Farming a welfare scheme or viable business?

silverharp

dont know if anyone caught the end of Prime time , usual standard questions and responses as to the value of agriculture and why the gov. shouldnt cut subsidies.

Logically should I care about farming in Ireland ? either a business makes money or is doesnt , if it cant stand on its own two feet then is it not destroying wealth on a net basis for the country?
The prime time piece mentioned the social aspects. Again nothing stands still in time, maybe a third of the country reverting to forestry or whatever the next best use of the land is the best thing if it not profitable to farm.
Yet another point was a potential shortage of food at some point in the future. Again , people arent stupid , they will reclaim the land and put it back into use when the time is right.

So farming , just another lobby or "strategic" resource that should not be questioned?

Taxipete29

There is a problem with reclaiming land when the time is right. The skills needed to farm that land may have disappeared.

turgon

It appears to be like a lot of things in this country. People have established themselves in a certain lifestyle, and thus monstrous amounts of taxpayers money must be used to shelter them in said lifestyle. All under the banner of "the social good."

diverdriver

It's a welfare scheme for too many farmers. They might as well be on the dole. It's long overdue to put the whole thing on a business footing. Some farmers income is 100% from the EU or government. Exactly what is the point of that?

smithcity

If you had any idea of the cost to reclaiming forested land, you wouldn't have said that.

This country is borrowing 460 million euros a week to stay afloat, at penalty interest rates from the EU.

The REPS schemes and Disadvantaged Area schemes were 65% and 75% funded by the EU. Vast amounts of money were coming into our economy, free of charge, from Europe. That money was then going into the banks, or being re-invested, or spent in the local communities.

The government has thrown all this way. Those schemes were introduced, according to the government, in order to keep down food prices. The logical outcome of these cuts, is raised food prices, unemployed farmers and less money being pumped into our economy.
We will now have a sharp increase in unemployed farmers, Teagasc advisors, Department of Agriculture staff, farm labourers, Hire Depot staff and anybody else who's income directly or indirectly relied on farming.

REPS accounted on average for ten thousand euro's a year to farmers who fulfilled the obligations of the scheme. This meant a lot of work had to be done to earn that money. How many farmers will now be forced to sit on their arses to get that ten grand on the dole?

silverharp

smithcity wrote: »

If you had any idea of the cost to reclaiming forested land, you wouldn't have said that.

No I don't but if the Brazilians think its worthwhile to reclaim the rain forest then I cant see why Ireland should be so different.

smithcity wrote: »

The REPS schemes and Disadvantaged Area schemes were 65% and 75% funded by the EU. Vast amounts of money were coming into our economy, free of charge, from Europe. That money was then going into the banks, or being re-invested, or spent in the local communities.

The government has thrown all this way. Those schemes were introduced, according to the government, in order to keep down food prices. The logical outcome of these cuts, is raised food prices, unemployed farmers and less money being pumped into our economy.
We will now have a sharp increase in unemployed farmers, Teagasc advisors, Department of Agriculture staff, farm labourers, Hire Depot staff and anybody else who's income directly or indirectly relied on farming.

stepping back, is the EU citizen getting a good deal? it would appear that people are paying higher taxes so that they can have access to cheaper food? I say cut out the middle man , drop their taxes and let them pay the economic cost of the food.

The problem as I see it is that gov. have a poor record when it comes managing markets. Here the gov. incentivised property and too much came on line , home owners were incentivised with interest reliefs and other grants and ended up bidding up prices against each other. Something similar maybe happening with farming, the industry is in a position now that it is not viable without grants so otherwise intelligent farmers have led been down a culdesac instead of building sustainable business over the last 40 years.
As for dept. officials , as such they are a cost to the economy and if their salaries have to be borrowed from abroad then I cant see a net benefit for the economy as a whole , it is simply a transfer of money between one set of taxpayers to another.

irish_bob

while scrapping REPS is counter productive ( will send farmers to farm assist scheme , dole ) , the reality is , thier are far too many small farmers in ireland

astrofool

CAP was established to provide food security by guaranteeing the price of farming produce. This lead to food mountains, food being produced and left to rot as the demand wasn't there.

As time has gone on, the rural lobby has pushed for more and more "subsidies" (welfare payments), and the result has been that farming has become a disease on the country, productivity is not encouraged, new techniques will yield very little, and other countries around the world are now able to completely undercut even the subsidy included prices. Food security has become less of an issue as the century has gone on, and the chance of a world war occurring became remote.

Ideally, the subsidies should be wound down, and food prices should be left return to their non tax funded levels (customers just pay it in the form of higher taxes, rather than in the shop), food standards should be used to ensure that other countries produce cannot undercut loal farmers with low grade produce, unless thats what the consumer wants, in which case getting rid of tracability would free up a lot of farmer's work.

BUT, if a brazilian farmer can match our quality, and import it 3000 miles at a lesser price than local produce, then the farmer will just have to admit that his business isn't viable, and move onto something else.

But yes, as it is right now, farming is a welfare scheme.

brianthebard

astrofool wrote: »

CAP was established to provide food security by guaranteeing the price of farming produce. This lead to food mountains, food being produced and left to rot as the demand wasn't there.

As time has gone on, the rural lobby has pushed for more and more "subsidies" (welfare payments), and the result has been that farming has become a disease on the country, productivity is not encouraged, new techniques will yield very little, and other countries around the world are now able to completely undercut even the subsidy included prices. Food security has become less of an issue as the century has gone on, and the chance of a world war occurring became remote.

You're about 30 years too late in your analysis, there are no food mountains and farmers are actively discouraged to increase productivity by the EU, through quotas and other schemes which require a proportion of land to be left fallow. You're not at all concerned that your food be healthy, reared well, doesn't carry any contamination?

astrofool wrote: »

BUT, if a brazilian farmer can match our quality, and import it 3000 miles at a lesser price than local produce, then the farmer will just have to admit that his business isn't viable, and move onto something else.

But yes, as it is right now, farming is a welfare scheme.

Important word bolded. Also considering how little farmers in this country earn I shudder to think what you are damning brazilian farm labourers to live on. If the price paid to farmers by meat factories and supermarkets reflected the true cost of agricultural production then there would be no question that farming would be a viable business.

smithcity

astrofool wrote: »

BUT, if a brazilian farmer can match our quality, and import it 3000 miles at a lesser price than local produce, then the farmer will just have to admit that his business isn't viable, and move onto something else.

Think you may be a bit mixed up there. Even Peter Mandelson at the time of the last World Trade Talks claimed that killing tarriffs on Brazilian Beef was nothing to worry about because Irish farmers produced far higher quality beef, and that is what the consumer would go for.

These schemes lowered the price of food, but not on the shop shelves, they lowered the prices for the factory owners like Goodman who now make the lions of share of profit from farming.

Farmers received more for their product in the 1970's than they do now.

It's fair enough to say that these schemes should be wound up over time, but by the same token, farmers should be paid at the factory for their product. Not by subsidies. I think that is what most farmers want anyway.

Nevertheless, I think that axing these schemes, is doing untold damage to the country. 100's of millions of euros, if not more, that were entering our economy have no ceased.


Now Silverharp said "No I don't but if the Brazilians think its worthwhile to reclaim the rain forest then I cant see why Ireland should be so different."

Have you any idea of the methods the Brazilians use? Slash and Burn methods that destroy local ecosystems and cause nutrient leaching of the soil. After 5 to 10 years, land reclaimed like that becomes useless and they have to move on to a new spot.

It's silly and uneducated to suggest that a good move for Ireland would be to plant forests over one of the few industries we have left that is still bringing in money from europe, then smashing it down when it suits.

ei.sdraob

smithcity wrote: »

This country is borrowing 460 million euros a week to stay afloat, at penalty interest rates from the EU.

I need to correct you on that as your sentence is wrong

its not the EU that are penalizing us

but entities buying bonds, these include:

* hedge/pension funds
* chineese
* arabs
* banks
* other investors



now on the topic of farmers, if you can not make a profit without subsidies then your business should fail

my business and most other business in country dosent receive a cent in subsidies, why should farmers?

why should the taxpayer support support someone else lifestyle? this question is also aimed at people who would rather sit on welfare than get a job even when there where plenty available

turgon

brianthebard wrote: »

You're not at all concerned that your food be healthy, reared well, doesn't carry any contamination?

What Im concerned about is that the government distorts the market place to give Irish meat an undue advantage. If Im concerned about quality food I will fork out extra for Irish meat. If Im not, why should the government be penalizing me? Why should they hold my hand in the supermarket, "here look at this lovely Irish meat"??

brianthebard wrote: »

If the price paid to farmers by meat factories and supermarkets reflected the true cost of agricultural production then there would be no question that farming would be a viable business.

Your argument being to pay farmers based on how much a product cost to produce, not how valuable it really is.

astrofool

brianthebard wrote: »

You're about 30 years too late in your analysis, there are no food mountains and farmers are actively discouraged to increase productivity by the EU, through quotas and other schemes which require a proportion of land to be left fallow. You're not at all concerned that your food be healthy, reared well, doesn't carry any contamination?

I'm concerned, but then I can afford to buy most any food I want, but the price I pay is completely artificial due to subsidies.

Also, almost everyone will have a different definition of "healthy and reared well", and it should be a given that there is no contamination, but we're as bad as anyone here (Irish pork?).

For example, I would see halal meat as being a particularly inhumane of killing an animal, yet religions demand this method.

In any other business, they could increase productivity to bring prices down and increase profits, as you say, in farming they are actively discouraged due to overproduction. Farming is not a business in this case, it's a charity.

Any good farmer, to increase productivity, should let land lie fallow, as the return on the land in later years will be greater. Any sane business plan would allow for this, so I wouldn't see this as being unproductive. Farmers who don't let a field lie fallow, will end up unable to compete and go out of business.

nessie911

To ei.sdraob you said "now on the topic of farmers, if you can not make a profit without subsidies then your business should fail
my business and most other business in country dosent receive a cent in subsidies, why should farmers?
why should the taxpayer support support someone else lifestyle? this question is also aimed at people who would rather sit on welfare than get a job even when there where plenty available[/quote]"

Well if you even read the comment above your's, you would realise that its not thats farms can not stand on there own, the problem is that the goverment and the eu introduced these scemes to both lower the cost of food to the consumer, and to increase employment in local areas. If you researched into the amount of money that a farmer receives for products such as meat and milk, is the same or less money than they received in the 1970, but yet the cost of producing these products has more than doubled, and the amount of rules which they must aheard to has tripeled...

There are alot of jobs which count on farms continuning to produce products for the market. If all farms were to stop producing, then there would be thousands of jobs lost in ares such as the dairy industry, meat producing plants, local shops, etc etc...

Some of the scemes and grants that were introduced were brought in to give farmers money to employ builders, and other service worker etc...

To astrofool, you said "Any good farmer, to increase productivity, should let land lie fallow, as the return on the land in later years will be greater. Any sane business plan would allow for this, so I wouldn't see this as being unproductive. Farmers who don't let a field lie fallow, will end up unable to compete and go out of business."
Could you please explain this from your farming opinion, and give examples of how you would increase productivity.

RedPlanet

There are alot of jobs which count on farms continuning to produce products for the market. If all farms were to stop producing, then there would be thousands of jobs lost in ares such as the dairy industry, meat producing plants, local shops, etc etc...

Firstly, nobody suggested that all farms would stop producing, only the non-viable ones.
The ol "jobs" hat is rather worn out at this stage.
The very same can be said of builders, but i think we all detest the idea of subsidizing them.

nessie911

RedPlanet wrote: »

Firstly, nobody suggested that all farms would stop producing, only the non-viable ones

If the government were to take away all grants etc, and not change there current method of not geting the consumer to pay for the food then there would be no viable farms let in ireland, that is the point that farmers are trying to make, the majourity of farmers would be quite happy if all the scemes and grantc etc were gone, if they were being fairly paid dor the product they are producing. Some farmers are being paid more to transport there animals to england and france etc.

ronbyrne2005

Consolidate , too many small farms , we need economies of scale. Poland etc will provide us with cheaper EU quality produce in future. Too many inefficient farmers who arent business minded.

ei.sdraob

nessie911 wrote: »

To ei.sdraob you said "now on the topic of farmers, if you can not make a profit without subsidies then your business should fail
my business and most other business in country dosent receive a cent in subsidies, why should farmers?
why should the taxpayer support support someone else lifestyle? this question is also aimed at people who would rather sit on welfare than get a job even when there where plenty available

Well if you even read the comment above your's, you would realise that its not thats farms can not stand on there own, the problem is that the goverment and the eu introduced these scemes to both lower the cost of food to the consumer, and to increase employment in local areas. If you researched into the amount of money that a farmer receives for products such as meat and milk, is the same or less money than they received in the 1970, but yet the cost of producing these products has more than doubled, and the amount of rules which they must aheard to has tripeled...

There are alot of jobs which count on farms continuning to produce products for the market. If all farms were to stop producing, then there would be thousands of jobs lost in ares such as the dairy industry, meat producing plants, local shops, etc etc...

Some of the scemes and grants that were introduced were brought in to give farmers money to employ builders, and other service worker etc...

i see so here we have a mess created by government intervention in the markets, leading to more government intervention

astrofool

nessie911 wrote: »

Could you please explain this from your farming opinion, and give examples of how you would increase productivity.

Are you asking me from a farmers point of view, or from a laymans point of view? Either way, I would suggest a quick use of Google for some information, as a lot is out there. It is also suggested to use crop rotation rather than letting the land lie fallow, if there is the demand for more food.

On productivity, there are many aspects that a business can follow, economies of scale work pretty well for farming, reducing the wastage of equipment across many smaller farms. We should also be looking at growing more variety of crops in this country, find crops which suit our climate better and give us an advantage, rather than trying to compete with places which by default, have more fertile land and more suitable whether for some produce.

My point is, the current quotas and subsidies system actively discourages productivity gains, as the farmer gains nothing on them (like having a maximum salary), so farmers will only do enough to get their subsidies and meet their quotas as a a result.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

silverharp

smithcity wrote: »

It's silly and uneducated to suggest that a good move for Ireland would be to plant forests over one of the few industries we have left that is still bringing in money from europe, then smashing it down when it suits.

just to clarify, I didnt mean to suggest that forestry would be next likely use of agricultural land. If pushed I'd say farms would be bigger and at some valuation land would be productive to some form of ag. business. DF's post would suggest that farms are way too small which is one of the problems and land prices have probably been bid up on the back of subsidies.

Tipp Man

astrofool wrote: »

Are you asking me from a farmers point of view, or from a laymans point of view? Either way, I would suggest a quick use of Google for some information, as a lot is out there. It is also suggested to use crop rotation rather than letting the land lie fallow, if there is the demand for more food.

On productivity, there are many aspects that a business can follow, economies of scale work pretty well for farming, reducing the wastage of equipment across many smaller farms. We should also be looking at growing more variety of crops in this country, find crops which suit our climate better and give us an advantage, rather than trying to compete with places which by default, have more fertile land and more suitable whether for some produce.

My point is, the current quotas and subsidies system actively discourages productivity gains, as the farmer gains nothing on them (like having a maximum salary), so farmers will only do enough to get their subsidies and meet their quotas as a a result.

Why are you talking about something that you obviously haven't a clue about.
Irish tillage farmers actively pursue crop rotation, at least the decent ones.
As for growing crops suited to Ireland, well Ireland is generally regarded as the best grass growing country in the world (along with NZ) and i think its 85% of the country is in grass (or there about), and for 9 years between 1995-2006 had the best wheat yields anywhere in the world (not sure of last couple of years), so don't give me this crap about crops that suit us.

There is 1 major problem and 1 major problem only with Irish farming, the price that the producer is receiving is ridiculously low, 20c for a litre of milk when it 1.20 in a shop, in 1982 farmers were receiving 20c a litre (equivilant) and it was about 55c in the shops. Beef was making more in the late 80's than it is now, grain will be 100 euro a ton this harvest, do you have any idea how much it costs to grow a ton of wheat??

The problem is that people have got used to cheap food and now with recession it would be near impossible to raise the price, in fact the opposite is happening. Until Irish farmers get control over the multiples and the middle men (factories, coops, millers etc) then they will continue to make losses. People seem to assume they have a right to cheap food forgetting that although the farmer receives the cheque it is the consumer (and middle men) who are being subsidised.

And just to all the townies who seem to have a lot to say about subsidies etc, farmers didn't ask for all the subsidies, red tape and bulls##t that Brussells has introduced, they want to farm, they want to farm well and they want to farm for a profit using market prices

Tipp Man

smithcity wrote: »

If you had any idea of the cost to reclaiming forested land, you wouldn't have said that.

This country is borrowing 460 million euros a week to stay afloat, at penalty interest rates from the EU.

The REPS schemes and Disadvantaged Area schemes were 65% and 75% funded by the EU. Vast amounts of money were coming into our economy, free of charge, from Europe. That money was then going into the banks, or being re-invested, or spent in the local communities.

The government has thrown all this way. Those schemes were introduced, according to the government, in order to keep down food prices. The logical outcome of these cuts, is raised food prices, unemployed farmers and less money being pumped into our economy.
We will now have a sharp increase in unemployed farmers, Teagasc advisors, Department of Agriculture staff, farm labourers, Hire Depot staff and anybody else who's income directly or indirectly relied on farming.

REPS accounted on average for ten thousand euro's a year to farmers who fulfilled the obligations of the scheme. This meant a lot of work had to be done to earn that money. How many farmers will now be forced to sit on their arses to get that ten grand on the dole?

Good post, i can't for the life of me believe 2 things

1) why this so called expert group would want to stop money coming into the country, as mentioned 65% and 75% of the funding for these schemes was coming from Europe, so by cutting this we are in fact reducing money from Europe so cutting subidies in effect is cutting exports
2) why the hell isn't Walsh making more of a deal about where the money is actually coming from?

Just so other people are aware, the average cost of every IDA job created is 65,000 paid for by taxpayers, the young farmers scheme was costing 11,000 majority funded by EU, yet this gets cut.

RedPlanet

Tipp Man wrote: »

1) why this so called expert group would want to stop money coming into the country, as mentioned 65% and 75% of the funding for these schemes was coming from Europe, so by cutting this we are in fact reducing money from Europe so cutting subidies in effect is cutting exports

That's great that we've been able to take advantage of our European neighbours to prop-up unsustainable enterprises here. But at some point that money is going to run out, or we'll have to repay it, or even, we'll wish that instead supporting some of our citizen's lifestyle choices, we'll wish that money was spent more meaningfully.
Like, more infastructure, more public transport, etc.

Tipp Man

RedPlanet wrote: »

That's great that we've been able to take advantage of our European neighbours to prop-up unsustainable enterprises here. But at some point that money is going to run out, or we'll have to repay it, or even, we'll wish that instead supporting some of our citizen's lifestyle choices, we'll wish that money was spent more meaningfully.
Like, more infastructure, more public transport, etc.

Well the reason they're paying it is because of the regulations they've brought in, stocking rates, nitrates etc, and its taken on the basis that is non refundable. also its from the CAP not CTP so no the funds are not available for infastructure/public transport/whatever

Please explain what exactly you mean by lifestyle choices??

RedPlanet

See post 20

Tipp Man

RedPlanet wrote: »

See post 20

Without a shadow of a doubt there are fundamental structural changes that need to take place in Irish farming, farm size is too small, land is not available to new entrants as readily as it should, older farmers too willing to hold onto land rather than sell when there is no successor

However its complete garbage that the state is sponsoring they're 4x4 lifestyle, perhaps if more people left suburbia for more than an annual outing they would see that there isn't a 4x4 lifestyle, the days of farmers with new cars and flashy jeeps are long gone. Also donegal fella whilst pointing out the average farm size also conveniently forgets to point out average farm income which for all farmers was 16,933k last year, a fall of 14% on previous year, and another 20% fall is expected this year. not even what they get on the dole

There's no doubt a lot of small farmers would be better off on the dole, would you rather pay dole and get nothing in return or get EU to pay a subsidy and get agricultural produce to give 10% of our exports

How do you think you'd surive on 17k a year??

Also What exactly does the price of sites have to do with farmer income??

Tipp Man

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

What exactly is your background Donegal Fella, dairy beef tillage, what sizxe farm?? May i ask why aren't you farming if your from a farming background??

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Tipp Man

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Well then i'm surprised to see you write such garbage to be honest

Would you class your parents as efficient farmers?? How much money do you think they'll make from 230 acres of tillage this year?

Do you not realise that farmers worldwide are losing money, cows in USA being shot rather than milked, millions of acres in eastern europe and Russia to be left fallow this year.

Do you know why this is happening??

The good thing for Irish farmers is that because of their efficiency and small size they are actually losing less money than their bigger compatriots worldwide

Permabear

This post has been deleted.