poor farmers

[stantheman 0]

i was on a shoot yesterday with me mate and he told me that the farmer whose land we were on doesnt need to plant anything to make a living cos he gets more from the govt for not planting the outer 2m of his fields than he does from the crops in the same field he also gets £1500 per year for having small ponds of which he has 10 and £1000 per acre of woodland of which he has 400 acres and they plead hard up

[Chadatious 0]

think im in the wrong trade!

[Tony nitrous 0]

All my family are farmers.

Feel free to give it a go,

You might find out why it has such a high suicide rate
and why many farmers are losing property's they have
worked all their lives to hand down to their kids.

For every story where a farmer does OK there's 20
more where he is being f#cked by everyone from the
supermarkets, our Government, the EU, the Public,
the tax man, foot and mouth, BSE (mad cow) the weather,
and a dozen others.

Try leaving a business to your kids that's making a loss and
then tell them they have to pay a big chunk in inheritance tax,
see how well they handle a bit of family history that's been passed
down for generations.

A few farmers fall lucky or manage to work the system
They really are in a minority.

Most have realised they get very little support from either the
Public or their Government who don't care or haven't got a clue.

Give it a try sometime.
Its a laugh a minute.

[obalanga 0]

i have heard of those precious few who cry hard up and yet their yards are lined up with gleaming new tractors at about 120k a pop. A dispatches programme a few years ago exposed barons and lords who were worth million and yet were getting grants every year for owning agricultural land with the intention of one day farming it. great cock for some ehh

[Tony nitrous 0]

I do know a farmer who has "5 year subsidies" on his cattle.
Every year he gets a pay out for each animal.
He sold the animals the 1st year but because he still holds
the certificates he gets to claim every year for animals
he no longer owns.

Two points,
If you think this is easy or common, have a go!
2nd, he get subsidies because the government, both
UK and EU has made it impossible for him to trade competitively
against the cheaper (and equally subsidised) EU imports.

Try farming without getting your government "quota's"
on what you can and can not grow, farmers have very little
control compared with the past.

A few folk do REAL well, the media jump on it,
the uneducated masses think they are all the same.

Believe it or not, UK farmers get a shit deal
and I wouldn't want to be in there shoe's
(I could have been, but glad I walked away)

[jezza 0]

I think the difference is ones a farmer , the other is an estate owner. My gaffer is an estate owner who calls himself a farmer, yet he has pheasant shooting, breeds deer,a quarry (which I manage), and an Ad plant which supplies electric to all the houses on the estate then feeds back any excess into the grid, oh he also has a solar panel plant.

Any spare land is sown with grass /barley to keep the ad plant going or rented out to tenant farmers.
He claims all the grants he can including for woodland, dry stone walling etc.

On top of this he also has an estate /farm in scotland.

The ones who are struggling are his tenant farmers who are constantly being screwed by the system /crippling rents and crap crop yeilds, poor weather.