Have a look at the CPRE vision for farming in 2026. I wonder what farmers think of it.
As a vision it’s got a lot of what I would like to see from farming – and of course you and I invest in farming to the tune of well over £2bn per annum so it’s not as though what we want is irrelevant.
Fairer milk prices, farmers are rewarded for providing ecological services (like managing water flows), beef and sheep farmers get more support, local food enterprises are thriving, wildlife is increasing including species that were once endangered and livestock are kept in good conditions. What’s not to like? Does the NFU agree, I wonder?
But what about farmers? Do you agree with this vision?
And this is a vision – is it realistic? What do you think?
[registration_form]
Yes, some interesting and worthwhile thinking – BUT limited in its vision. Yet again its the uplands where ‘interesting’ things like water management are proposed and its just about farming – its not the landuse vision we really need to tackle the impacts of climate change. That is the norm – it applies equally to RSPB, for example: farming has an iron grip on all our thinking which says ‘the productive lowlands belong to us – keep out’. And so conservationists of all hues keep out.
A ‘used to be a farmer’ view – I suspect we would all want – fairer milk prices, suckler beef being economic, real reward for farming services that are uneconomic.
Yet again the point is missed; let it be explained very simply so that there is a chance of it being understood – lowland beef is operating at a loss; milk is produced at a loss; sheep are marginally profitable, but only if flock numbers per shepherd are large enough; arable is profitable where there are few people and big machinery and block cropping over large acreages. The above comments include the £2bn support delivered by the CAP.
In the last 20 years [or 4 rotations] only arable has shown a real profit and that only in the last 3 years and in those 3 years could exist without the Single Farm Payment [SFP]. Where is the capital for investment, if the is no profit for 17 out of 20 years.
If the CPRE view were to be attempted, then the SFP would not compensate for the method of farming to deliver the desired results. Both Grange Farm and Loddington are arable and do deliver. What about the livestock, which is also important to wildlife?
The challenge is how can the system be changed when ‘there is no incentive’. In addition you cannot escape the fact that the retailers do not pay enough for raw material and food overall is too cheap. I wonder if Mr Leslie would be keen to pay more for food to achieve his countryside wishes? His comment about a closed lowlands is not clear? Farming is producing food and not enough wildlife, but the countryside is only failing to produce wildlife because farmers cannot find an economic method to produce it?
Birdseye
Land prices reflect whether farming is profitable or not. Farmers would not be paying such an inflated price for land if they are not going to make money out of it.
Farmers have said for years that they are not making a good profit. I for one do not believe this and I do not think the majority of the general public think any differently.
If they cannot make a good profit after receiving an average subsidy payment of around £20,000 per farm then they probably aren’t fit to be running a farm at all anyway.
Think what farmers want is for everyone else to decide what they want and give clear guidelines combined with willingness to pay for what they want.At the moment farmers are trying to feed the public and enter into wildlife schemes that seem to be having little impact in improving wildlife so conservationists need to get these schemes to do the job that they keep complaining farmers are guilty of not improving for instance farmland birds.
Tell farmers what you want and how to do it and history shows they will do what is needed,the evidence is there.
CPREs vision of more wildlife seems fanciful unless they tell us how to do it while feeding increasing population,we can all think up things we would like but how to do it soon seems to stump these educated people.
What farmers do want is fairness and not like UK doing away with battery cages while most of Europe seem to ignore the rules sending eggs here under unfair advantage,funny no one seems to make a fuss about that.
One problem is that in general the public and indeed some who should know better do not understand that majority of animals are kept in good conditions and for instance dairy cows have to be housed in winter or they would suffer badly upto there knees in mud,of course there are some animals in less than optimum conditions but the price of food would have to treble if they were in perfect conditions.
Sure that farmers will respond to whatever public want but that is the big problem,sort out what you want and how much you are prepared to pay.
DavidH—do you not know that it is business people buying lots of the land not farmers.This of course means that if a farmer wants to increase his acreage which he has to do quite often to stay competitive and spread costs then he has to pay what is really a inflated price that such as bankers etc have made easy money and of course they do not care if they make a profit.