Article on Latest on CAP Reform

paddysdream · 01-03-2013 12:09AM

Vandy West wrote: »

Thought modulation was used to distribute money thru the national reserve, and if the flat rate was applied to all of the 500,000 ha then there would be no need for a national reserve or modulation.

Don't understand the logic that a flat rate would increase the cost of rental land. Obviously the cost of rental would go up to account for the flat rate payment but the "real cost" (rental cost - flat rate payment) should not be above the current rental cost for bare acres. As well a flat rate may encourage smaller types to lease land and then all the productive farmers could use that land more efficiently.

Modulation may still be a feature as there will still have to be a national reserve for new entrants post 2015 plus young farmer scheme etc etc.

Has anybody any reason why those on good land should be penalised?
Reading the posts (and posters)on here there seems to be an obsession with the term "productive farmers".What is a productive farmer?
Is he the one with lots of stock and buildings ,pushing out cattle or sheep as fast as he can whilst spreading lots of fert. and slurry.
Or is he the one who maxamises the profit (the name of the game boys) from whatever land he has?
Everybody sees themselves as productive.But the term busy fool comes to mind.I dont know the age profile on here but any one trying to pay a mortgage and rear a family knows the costs are vastly different than when we were 25 and all we needed re. spending money was the price of a few nights out at the weekend .Its easy at that age to say lets reinvest all the sales money in the hope of making lots in a few years.The reality is that if you have to live in the here and now you have to be making money now ,not in a few years.

As regards the posters who believe (as the article in the op says)that those on marginal land have to work harder;well yes that is true in many cases but if you put in the same effort on good land then logically you would produce more and be by definition a more productive farmer.Farmers on poorer land arent the only ones who work hard.

I would hate to see a flat rate system introduced but if it comes to pass then its up to each and every farmer to do what he feels suits him best.If that entails doing nothing only claiming SFP then so be it.No point in whinging that the neighbour is getting the same as us whilst carrying no stock or crops etc.

What a lot of people seem to want is either.
(a) return to coupled payments;never gonna happen
(b) a social support for those seen to farm marginal land;why?why not plant it all if its unable to support meaningful farming.Do not mean to be insulting but can a guy in say the west with 10 or 15 sucklers and 100 ewes on the mountain be said to be a viable enterprise with or without a SFP.

Time to look at ewes so will continue to rave on either later or tomorrow night.

reilig · 01-03-2013 10:31AM

paddysdream wrote: »

Modulation may still be a feature as there will still have to be a national reserve for new entrants post 2015 plus young farmer scheme etc etc.

Has anybody any reason why those on good land should be penalised?

(b) a social support for those seen to farm marginal land;why?why not plant it all if its unable to support meaningful farming.Do not mean to be insulting but can a guy in say the west with 10 or 15 sucklers and 100 ewes on the mountain be said to be a viable enterprise with or without a SFP.

How are people on good land being penalised?

Why should people be penalised because of where they live, what type of farming they carry out and whay type of land they have? The majority of people in this country inherited some of the land that they farm - they may have bough more land, but the initial land most often dictated where they farmed and where they lived.

"The West"
Is that the area that springs to mind when you think about the fight for SFP?
Don't some farmers in the west work just as hard as some farmers in other parts of the country?
Are you saying that they deserve less SFP because of where they live and the amount and quality of land that they have?

Why wouldn't someone with 15 cows be a viable enterprise?
Surely a farmer with 1 cow, if he was farming viably could be considered to have a viable enterprise.
It may not provide a whole living, but it could provide part of an income.
Are you saying that part time farmers don't deserve SFP?
There are part-time and small farmers in every county in the country.

What do you deem as meaningful farming? There's a german couple that live near us and they have 10 goats on 4 acres. They feel that their farming enterprise is very meaningful and that they deserve SFP as much as a farmer in Cork with 500 acres! Any way wouldn't they?????

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 12:00PM

reilig wrote: »

.

"The West"
Is that the area that springs to mind when you think about the fight for SFP?
Don't some farmers in the west work just as hard as some farmers in other parts of the country?
Are you saying that they deserve less SFP because of where they live and the amount and quality of land that they have?

I'm going to jump into Paddy's defence here and say that the general theme on this thread was that many felt that farmers in certain areas and/or with poor quality land should be getting a higher premium than those with better land

He merely rebuted that the opposite arguement is equally relevant

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 12:10PM

reilig wrote: »

Why wouldn't someone with 15 cows be a viable enterprise?
Surely a farmer with 1 cow, if he was farming viably could be considered to have a viable enterprise.
It may not provide a whole living, but it could provide part of an income.
Are you saying that part time farmers don't deserve SFP?
There are part-time and small farmers in every county in the country.

What do you deem as meaningful farming? There's a german couple that live near us and they have 10 goats on 4 acres. They feel that their farming enterprise is very meaningful and that they deserve SFP as much as a farmer in Cork with 500 acres! Any way wouldn't they?????

A while back Reilig you posted a thread which said along the lines of farmers who were producing weanlings at a loss should have their SFP cut/cancelled. Your arguement was that they were putting animals onto the market at a loss and using the SFP to subsidise it - this meant a falsly increased supply as without the SFP these weanlings wouldn't exist. And you as a suckler farmer who is not producing at a loss is suffering as the supply is artifically inflated

Well this is the same situation with part time farmers - a huge number are using their wages to supplement their farming losses and producing stock which would not otherwise be there . Your 15 cows above is not a viable enterprise - it is impossible to live (in today's society), 10 goats is not a viable enterprise. Part timers don't even have to be making a loss, they can still be making a profit and be completly unviable

Yet these people are producing stock - increasing supply and thereby causing lower prices for stock for both full time and part time farmers.

And when your sole income is entirely dependant on how your farm performs it is a whole different ball game to those who have a wage to pay the mortgage and put food on the table

reilig · 01-03-2013 12:13PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

I'm going to jump into Paddy's defence here and say that the genereal theme on this thread was that many felt that farmers in certain areas and/or with poor quality land should be getting a higher premium than those with better land

He merely rubbeted that the opposite arguement is equally relevant

But nobody is suggesting that farmer's with marginal land should get higher premiums. Isn't the whole argument that marginal and better quality land should get the same?

Do not mean to be insulting but can a guy in say the west with 10 or 15 sucklers and 100 ewes on the mountain be said to be a viable enterprise with or without a SFP.

How can any person determine of the above type of farmers are operating a viable enterprise? He's classifying farmers by where they are from as opposed to how hard they work and how efficient they farm. It's extremely blindsighted!

reilig · 01-03-2013 12:21PM

That's not true. You are misquoting what I said.

I said that suckler farmers who are producing weinlings at below the cost of production should be encouraged not to be spending their SFP on providing cheap weinlings for finishers and should be actively encouraged to choose another enterprise such as finishing where they wouldn't have to spend their SFP to produce cattle and could retain it as profit. I never said anything about cutting or cancelling SFP. SFP is an income supplement, not a supplement to feed cattle or provide cheaper animals for finishers. I said that if farmers realised that they were spending their SFP unnecessarily and chose another farming enterprise, Farmers who were still producing weinlings would be demanding better prices which actually covered the cost of production and which would see them actually being able to turn a better profit.

It's perfectly viable to live in today's society with 15 suckler cows and an off farm job or even 10 goats and an off farm job. A viable farm is not solely a farm which provides full time employment and earnings for a person. Many part-time farmers operate viable farms across many farming enterprises. To be viable, their income outweighs their costs and they make a profit!

Just because someone has an off farm job does not mean that they aren't entitled to the same SFP as a full time farmer.

Some of the most efficient suckler farmers in the country only do it on a part-time basis. Some of them work twice as hard on their farm as some full time farmers.

Tipp Man wrote: »

A while back Reilig you posted a thread which said along the lines of farmers who were producing weanlings at a loss should have their SFP cut/cancelled. Your arguement was that they were putting animals onto the market at a loss and using the SFP to subsidise it - this meant a falsly increased supply as without the SFP these weanlings wouldn't exist. And you as a suckler farmer who is not producing at a loss is suffering as the supply is artifically inflated

Well this is the same situation with part time farmers - a huge number are using their wages to supplement their farming losses and producing stock which would not otherwise be there . Your 15 cows above is not a viable enterprise - it is impossible to live (in today's society), 10 goats is not a viable enterprise. Part timers don't even have to be making a loss, they can still be making a profit and be completly unviable

Yet these people are producing stock - increasing supply and thereby causing lower prices for stock for both full time and part time farmers.

And when your sole income is entirely dependant on how your farm performs it is a whole different ball game to those who have a wage to pay the mortgage and put food on the table

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 12:35PM

reilig wrote: »

That's not true. You are misquoting what I said.

I said that suckler farmers who are producing weinlings at below the cost of production should be encouraged not to be spending their SFP on providing cheap weinlings for finishers and should be actively encouraged to choose another enterprise such as finishing where they wouldn't have to spend their SFP to produce cattle and could retain it as profit. I never said anything about cutting or cancelling SFP. SFP is an income supplement, not a supplement to feed cattle or provide cheaper animals for finishers. I said that if farmers realised that they were spending their SFP unnecessarily and chose another farming enterprise, Farmers who were still producing weinlings would be demanding better prices which actually covered the cost of production and which would see them actually being able to turn a better profit.

It's perfectly viable to live in today's society with 15 suckler cows and an off farm job or even 10 goats and an off farm job. A viable farm is not solely a farm which provides full time employment and earnings for a person. Many part-time farmers operate viable farms across many farming enterprises. To be viable, their income outweighs their costs and they make a profit!

Just because someone has an off farm job does not mean that they aren't entitled to the same SFP as a full time farmer.

Some of the most efficient suckler farmers in the country only do it on a part-time basis. Some of them work twice as hard on their farm as some full time farmers.

Apologies I didn't mean to misquote you but can't find the thread on the phone and was only going from memory

However the theme is the same - you want them out of suckling as they are producing below the cost of production i.e a loss - causing oversupply and therefore a lower price for you and other profitable suckler farmers. a person with a wage is exactly the same. Whether a farmer uses their SFP or their wages - its exactly the same

Also I disagree completly with your definition of a viable enterprise. 15 sucklers/10 goats is not viable farming - it is hobby farming and should be treated as such

Juniorhurler · 01-03-2013 12:44PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

A while back Reilig you posted a thread which said along the lines of farmers who were producing weanlings at a loss should have their SFP cut/cancelled. Your arguement was that they were putting animals onto the market at a loss and using the SFP to subsidise it - this meant a falsly increased supply as without the SFP these weanlings wouldn't exist. And you as a suckler farmer who is not producing at a loss is suffering as the supply is artifically inflated

Well this is the same situation with part time farmers - a huge number are using their wages to supplement their farming losses and producing stock which would not otherwise be there . Your 15 cows above is not a viable enterprise - it is impossible to live (in today's society), 10 goats is not a viable enterprise. Part timers don't even have to be making a loss, they can still be making a profit and be completly unviable

Yet these people are producing stock - increasing supply and thereby causing lower prices for stock for both full time and part time farmers.

And when your sole income is entirely dependant on how your farm performs it is a whole different ball game to those who have a wage to pay the mortgage and put food on the table

I know a lot of part timers and they are not doing this.

A system is viable once it makes a profit. It can be part of income or whole income for the farmer. For example, my share of the home farm is carrying 29 sucklers on a little over 40 acres. Is this not viable? Would me being full time allow me to stock it any heavier?

Should I be punished for being in the yard at 5.30 this morning so I could be finished in time to get to work for 9? Or being in the yard until about 8 tonight because I was in work all day today?

reilig · 01-03-2013 12:50PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

However the theme is the same - you want them out of suckling as they are producing below the cost of production i.e a loss - causing oversupply and therefore a lower price for you and other profitable suckler farmers. a person with a wage is exactly the same. Whether a farmer uses their SFP or their wages - its exactly the same

I'm not talking about suckler farmers using either their SFP or their wages. The animals that they are producing should be making enough profit that they don't have to spend their SFP or wages on teh farm, they should be able to keep it in their pocket.

Look at it in another way. If 5,000 farmers got out of suckler farming after the new SFP is announced and decided that they are going to finish cattle - maybe buy bucket fed calves at 12 months old or weinlings sold by other farmers. Maybe a lot of these guys are older and not fit for the demands of suckler farming and see finishing bullocks or heifers on silage and grass for the factories as an option with less work. Now what if a lot of these people are getting a pension and don't rely on the SFP for income, yet some would prefer to spend the SFP so that they don't have to pay income tax on it. Perhaps they would buy meal with it. They wouldn't really be worried about profit - just as long as they got a good price at the factory for the finished animal and it basically "kept money together".

How would viable finishers feel if 5000 extra farmers suddenly came on the scene and were sending an average of 50,000 cattle to the factories every year along side them? How would viable finishers feel if this group of people accepted lowere factory prices - prices which were actually below the cost of production of the viable finisher who needed better prices to make a profit and pay a mortgage and keep a family???

Larry Goodman would be in heaven, that's for sure.

Now, let's say again, that this group of 5000 farmers suddenly decided to switch from finishing cattle to keeping sheep - what would happen? Viable farmers would be able to demand prices for their animals which actually reflected teh cost of production.

I was trying to make a similar point to this - but in teh context of suckler farming.

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 01:05PM

Juniorhurler wrote: »

I know a lot of part timers and they are not doing this.

A system is viable once it makes a profit. It can be part of income or whole income for the farmer. For example, my share of the home farm is carrying 29 sucklers on a little over 40 acres. Is this not viable? Would me being full time allow me to stock it any heavier?

Should I be punished for being in the yard at 5.30 this morning so I could be finished in time to get to work for 9? Or being in the yard until about 8 tonight because I was in work all day today?

there is a simple test to see if your 29 cows are viable or not

If you lost the job in the morning could you survive on the money left over from the 29 cows at the end of every year? If you couldn't then i would class your holding as unviable and hobby farming. Nobody is forcing or even asking you to get up at 5.30 to work. That is your choice. You could probably make the same "profit" renting out the 40 acres

I know a couple of guys surving on 30 dairy cows only (although the number of these has fallen dramatically in the last 10 years) so I know that 30 dairy cows is viable (just about at this stage) - I'm not so certain about 30 sucklers

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 01:19PM

reilig wrote: »

I'm not talking about suckler farmers using either their SFP or their wages. The animals that they are producing should be making enough profit that they don't have to spend their SFP or wages on teh farm, they should be able to keep it in their pocket.

Look at it in another way. If 5,000 farmers got out of suckler farming after the new SFP is announced and decided that they are going to finish cattle - maybe buy bucket fed calves at 12 months old or weinlings sold by other farmers. Maybe a lot of these guys are older and not fit for the demands of suckler farming and see finishing bullocks or heifers on silage and grass for the factories as an option with less work. Now what if a lot of these people are getting a pension and don't rely on the SFP for income, yet some would prefer to spend the SFP so that they don't have to pay income tax on it. Perhaps they would buy meal with it. They wouldn't really be worried about profit - just as long as they got a good price at the factory for the finished animal and it basically "kept money together".

How would viable finishers feel if 5000 extra farmers suddenly came on the scene and were sending an average of 50,000 cattle to the factories every year along side them? How would viable finishers feel if this group of people accepted lowere factory prices - prices which were actually below the cost of production of the viable finisher who needed better prices to make a profit and pay a mortgage and keep a family???

Larry Goodman would be in heaven, that's for sure.

Now, let's say again, that this group of 5000 farmers suddenly decided to switch from finishing cattle to keeping sheep - what would happen? Viable farmers would be able to demand prices for their animals which actually reflected teh cost of production.

I was trying to make a similar point to this - but in teh context of suckler farming.

The thing is Reilig people are free to spend their SFP as they choose - be that on shares, property investments, holidays, cars, tractors or maintaining a loss making suckler enterprise.

In your above situation - if the profits from finishing went below a certain level after the 5000 new entrants then I have 3 choices - 1 is put up with the lower profits or 2 is change my cattle system or 3 invest in a plough or a milking machine.

People have to adapt to the market as it is and how they anticipate it will be in the medium to long term and make their choices based on that. The reality is that SFP is part of the market as people are willing to spend it on cattle/sucklers, rent etc

reilig · 01-03-2013 01:23PM

I don't agree especially in this context.

paddysdream in his post suggested that a farmer was not carrying out meaningful or viable farming if he was in the west and farming 15 sucklers and 100 mountain ewes. There is no way that he can tell without examining each farm individually. Some farm's are viable, some are not. Again it goes back to a thread from yesterday - It doesn't matter what the farmer is doing - it's how he's doing it. Nor does it matter the quality of land, it's how he is farming it!

Viable does not in an economic context mean that a farm is wholely providing. Part-time farms can be viable. People can work part-time off farm and part-time on farm and the farm can provide half of their income and these farms can be termed viable. Regardless of the size of a farm, it can be viable.

Hobby farms are those that people are pumping money into with no return - god knows there are enough of them across the country too!

Tipp Man wrote: »

there is a simple test to see if your 29 cows are viable or not

If you lost the job in the morning could you survive on the money left over from the 29 cows at the end of every year? If you couldn't then i would class your holding as unviable and hobby farming. Nobody is forcing or even asking you to get up at 5.30 to work. That is your choice. You could probably make the same "profit" renting out the 40 acres

I know a couple of guys surving on 30 dairy cows only (although the number of these has fallen dramatically in the last 10 years) so I know that 30 dairy cows is viable (just about at this stage) - I'm not so certain about 30 sucklers

reilig · 01-03-2013 01:28PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

The thing is Reilig people are free to spend their SFP as they choose - be that on shares, property investments, holidays, cars, tractors or maintaining a loss making suckler enterprise.

In your above situation - if the profits from finishing went below a certain level after the 5000 new entrants then I have 3 choices - 1 is put up with the lower profits or 2 is change my cattle system or 3 invest in a plough or a milking machine.

People have to adapt to the market as it is and how they anticipate it will be in the medium to long term and make their choices based on that. The reality is that SFP is part of the market as people are willing to spend it on cattle/sucklers, rent etc

I agree.

Yet a huge amount of farmers on an annual basis are unable to see that they are making a loss - be that from a lack of education, unwillingness to see or a poor understanding. They don't change. Its their own choice. You and I have the vision to change if what we are doing is not viable. Others see no choice.

Juniorhurler · 01-03-2013 01:42PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

there is a simple test to see if your 29 cows are viable or not

If you lost the job in the morning could you survive on the money left over from the 29 cows at the end of every year? If you couldn't then i would class your holding as unviable and hobby farming. Nobody is forcing or even asking you to get up at 5.30 to work. That is your choice. You could probably make the same "profit" renting out the 40 acres

I know a couple of guys surving on 30 dairy cows only (although the number of these has fallen dramatically in the last 10 years) so I know that 30 dairy cows is viable (just about at this stage) - I'm not so certain about 30 sucklers

I agree I could not live off this alone. However, it is contributing to my income quite nicely as a supplement to my wages. I agree also I am doing it by choice, I am not looking for any plaudits. I could not make the same profit renting it out, I have done the sums.

I think I have answered all parts of your post, now will you answer the rest of mine? Why should I lose out because I am part time? My few acres is producing as much as a stand alone enterprise as it would incorporated into a bigger enterprise, so why should I as a part time farmer be entitled to less sfp than a full time farmer per hectare, or none for that matter?

Nobody is stopping the full timers having other interests either, and iirc you mentioned having a business outside farming too in the past, so should you get no sfp because of that?

freedominacup · 01-03-2013 01:42PM

reilig wrote: »

I agree.

Yet a huge amount of farmers on an annual basis are unable to see that they are making a loss - be that from a lack of education, unwillingness to see or a poor understanding. They don't change. Its their own choice. Others see no choice.

and the function of the SFP in that sort of situation is to.........?

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 01:50PM

Well it all boils down to what people class as viable

here is a definition of what a viable holding in Ireland is as taken from the national farm survey:

http://www.irishfarmersmonthly.com/Latest-News/teagasc-national-farm-survey-income-up-debt-down.html

"The proportion of economically viable farms increased from 34 per cent in 2011 from 27 per cent in 2010. A viable farm is defined in the NFS as having the capacity to (a) pay family labour at the average agricultural wage, and (b) provide a 5 per cent return on non-land assets. Farms that are not economically viable are sustainable if the farmer and/or the spouse are employed off the farm. Farms that are neither viable nor sustainable are classified as economically vulnerable. The number of farms considered economically vulnerable stands at 35 per cent.

Productivity on dairy farms
Dairy farms tend to have the highest proportion of viable farm businesses. Over 75 per cent of dairy farms and 60 per cent of tillage farms were classified as economically viable businesses in 2011. The proportion of economically viable cattle farms remains low at about 20 per cent. FFI increased most significantly for larger farms, with dairy and tillage continuing to have the highest farm incomes. "

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 01:53PM

So just to clarify - you can be making a profit but still not be a viable holding

I think people need to realise this

paddysdream · 01-03-2013 02:37PM

Didnt mean to single out the west .Look if you have 15 cows selling 15 weanlings at 800 each thats 12k plus 125 store lambs at say 60 euro each.Total of 19.5k before costs etc.
Dont know exactly what a suckler cow leaves in profit.Lets say 250 per head per year.(never had them and just guessing here ok)
Add in the sheep.Lets be generous and show a margin of 40 euro per ewe.

Now we have a profit of ;how much?7750 euro or 149 per week.Pretty viable

Honestly have no idea re. sucklers but with lowland ewes you need 500 or so well done sheep to get a reasonable return ie in excess of 20k
Lets not forget thats a little less than 400 per week.
To me thats only surviving and without REPS and Sfp couldnt see a future in it.
I farm to make a profit and always did.If in the morning it payed me better to set the place and just draw the subs then thats my future and my business.

Dont mean to be insulting but I had lots of poor land one time .Should I suffer for increasing productivity(da magic word) by draining etc in the 90s?

As regards being penalised for an accident of birth ;well thats life so get over it.I could sit at home and whinge why didnt we get better land 200 years ago or why my ggrand daddy didnt work harder and leave more land

One last point and then goodbye as its hard to eat the spuds and type.
Dont forget where the vast majority of Irelands SFP came from.Yes from the beef subs and slaughter premium.Without those Irelands budget wouldnt be near as big.

reilig · 01-03-2013 02:54PM

paddysdream wrote: »

Didnt mean to single out the west .Look if you have 15 cows selling 15 weanlings at 800 each thats 12k plus 125 store lambs at say 60 euro each.Total of 19.5k before costs etc.
Dont know exactly what a suckler cow leaves in profit.Lets say 250 per head per year.(never had them and just guessing here ok)
Add in the sheep.Lets be generous and show a margin of 40 euro per ewe.

Now we have a profit of ;how much?7750 euro or 149 per week.Pretty viable

Honestly have no idea re. sucklers but with lowland ewes you need 500 or so well done sheep to get a reasonable return ie in excess of 20k
Lets not forget thats a little less than 400 per week.
To me thats only surviving and without REPS and Sfp couldnt see a future in it.
I farm to make a profit and always did.If in the morning it payed me better to set the place and just draw the subs then thats my future and my business.

Dont mean to be insulting but I had lots of poor land one time .Should I suffer for increasing productivity(da magic word) by draining etc in the 90s?

As regards being penalised for an accident of birth ;well thats life so get over it.I could sit at home and whinge why didnt we get better land 200 years ago or why my ggrand daddy didnt work harder and leave more land

One last point and then goodbye as its hard to eat the spuds and type.
Dont forget where the vast majority of Irelands SFP came from.Yes from the beef subs and slaughter premium.Without those Irelands budget wouldnt be near as big.

Accident at birth and being born on marginal land is one side of the story. But is there not another side to the argument - what about the accident at birth that saw some people born onto quality land. Are you arguing that these people deserve more SFP than people born on marginal land just because of the lquality of land that they were born into?

I don't think you understand where the total amount of SFP comes from. it's from Europe, not from slaughter premiums. If in 2002 there were no SFP's allocated based on slaughter premiums then the other farming types would have gotten more. What I'm saying is that there was a total amount of CAP allocated to Ireland in 2002 and this was allocated to farmers based on suckler cow numbers, slaughter premiums etc. This was only a method of dividing the total amount that Ireland was going to receive. As we all know, the allocation of SFP based on salughter premium is the major factor as to why we have so many armchair farmers - they didn't have to hold a lot of land to have a high payment. They just had to have a lot of cattle passed through their herd to factories. This is why the likes of Larry Goodman has €1.5 million in SFP and it goes to show that the whole method of allocating SFP through salughter premiums was a farse which led to a whole load of people getting money for doing nothing and failed to reward the active farmers.

Nobody is asking you to suffer for increasing productivity. Nobody is "whinging" that they should get higher SFP than others because they are on marginal land. People only want to see the money divided fairly and equally and not on a system which rewards multi - millionaire meat factory owners or armchair farmers.

reilig · 01-03-2013 03:02PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

Well it all boils down to what people class as viable

here is a definition of what a viable holding in Ireland is as taken from the national farm survey:

http://www.irishfarmersmonthly.com/Latest-News/teagasc-national-farm-survey-income-up-debt-down.html

"The proportion of economically viable farms increased from 34 per cent in 2011 from 27 per cent in 2010. A viable farm is defined in the NFS as having the capacity to (a) pay family labour at the average agricultural wage, and (b) provide a 5 per cent return on non-land assets. Farms that are not economically viable are sustainable if the farmer and/or the spouse are employed off the farm. Farms that are neither viable nor sustainable are classified as economically vulnerable. The number of farms considered economically vulnerable stands at 35 per cent.

That's only one definition which has been created by a farming publication in order to make its point. The fact still remains that a huge proportion of farmers in this country have off farm jobs. Many are farming what land they have to its highest productivity level. These guys should not be excluded from SFP. They contribute to the agricultural economy in the same way as full time farmers.

The definition above does not take into account assets which allow these so called viable farmers to be able to live off the land. It doesn't account for loans or the lack of loans which many younger farmers are forced to take jobs off farm to pay for including the purchase of land, the development of land and the purchase of essential equipment. It's flawed as scewes statistics in order to prove its point instead of taking all statistics into account!

Tipp Man · 01-03-2013 03:29PM

reilig wrote: »

That's only one definition which has been created by a farming publication in order to make its point. The fact still remains that a huge proportion of farmers in this country have off farm jobs. Many are farming what land they have to its highest productivity level. These guys should not be excluded from SFP. They contribute to the agricultural economy in the same way as full time farmers.

The definition above does not take into account assets which allow these so called viable farmers to be able to live off the land. It doesn't account for loans or the lack of loans which many younger farmers are forced to take jobs off farm to pay for including the purchase of land, the development of land and the purchase of essential equipment. It's flawed as scewes statistics in order to prove its point instead of taking all statistics into account!

It's Teagasc's definition as per the National Farm Survey - not the publications definition

the fact remains that 15 sucklers, 10 goats or 100 sheep are not viable farms and haven't been for at least 30 years

reilig · 01-03-2013 03:41PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

It's Teagasc's definition as per the National Farm Survey - not the publications definition

the fact remains that 15 sucklers, 10 goats or 100 sheep are not viable farms and haven't been for at least 30 years

But the definition that you give of a non viable farm doesn't account for loans for land purchase or land development or essential machinery purchase. Someone with no loans could be viable with 100 acres whereas someone with 200 acres and moderate borrowings that the can afford to repay could be classed as non-viable.

In the survey, 34% of farms are viable, 35% are vulnerable. Where are the other 30% of farms?

It still doesn't mean that a vilnerable farm does not deserve any SFP??????? Is it not arguable that if many of the vulnerable Farms as per the survey received their fair share of SFP then they could move from being Vulnerable to Viable???

And back to the point that I was making - Part Time farmers deserve an SFP as much as Full time farmers.

Poor Farmer in the hills · 01-03-2013 09:58PM

Has our minister for agriculture realised in the last few days that the IFA are only speaking for a minority of farmers in the country? There seems to be a bit of a shift in his policies in the last few days and hence a rift with the IFA.

Vandy West · 01-03-2013 11:06PM

Poor Farmer in the hills wrote: »

Has our minister for agriculture realised in the last few days that the IFA are only speaking for a minority of farmers in the country? There seems to be a bit of a shift in his policies in the last few days and hence a rift with the IFA.

Why is there not a small farmers ifa , think ifa dues are based on farm size so they will favor the bigger farmer, although it's better for farmers to have a United voice, seems there may be a need for a farm "union" to represent the small or medium size farmer.

Conmaicne Mara · 02-03-2013 12:33AM

Vandy West wrote: »

Why is there not a small farmers ifa , think ifa dues are based on farm size so they will favor the bigger farmer, although it's better for farmers to have a United voice, seems there may be a need for a farm "union" to represent the small or medium size farmer.

There's something called the United Farmers Association, but I can't tell you much about them.

merryberry · 02-03-2013 01:33AM

Vandy West wrote: »

Why is there not a small farmers ifa , think ifa dues are based on farm size so they will favor the bigger farmer, although it's better for farmers to have a United voice, seems there may be a need for a farm "union" to represent the small or medium size farmer.

Here here...the public sector for example have multiple unions covering several civil/ public groups. Farmers are delivering a variety of public goods. A ‘one size fits all’ policy representation is not working.

rancher · 02-03-2013 08:11AM

merryberry wrote: »

Here here...the public sector for example have multiple unions covering several civil/ public groups. Farmers are delivering a variety of public goods. A ‘one size fits all’ policy representation is not working.

You'd just wonder would the farmers who can't be bothered to get involved in IFA, get involved in any organisation.
The opinion here is that 'small farmers' are in the majority, yet its the 'big farmers' who put the work into the organisation.
United farmers is around a good while, which kinda proves my point.
Everyone seems able to criticise but no one is able to come up with anything as good

rancher · 02-03-2013 08:15AM

Poor Farmer in the hills wrote: »

Has our minister for agriculture realised in the last few days that the IFA are only speaking for a minority of farmers in the country? There seems to be a bit of a shift in his policies in the last few days and hence a rift with the IFA.

I have said here here before that the EU wants payments levelled out and I believe thats the way its going to finish up, but it will be to the detriment of agriculture in this country

reilig · 02-03-2013 09:36AM

rancher wrote: »

I have said here here before that the EU wants payments levelled out and I believe thats the way its going to finish up, but it will be to the detriment of agriculture in this country

I'd say that the in the not too distant future the EU won't be able to afford subsidies for food at all. Then things will either go well or go bust for irish farmers.

bbam · 02-03-2013 10:07AM

reilig wrote: »

I'd say that the in the not too distant future the EU won't be able to afford subsidies for food at all. Then things will either go well or go bust for irish farmers.

Roll on that day....
Then we'll have a more level playing field.. Those who have been striving towards an actual profitable model will remain and those who are blindly farming away but being kept afloat by the bloated SFP based on a decade old information will be forced to shape up or ship out..

Really.. Irish farmers talk more about their SFP than they do about profit/costs/margins or any of the financial topics that they should be focusing on..

Its plane to see through the tone of this thread that the sense of entitlement to huge chunks of money from another tax payers pocket is embarrassing..
"I deserve it because daddy worked hard during the reference years"
"I deserve it because I have a great big farm of good land"
"I deserve it because I have a farm in the west"
"I deserve it........ insert what ever moan/boast you feel like

Any non farming person finding themselves on this thread would just have the whole notion that farmers are more interested in money handouts than farming efficiently confirmed for them..

The sooner the SFP is gone the better for Irish farming, a few tough years and then whoever comes out the other side will be better off..

This is some taxpayers money we seem to think we have an entitlement to !

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