Making money from a smallholding

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Making money from a smallholding
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Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 07 1:57 pm Post subject:

crofter wrote:

Cho-ku-ri wrote:

In a year or two I'm hoping farmers will be paid a fair price to produce food to feed our non self sufficient population on local food again.

British farmers can never compete against south american beef or grain from Kazakstan. Supermarkets will continue to ruthlessly drive down the prices they pay to suppliers. I can only see a future for very large and very small producers, large because they can benefit from economies of scale and small because they can target niche markets.

It's attitudes like that which I faced ten years ago going into the industry- it can't be done. Well I stick two fingers up at them, supermarkets, 'commercial' meat buyers & the lot. I've heard lots of ideas from 'experts' that there is one particular way to do things (grain feeding etc.)- there is never only one solution. If we didn't have half the rubbish brought about by improper practises, then 'real' food wouldn't have the added cost that it does.

See the Superfarms topic for my thoughts on Mr Hawkins & his ideas. Decent food is what man has always eaten, modern pseudo-food is a tiny blip in human dietary evolution, IMHO. I'm sure it's not a niche, but industry structure is set up to try & make it so. And as long as the average age of producers is pushed up, where will new ideas come from?

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 07 10:11 pm Post subject:

Justme wrote:

crofter wrote:

Government will never tax imports, even if a government was elected which *wanted* to do so, the WTO would consider it illegal.

Er nearly all imports have some sort of duty / tax (ok some are very low) just not on food. You try importing stuff from abroad & wait for the duty / tax bill & its not just VAT. The gove had a huge database of products with diff code for diff rates of duty. Looked at doing some importing a few years back when I owned a PC parts distro & we checked outr all the codes. If we used one code the tax was huge but another code had almost no duty 7 both descriptions fitted fine.

Justme

Last year I imported a container load of plastic pipes. It had to sit in Immingham docks for 24 hours until my VAT payment cleared but there was no other duty to pay. I should perhaps have been more clear and said something like "Government will never impose punitive import taxes on food"

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 07 10:16 pm Post subject:
I read your superfarms thread, Rob and I agree with what you write. I am not saying "it can't be done" just that global economics will force farming in this country to change, some will adapt quickly enough to survive, others will not.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 07 10:36 pm Post subject:

You said British farmers will never compete... That is a line I have heard a lot. I know the implication was perhaps that 'we will never compete on a price basis as long as the economic & legislative imbalance occurs', but I think it worth adding to that; I don't think that British farmers should be looking to compete at all. There will always be rubbish coming in, but if we chose to compete with such people by producing something even more rubbish, then we deserve to go out of business.

crofter wrote:

I read your superfarms thread, Rob and I agree with what you write. I am not saying "it can't be done" just that global economics will force farming in this country to change, some will adapt quickly enough to survive, others will not.

There is also a point to be made that global forces would have encouraged change much earlier, rather than forcing it later on, had the UK industry not been set against it with quotas, subsidies and other barriers to change that have held us back all these years.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45685
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 8:23 am Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

Back you 100% on this. There's no earthly way we can compete with prairie cattle or other commodity products. We have to accept that and move on.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45685
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 8:33 am Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

modern pseudo-food is a tiny blip in human dietary evolution, IMHO. I'm sure it's not a niche, but industry structure is set up to try & make it so. And as long as the average age of producers is pushed up, where will new ideas come from?

Not sure that it's as small a blip as you'd expect, but yes there are no structures in place to help younger people to enter the industry, most are designed to perpetuate the status quo (or in some extreme cases Phil Collins).

We need more younger people coming into the industry but with the ag tie system and the amazing land prices that leisure activities and housing offer it's not exactly an easy market to enter.

There's a 117 acre residential farm down the road from me �1.5m with an ag tie, how could you make it work? I think I know, but I couldn't buy it cos of the ag tie.....

The ag tie system is complete and total b*ll**ks and needs to be replaced by something that actually encourages new farmers into the industry.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 8:40 am Post subject:
I think when people say british farmers can't compete, they ought to specify on price Of course that's how most people judge food, but comparing Rob's beef Tesco's is like comparing a ford fiesta to a Ferrari. Totally differnt product - I bet no-one buys both on an interchangable basis. Agree about the ag tag system, too, andhave found myself in a simililar position.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 8:48 am Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

comparing Rob's beef Tesco's is like comparing a ford fiesta to a Ferrari. Totally differnt product - I bet no-one buys both on an interchangable basis.

Many people do, actually.

You need a Ferrari for going to the golf club, for long trips, for when you want to show off. You need a Fiesta for popping to the shops and parking in town.

People buy better food when they want to show off, or have the bank manager round for dinner (Jesus, I've slipped into an episode of George and Mildred...). Tuesday tea time? Instant mince is just the ticket!

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45685
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 8:51 am Post subject:
That's true, a lot of people see organic etc labelling as a status thing

VSS

Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2845
Location: Llyn Peninsula, North Wales

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 11:13 am Post subject:

Having read the Farmer's Guardian while eating breakfast, i see that David Milliband is saying that reducing farming's environmental footprint is more important than fod security.

While i agree that minimising environmental impact is important, throwing caution to the wind and relying on imports is just crazy.

We live on an island. It wouldn't be hard to have our food supply routes disrupted or cut.

We just have to abmit that we will get no help from the powers that be.

At least we won't starve!

www.viableselfsufficiency.co.uk

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 12:54 pm Post subject:

VSS wrote:

We just have to abmit that we will get no help from the powers that be.

No. What we get is a mountain of paperwork and regulations, over-zealous inspectors and less freedom to farm with each passing year. Government will sacrifice farming to meet environmental targets, (nitrates, livestock methane etc)

Green Man

Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5272
Location: Rural Scotland.

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 4:40 pm Post subject:
Agriculture is Britain's last industry to export. Farmers, thanks to the subsidies the French and Germans fought for, are so much more resilient than textile or manufacturing businessmen that have long since relocated. The difference is, if agriculture is relocated abroad, what is to become of our manicured landscape? Are we really all prepared to watch it revert to non-productive scrub?

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 8:24 pm Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

how most people judge food, but comparing Rob's beef Tesco's is like comparing a ford fiesta to a Ferrari. Totally differnt product

The difference is though that a Ferrari & a Fiesta have a huge price differential. My beef price is based upon an average retail price. Which makes the point that decent food doesn't need to be expensive, it just often is to make people buy it, for the reasons Nick states.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 07 8:33 pm Post subject:

Cho-ku-ri wrote:

Farmers, thanks to the subsidies the French and Germans fought for, are so much more resilient than textile or manufacturing businessmen that have long since relocated.

Are we really all prepared to watch it revert to non-productive scrub?

This is a common misconception that subsidies have helped British farmers. Yes, short term, they improved the viability of some farming enterprises but they, along with the regulations & stipulations that go with them, have held the industry back, resistant to change. Some sectors didn't have the subs,such as pigs & poultry, which meant that to compete with the subsidised sectors they had to go more intensive to be viable. If we hadn't had the subs, I can't see there would have been as much intensive farming as has developed.

Lorrainelovesplants

Joined: 13 Oct 2006
Posts: 6521
Location: Dordogne

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 07 4:57 pm Post subject:

ANYWAY

To get back to the point of making money from a smallholding...
Weve been trying to do the same thing now for over a year. Its been hard, but we do B&B supplemented by plant sales supplemented by part time lecturing.

The tourist thing is where the money is. Any animals will just drain money away (even though we love them). Our 'business' allows us to keep the animals, otherwise it wouldnt be cost effective.

Ideas for you -
country cream teas
camping/caravanning
making and selling chicken huts/rabbit hutches.
secure Boat storage
Growing herbs to sell to local restaurants/fruit/veg shops
Farm/grow turf for the landscape industry
install Fish lakes

AND I totally agree that the ag tie system is bo**ocks!
Trying to 'farm' one acre has proved a joke. And what agricultural worker could ever afford an ag tie property in Cornwall!!

Lorraine

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