![Richard Webb [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://markavery.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Wheat_field_-_geograph.org_.uk_-_216367.jpg)
Considering the awful autumn, wet winter and soggy spring it’s surprising that some of the fields are looking so good. Many farmers had to go to the trouble and expense of writing off their autumn-sown crops and sticking in a spring-sown cereal or peas or beans.
But wheat prices are still pretty high and we don’t have to feel too sorry for the arable big boys.
Particularly, that is, because land prices keep going up and up. If you are a farmer who owns their land, without a mortgage, then in the last year the value of your land has gone up by 4-10% or so depending on where you are and who you believe (see here, here, here for some examples). It’s a paper profit – but a paper profit that can be turned into a real one in the market, and one which many teachers, nurses and freelance writers would like to see on their investments.
It’s hackneyed, but Mark Twain wasn’t wrong was he?: Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
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It’s the same story with woodland – although the timber price line has gone down a lot further than wheat ever did – last year woodland sales in England averaged a whopping £14,000 per hectare – and rising ! In the uplands woodland is making more than farmland.
If you’re not a ‘big arable boy’ presumably life is much harder – when crops fail you have less land and money with which to seek alternatives and the rise in land prices may make the struggling small mixed arable farmer (the sort who one might expect to be better at looking after the countryside) tempted to just throw in the towel?
MK – yes indeed. And your SFP will be much smaller. That’s why those farmers are gradually leaving farming and the big bouys get bigger and bigger.
Couldn’t agree more – wheat prices still very high and I suspect the bad weather earlier in the year will be a market driver for higher prices this autumn irrespective of the actual yield. I am a big fan of arable “weeds” – corncockle, cornflower and the like, but so rarely see them in the arable deserts these days.
Mark,of course no law stopping,teachers,nurses and freelance writers buying land and risk getting that return on their investment,it is not any good telling me they cannot afford it as some of us farm workers on much lower incomes than they receive went out and did it,you conveniently ignore the fact that between 1983 and 2003 approx land did not increase in value even 1% in those 20 years and probably for most of that time went down in value.Of course also those farmers who rent their land do not see any increase in that investment. Andrew,you certainly won’t see them on all that tarmac that we all use.Those arable weds as you call them have gone in the progress of growing more of this country’s needs,farming will not stand still just like all the industries have progressed farming has had to as well to provide cheap food.Interesting that conservationists will contest this but eminent experts suggest certain foods will treble in price in next 20 years or so and all food will be much dearer.Of course there is no law on yourself or any member of the general public buying anything from 1 acre to a million acres and sowing corncockle and cornflower and the like and then according to Mark you will rake in colossal amount from CAP,good luck to each and every one of you.
Dennis – all I said was that land prices are going up – they are, aren’t they?
Mark quite a funny comment,of course you are correct and would not expect anything else.I did see some figure a few days ago where something like 25% of small farmers especially upland farmers with income of about £12,000 a year which is awful especially as probably they are real countrymen brought up in the country and understand wildlife probably not using lots of herbicides and fertiliser.I also think this thinking of overgrazing by sheep is now mostly a myth as think they have to keep less in numbers to get payment from EU and certainly not a lot of damage like some things on moors.Lets face it the last thing any stockman wants is animals not doing well from overstocking or getting sick.Of course except for the odd bad one which in all walks of life happens but if it is your own stock you might just as well kick yourself.
In one way, that is the whole point, Dennis – this huge split between the big boys on the best arable, and the rest – including upland farmers who have and still struggle to make anything like a decent living. Which is one reason conservationists like RSPB put so much effort into maximising the money that goes to that end of the farming spectrum, whilst bodies like NFU try to achieve the opposite because they get more subs from the big boys. I think you may be right about sheep now – but when I was doing my degree we barely touched on sheep – and what little we did simply made the point that were you trying to grow sheep meat the way you would do it was the exact opposite of the then headage based subsidies which made no agricultural sense whatsoever – and led to spectacular overgrazing & very poor condition stock (I spent childhood holidays in the NW Highlands of Scotland and the overwinter mortality evidenced by spring carcases was shocking).
Are the big agri-industrialist landowners (not real farmers who have hedges, dewponds, arable weeds in scruffy corners etc.) really any different from MPs who are bought second homes by the taxpayers and who assist the countryside industrialisation? Both fail to make the connection or draw comparisons with their own expectations (or deemed ‘rights’) and those of their urban ‘cousins’ who are labelled ‘scroungers’ because they feel they should receive welfare benefits without being able to demonstrate public benefit? I’m not sure what public benefit there is in 1000 acre mono cultures but I’m sure someone will offer a market force business case for efficiency …. but please make sure public subsidies are not an expectation in the discussion, efficiency should be self sustaining?
Subsidies, distorting reality and unaffordable and offensive to many working taxpayers? What option is there for remedy in terms of politics, sadly I suspect none as there is still an apathy or dispair in the air, so the gravy train rolls on.
Despite that bring on REAL reform of CAP, tomorrow is too late for the 60% decline we heard so passionately about through the State of Nature Report. Iolo for PM anyone?
A fair point on rising arable land prices, though it should be seen in the context of rising asset prices virtually everywhere, due to Central Bank policies of money printing and close-to-zero interest rates.