Any other farmers on here?
If so are you just sick tired, and pissing fed up with just how much worse the last 18 months can get?
Shit harvest, massive problems with sheep / lambs with disease, loosing 60-70% production, so much rain next years harvests seeds simply rotting in the ground, means buying more seed, that dosnt exist due to this years shit harvest. Then the after crimbo lambing is going just as badly as the pre christmas session, very worried that the cows have got it to, and thats if half of them are even in calve as there not showing much sign yet, on top of just being outside in this pisstake weather trawling around knee deep in shit for the last year with no sign of the sunshine yet...
Its enough to drive a man to drink, and honestly don't know how many farmers are going to make it through this year financially.
Rant not over!
Feel for you (and others in your situation).
It really is a bit of a hopeless situation
(28-01-2013, 04:47 PM)darrenjlobb Wrote: [ -> ]Any other farmers on here?
If so are you just sick tired, and pissing fed up with just how much worse the last 18 months can get?
Shit harvest, massive problems with sheep / lambs with disease, loosing 60-70% production, so much rain next years harvests seeds simply rotting in the ground, means buying more seed, that dosnt exist due to this years shit harvest. Then the after crimbo lambing is going just as badly as the just as badly as the pre christmas session, very worried that the cows have got it to, and thats if half of them are even in calve as there not showing much sign yet, on top of just being outside in this pisstake weather trawling around knee deep in shit for the last year with no sign of the sunshine yet...]
Its enough to drive a man to fix his car, and honestly don't know how many farmers are going to make it through this year financially.
Rant not over!
EFA
On a serious note, I was reading exactly the same thing on an article on bbc news, feel for you pal!
The British government make trying to make any money out of farming as near as impossible as you can get as it is, let alone with all this going on...For the nations 100% sheep farmers, they have little hope as far as I can see.
Its shit mate, its gonna f*ck us all over another bad year cos if your production is down then food prices are up a silly amount again this year.
The shit thing is theres nothing we can do and the government aint gonna pay you for trying your best, then if there are no farmers cos they've all gone bust then were mega f*cked.
Id love to be able to offer help and advice but i really cant. Maybe get all your fields made into poly tunnels with some hardcore hydroponics set up like they use for growing "tomatoes"
I've worked on farms part time for nearly 15 years and like you say it's been a shit year, the farm I was working on for the last 3 years has had to sell his forager and silage trailers as couldn't afford to keep them! Sold most of his cows as no food to feed them, and what food we have got left isn't very good the silage is soaking wet and the hay got wet after it was baled, where I live there is over 100 acres of maize still stood in the field dead as it was too wet to get to it!
Lol thats where your so wrong tho...and the entire problem with the UK...
If we are go...it will make no difference at all, as they will just import a touch more on top of all they import already, they would much rather import cheap crap reared in harsh / unsafe conditions than buy quality british food grown in good standards forced upon us by the government themselves!
Food prices wont be expensive, they will be what they should be, food is just so stupidly cheap these days people have lost touch on wtf is behind what there buying....all fault of the supermarket.
Saw something brilliant the other day said something along the lines of
'if your foods advertised it's going to be full of shit'
Got to agree all this processed and cheap food is utter crap, we live in a nation of people that can all barely Cook and have no concept of the difference between good food and crap!
Maybe time to start a car tuning business?
Tbh I can't beleive that we import so much of the stuff that we can grow here!!! We buy British where we can, support the local butcher, yes I can buy meat cheaper at asda but it don't taste the bloody same!! Thing is I think a lot of it is down to people being lazy and buying processed shit, they say its expensive to eat a decent fresh meal, when in reality it's not, we have a family of 5 and spend around 500 a month on food lol, though that's not that bad when you think about it
But I do eat well lol
I'm away from home at the moment
But we've had the same disease with the lambs. We're lambing at the moment and apparently getting about 20-25% deformed. Not great. Hoping it won't affect the cows too!
I only live on a small holding which is my dads hobby when he's not at his full time job as an engineer.
We only have livestock too so no crops to worry about, but pretty sure we don't have enough silage this year and going to have to try and buy some again!
We wanted to make it into hay but didnt work out with the weather!
And yeah I agree the food industry is f*cked with the massive supermarkets screwing the prices. But I don't think it's going to get any better as people have now got used to the cheap food!
At the end of the day, everything in the world comes down to money. We all want everything for as little as possible, buisnesses want to pay workers as little as possible and the government want to spend as little as possible.
It's wrong, but it won't change. We all know its cheaper to import stuff than buy British. Even more so for the supermarkets that can bulk buy huge amounts.
I can relate to that feeling of hopelessness though, but I'm sure you'll get through it (surprising what you can do when there no choice) and who knows what the weather might bring this year, good luck I guess.
(28-01-2013, 06:34 PM)Toms306 Wrote: [ -> ]At the end of the day, everything in the world comes down to money. We all want everything for as little as possible, buisnesses want to pay workers as little as possible and the government want to spend as little as possible.
It's wrong, but it won't change. We all know its cheaper to import stuff than buy British. Even more so for the supermarkets that can bulk buy huge amounts.
I can relate to that feeling of hopelessness though, but I'm sure you'll get through it (surprising what you can do when there no choice) and who knows what the weather might bring this year, good luck I guess.
Nothings changed in the last 15 years, so i cant see anything changing now or anytime soon.... I think your a little out of touch on just how bad the situation in which british agriculture now finds itself in.
I know its not much but I've started buying from local butchers after hearing the tough times recently
I hope it gets better for you guys but as you say I can't see it changing much
There was a mini-documentary on the news a while back which followed a milk farmer, it was pretty grim
Basically the profit margin is non-existent, one bad day and you don't make any money for that month.
There needs to be more breaks for farmers so they can actually turn a profit.
(28-01-2013, 06:51 PM)darrenjlobb Wrote: [ -> ] (28-01-2013, 06:34 PM)Toms306 Wrote: [ -> ]At the end of the day, everything in the world comes down to money. We all want everything for as little as possible, buisnesses want to pay workers as little as possible and the government want to spend as little as possible.
It's wrong, but it won't change. We all know its cheaper to import stuff than buy British. Even more so for the supermarkets that can bulk buy huge amounts.
I can relate to that feeling of hopelessness though, but I'm sure you'll get through it (surprising what you can do when there no choice) and who knows what the weather might bring this year, good luck I guess.
Nothings changed in the last 15 years, so i cant see anything changing now or anytime soon.... I think your a little out of touch on just how bad the situation in which british agriculture now finds itself in.
Well I watch countryfile lol....but also with a lot at farms near me I try to keep an eye on what's going on. The 'main' farmer near us is still building huge farm storage and buying new tractors and cars so he must be doing alright! It's mainly root crops here though, beet, carrots and onions mainly. I noticed he doesn't bother with wheat anymore after two rainy harvests a few years back though, where it wasn't cut in time and got ruined.
I know its much easier said than done but if its really got that bad with no sign if change, haven't you considered a change of career?
Quote: haven't you considered a change of career?
Again, clearly of touch of the farming world!
Buying new tractors / building sheds dosnt mean your doing well....it will all be on finance, its just farmers just getting sick and fed up with spending 10's of thousands a year fixing things that keep going wrong / expanding there farm to try and keep more animals / store more crops to TRY and make it pay etcetc.....
Saw a farm down in south Lincolnshire near spalding with a field full of solar panels. Might be worth looking into.
I've always bought meat and veg from local farm shop most of the time it's cheaper that supermarkets and its always fresher.
Yea im from lincolnshire a few of my mates work on farms. They have been out of work for weeks now and the farms that they work on all the crops are fu**ed. Most of the farms around here now have loads of solar panels on top of there sheds but it costs alot to buy in the first place.
(29-01-2013, 10:41 AM)306carter Wrote: [ -> ]Saw a farm down in south Lincolnshire near spalding with a field full of solar panels. Might be worth looking into.
I've always bought meat and veg from local farm shop most of the time it's cheaper that supermarkets and its always fresher.
Do you live in spalding?? im from sutton bridge lol
do a big grow in your barn....use your land for rave events.
if your still up for doing my car mate i will pay you still and give you a chuck on the farm if i can be of any help...i only work 3 days a week so i have spare time on my hands.
Supermarkets make too much profit on everything that comes to our farmers and so little is passed on its completely unfair. Some of the government things saying we should leave the EU is bollox too as a lot of farmers depends on EU subsidies to continue!
i live on what used to be a farm, its all empty fields now and empty barns. the guy whos it was hung himself due to the dire situation he was in, much the same as every uk farmer. really sad
(29-01-2013, 05:02 PM)aggyj17 Wrote: [ -> ] (29-01-2013, 10:41 AM)306carter Wrote: [ -> ]Saw a farm down in south Lincolnshire near spalding with a field full of solar panels. Might be worth looking into.
I've always bought meat and veg from local farm shop most of the time it's cheaper that supermarkets and its always fresher.
Do you live in spalding?? im from sutton bridge lol
No mate am from Leeds. Worked in Spalding last year on the Sainsburys re-fit.
A lot of the farms round here now rent their barns out as work units!
A lot of my family in Ireland are farmers, I hear from them it's pretty bad these days but apparently they have it easier because there isn't as much imported stuff to compete with, to the point where they export a lot of stuff here, mainly beef...
Classic situation of british government not supporting british business.
darren i bet its bad! every thing has jumped right up in price veg and meat wise! how the hell do you boys make a living when things are this bad?
We dont, and we havent for years.....
(31-01-2013, 10:23 AM)darrenjlobb Wrote: [ -> ]We dont, and we havent for years.....
how much profit do you get from supermarkets? as i know they are well gready with prices.
Profit from supermarkets...lol......
(31-01-2013, 10:32 AM)darrenjlobb Wrote: [ -> ]Profit from supermarkets...lol......
so you lot get f*ck all from supermarkets ,even tho its from a britsh farm?