productive farmers of crops or animals, but the lads that are productive farmers of schemes.

Because there will usually be some sort of loophole that lads can use. Like I alluded to earlier, and wrangler also gave the example, of the "active farmers" who, on paper, "sell grass on the flat" to other lads for silage and keep claiming their entitlements but who in truth don't set foot in the field from one end of the year to the other.

At the end of the day it's immaterial, the basic farm payment should be paid on a basic rate/ HA with a cap on it. After that lets the devil take the hindmost.

Is a dealer or an agricultural contractor entitled To a higher payment than a postman, nurse or an architect.
In a way let the devil take the hindmost

MayoAreMagic · 29-05-2021 07:43AM

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

It’s not fair, I’m not trying to say it is...

But the lads that are full time now, is it fair that they have to go part time cos of a reduction in funds?

I don’t know Mayo, I see how the low income farmers deserve more of the pie so to speak. But to reduce another lads income to facilitate this, in some cases it doesn’t seem right...

I think full time farners should be supported more - regardless of location or farm type. The BPS is supposed to be an income support - I‘m not sure it’s right a part time lad with an off farm job of 100k gets the the same BPS as a full time lad who only has the BPS (all other things being equal)
Lads who part time farm for the love of it, will still probably do it, to some extent...

If this is about the betterment of farming in ireland, I think more could be done to support full time farmers... But I know this is very much off topic...

But the issue with that scenario is that once a guy declares himself a full time farmer, he gets favourable treatment to the next guy and the thing becomes a pension, and that isnt the way to go.
The reality is it isnt his income until it is awarded to him. Relying on subs that may not be coming your way isnt reliable full time employment or a steady business model, it is haphazard and unsustainable by nature. The subs can be re-routed and we all knew this at the outset. If the farm is no longer a viable unit for full-time farming without the subs then what other option is there than to go part time? I dont agree that people in this scenario should be 'kept in robes' sort of speak. It isnt fair. Others will be able to go full time, depending on how the subs are redistributed - that is just the nature of it.

Another issue with it is, of course, farmers are in competition with each other for land, and when some comes up for sale, the guy getting the better deal can outbid the other guy. That isnt a healthy situation, you need fair treatment, which in turn will create fair competition and spread the thing around more.

MayoAreMagic · 29-05-2021 07:56AM

wrangler wrote: »

The subs were there for everyone when I was developing the farm in the eighties and nineties, The farm needed lots of work when I got it, interest rates were 20%. Smart alecs were saying that they're not encouraging interference from the the department and sure the subs were given in the price of the beast and they didn't need to be filling forms anyway.
Hard to understand why every farm didn't maximise their payments then, maybe like herd there they had some conspiracy theory about it

Or maybe they werent around wrangler - that time frame is 20-30 years ago... When you were doing that, was there anyone asking you where you were in the 50s and 60s? I dont think so.

But you are right, the subs were there for developing - and now they may be moving elsewhere and someone else will do as you did, so what is the problem?

Dinzee Conlee · 29-05-2021 08:38AM

DBK1 wrote: »

What I should have also said in my previous post is that the only way to get a fair distribution between what are full time farmers, paper farmers etc. is to go back to a production based model. Then those who are more actively farming get more but that’s never going to happen.

Yes, production is the fairest - but we aren’t going back to that...
Your example above is kinda rewarding the hardest working - which is kinda rewarding production in a way...

A long time ago, someone suggested dividing the overall budget by the number of farmers, every farmer gets the same whether they farm 1ha or 100ha...
Not a viable option either, but you couldn’t argue it’s not fair too in one way

I’m all about the non-viable options it seems

Dinzee Conlee · 29-05-2021 08:42AM

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Or maybe they werent around wrangler - that time frame is 20-30 years ago... When you were doing that, was there anyone asking you where you were in the 50s and 60s? I dont think so.

Just on this - there is precedent for getting screwed over for 30 years - we would have lost out in the milk quota allocation, whenever that was, early 80s.
And the quota that was allocated stayed for 30 years - it was only the abolition of quota made things fair again...

I suppose the reality is that things will become fair again if the BPS goes, and everyone has to stand on their own 2 feet. But that’s a while aways...

youllbemine · 29-05-2021 08:56AM

Regarding the family farm model that people in towns and cities are sold through advertisements etc, I think these are the ones who should benefit from CAP. Not the Goodman types (Braganstown Farms Ltd) who took home almost €215,000 in CAP payments.

As a non farmer with a keen interest in agriculture and some who who thinks we should be keeping a family farm model and actually support it as opposed to rewarding those who have more.

Therefore, the fairest way forward that I can see is a payment per hectare and a cap thereafter. Something in the 20 ha range. This would result in smaller farmers being able to justify their enterprise and possibly keep younger people interested. Also might put off others expanding or renting or leasing land if it's just really for the payments as opposed to actually profiting from their enterprise model.

I see in large swathes of the country side as being abandoned in years to come. Plenty places around about Cavan, Leitrim area where noone wants to stay as there is no farm income worth talking about and the CAP payments are insufficient to keep someone away from moving to a town or city.

The next question or possibly first question to ask is whether or not we want people living in that part of the country or is the plan to just plant it and to help with communities and farming way of life there and elsewhere.

One thing is for sure there will be no problem to get young people to farm in the west of the country or in areas of good land.

Bottom line: flat payment per ha up to 20ha.

MayoAreMagic · 29-05-2021 08:59AM

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

Yes, production is the fairest - but we aren’t going back to that...
Your example above is kinda rewarding the hardest working - which is kinda rewarding production in a way...

A long time ago, someone suggested dividing the overall budget by the number of farmers, every farmer gets the same whether they farm 1ha or 100ha...
Not a viable option either, but you couldn’t argue it’s not fair too in one way

I’m all about the non-viable options it seems

Personally, id say the fairest way would be for farm units to be assessed and a reasonable range of minimum/maximum production and standards set as a target for each year. If you are outside the range you get cut - hard, if you are in then you are rewarded, with potential bonuses available for enviromental excellence. It is a simple way to reduce armchair farmers and cut out overly intensive systems also.
The data collected would also offer a good indicator as regards the productivity of areas and animal types etc in the country.

Dinzee Conlee · 29-05-2021 09:02AM

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

But the issue with that scenario is that once a guy declares himself a full time farmer, he gets favourable treatment to the next guy and the thing becomes a pension, and that isnt the way to go.
The reality is it isnt his income until it is awarded to him. Relying on subs that may not be coming your way isnt reliable full time employment or a steady business model, it is haphazard and unsustainable by nature. The subs can be re-routed and we all knew this at the outset. If the farm is no longer a viable unit for full-time farming without the subs then what other option is there than to go part time? I dont agree that people in this scenario should be 'kept in robes' sort of speak. It isnt fair. Others will be able to go full time, depending on how the subs are redistributed - that is just the nature of it.

Another issue with it is, of course, farmers are in competition with each other for land, and when some comes up for sale, the guy getting the better deal can outbid the other guy. That isnt a healthy situation, you need fair treatment, which in turn will create fair competition and spread the thing around more.

In essence, this is free money - so there will always be ways to play it, and lads will try that...
Your comment of it becoming a pension, surely that could be applied to anyone in receipt of BPS?

We hear of rural decline. We hear of places being empty during the day when everyone leaves to go to work, and full in the evenings and weekends. We hear of local shops closing, cos when everyone is commuting they buy in the Dunnes/Tesco they are passing in the urban centres...
My full time farmer dream is based on trying to reverse this trend - maybe naively...
But if a lad/lads wants to farm full time, let the government support them. If they earn over a certain amount the support goes down. It puts a base in place so full time farming could be a viable option for people...
Imagine if land all over the country was wanted by young people from all backgrounds that wanted to try farming, new people moving to the area, more kids in rural schools, more money in the local economy...
Yes, there are lots of loop holes in this, you could pick a million holes in it - but it’s fantasy anyways and won’t happen...

My point is instead of moving the money around to take from some and give to others, to make it seem more fair - we should ask ourselves what the point of the BPS is. Rather than looking it as a ‘those guys are getting more for ages so I deserve more’ or ‘it’s my money’ - see what we can do to improve things for farming and the country...

Edit - I am dragging this way off topic now, given the thread is convergence. So I’ll leave it at this maybe

Figerty · 29-05-2021 09:04AM

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

Yes, production is the fairest - but we aren’t going back to that...
Your example above is kinda rewarding the hardest working - which is kinda rewarding production in a way...

A long time ago, someone suggested dividing the overall budget by the number of farmers, every farmer gets the same whether they farm 1ha or 100ha...
Not a viable option either, but you couldn’t argue it’s not fair too in one way

I’m all about the non-viable options it seems

Production rate and quality are two different things.
I recall locals near me have big head count/acre but they were hungry miserable cattle. Head count only leads to head count and greed.

wrangler · 29-05-2021 10:18AM

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Or maybe they werent around wrangler - that time frame is 20-30 years ago... When you were doing that, was there anyone asking you where you were in the 50s and 60s? I dont think so.

But you are right, the subs were there for developing - and now they may be moving elsewhere and someone else will do as you did, so what is the problem?

Don't fool yourself, the extra subs are now going to doctors, solicitors, radiologists. The farmers taking over the good Payments are teh guys that are probably going to farm properly and these are the ones that you are looking to be penalised.
The farms were there in the nineties, but too many were like Herduitter.....didn't want to be beholden to anyone..... Trying to be cute hoors, that worked out well.
We had to farm properly because we had repayments to meet, I can assure you one beast sold, with or without subs, wouldn't be worth a damn, We needed the subs. we didn't have the luxury of trying to be a cute hoor at the time.

MayoAreMagic · 29-05-2021 10:43AM

wrangler wrote: »

Don't fool yourself, the extra subs are now going to doctors, solicitors, radiologists. The farmers taking over the good Payments are teh guys that are probably going to farm properly and these are the ones that you are looking to be penalised.
The farms were there in the nineties, but too many were like Herduitter.....didn't want to be beholden to anyone..... Trying to be cute hoors, that worked out well.
We had to farm properly because we had repayments to meet, I can assure you one beast sold, with or without subs, wouldn't be worth a damn, We needed the subs. we didn't have the luxury of trying to be a cute hoor at the time.

They arent being penalised though. The guys who got shafted 10 odd years ago - they are the ones getting penalised. Rebalancing that is completely fair. How can you justify arguing against fair treatment of these farmers going into another farmers pockets instead? Talk about the 90s all youlike, there is no justification.

As for being cute hoors - I think another example of that would be lads playing the poor mouth so they can hang onto money that rightfully, shouldnt be in their pockets in the first place, would you agree?

The reasons you suggest as to why these farms werent pushed forward are not guaranteed. As I have said previously, many people I know got such crap treatment that their farms were made unviable and so had to leave and not return. If they are in england working, they arent going to be watching for all the farm subs for the place back home. They had been made lose faith in it. Do you not see how that isnt their doing? Those farms are broken up now, sold off in parts, mainly due to the system of subs put in place. Can you not see that with a different pen stroke that could have been our farms also? So we arent special, or better, most of it is chance truth be told. True you have to work at it, but many wanted nothing more than the opportunity to do so.

Re needing subs, that goes for everyone does it not? So again, your argument falls down. If everyone needs them, then how can you take more than your share?

Furthermore, you seem to make a lot of assumptions about farmers based on their payments. It is a flawed methodology. The true 'better farmers' are surely the guys who got shafted on subs and yet still managed to make the thing viable, no? Pound for pound, they are the best in the country at present.

Cap reform convergence

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