Dearth of young farmers

eire23

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I taught we were talking about people farming. The required minimum stocking level for such a farm to collect ANC is 18 LU for a full year or 36 for 7 months.

The 18 is equivalent to 120 mature sheep. They could be weathers as far as the department is concerned. You could have 9 donkeys and 60 sheep if you liked.

On that land bank 120-130 ewes would be an easy carry. In general.on mountain land a ewe to an acre is easily carried. I have seen very few mountain farms with out a few green fields unless they are purely commage.

As I gave in my example earlier 300 ewes would net about 15k in turnover. There are other income streams as well. If there is an old farmhouse you can do it up for holiday rentals, with AerBnB you even get people during the winter for 2-3 day hill walking holidays and they pay well.

As well there is a serious amount of deer on our mountains lads pay well for land to shoot on. If you had a holiday home on it they rent that as well.

The young progressive farmer 6-8 miles away that has his 3 cows to the HA will even put slurry on your few fields to get maps for nitrates if might even pay you a few bob for nitrates maps along with the slurry.

I say we are not far off 50k now

If it's 300 acres of mountain and no green fields good luck carrying 300 ewes all year round. Not doable imo. Especially of its poor feeding type mountain. Plenty of it around.

wrangler

wrangler wrote: »

Farms need high investment

If the system is wrong.

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

That's the very problem. There's a massive lack of creativity out there. You'd swear there was only one or two proper ways to farm

Amen.

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

There's no one size fits all. But if your goal is to go out and earn a living by using your capital in the least efficient way of course you're going to struggle.
100k invested right could give you a fulltime wage farming starting from scratch if you were willing to be open minded about what your definition of farming is.

Amen x 2.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

There are other income streams as well. If there is an old farmhouse you can do it up for holiday rentals, with AerBnB you even get people during the winter for 2-3 day hill walking holidays and they pay well.

As well there is a serious amount of deer on our mountains lads pay well for land to shoot on. If you had a holiday home on it they rent that as well.

Covid may have changed this, for how long who knows, but previously this was a very high risk strategy. People want to walk the hills and people want to shoot deer, but they don't want to do it 24/7, they want to be in a village or town where they are within walking distance of pubs and restaurants. In that situation they then also have the option of going walking or going shooting, they are not constrained to those locations. Location is the King, Queen, and Ace of tourism.

carrollsno1

eire23 wrote: »

If it's 300 acres of mountain and no green fields good luck carrying 300 ewes all year round. Not doable imo. Especially of its poor feeding type mountain. Plenty of it around.

80 odd acres of "the best land in the country" but i just havent the space to put it all in the one block at the minute and the first generation of us holding onto it till death has held it back seriously over the years. Id be as far on leasing it as theres dairy men each side of us and reading this thread id be as far on going hill farming too by the looks of it.

Bass Reeves

eire23 wrote: »

If it's 300 acres of mountain and no green fields good luck carrying 300 ewes all year round. Not doable imo. Especially of its poor feeding type mountain. Plenty of it around.

And if it is you drop back to 120 to claim ANC or buy 8-9 cull cows and 60 ewes. You adapt your system to suit what you have. Saw s fella 12-15 years ago down in Kerry build a big shed any year hay was reasonable he filled the shed. Along with that he used to buy whole oats as well it was not overly expensive at the time (120/ ton) to carry ewes over the winter

MIKEKC

Bass Reeves wrote: »

300 acres is 120 HA. Convergence will bring BPS to 200/HA at least in this caps lifetime. At present a young trained young farmer (and this thread about young farmers) is getting a top up on part of his BPS 60/HA( I think) on 50HA.

120 units at 200/HA is 24K
ANC is max out at 4240 euro.

On that land area if you cannot max your what ever replaces GLAS at 5-6K you do not deserve to be farming.

Running one ewe to the acre at a lamb sale percentage of 80% gives you 12K in lamb sales at 50/lamb. Culling 50 ewes/year @ 50/ewe gives another 2.5K.


28K in payments and 15k in sales. 15K should cover any costs as ;ong as you are realistic and decide you do not a sub 10 year old Landcruiser, a 15-20K quad and a 30-40k tractor

Where is he going to get the 120 units? In the last cap it was max. 90 No one knows what will be available in future

Bass Reeves

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I taught we were talking about people farming. The required minimum stocking level for such a farm to collect ANC is 18 LU for a full year or 36 for 7 months.

The 18 is equivalent to 120 mature sheep. They could be weathers as far as the department is concerned. You could have 9 donkeys and 60 sheep if you liked.

On that land bank 120-130 ewes would be an easy carry. In general.on mountain land a ewe to an acre is easily carried. I have seen very few mountain farms with out a few green fields unless they are purely commage.

As I gave in my example earlier 300 ewes would net about 15k in turnover. There are other income streams as well. If there is an old farmhouse you can do it up for holiday rentals, with AerBnB you even get people during the winter for 2-3 day hill walking holidays and they pay well.

As well there is a serious amount of deer on our mountains lads pay well for land to shoot on. If you had a holiday home on it they rent that as well.

The young progressive farmer 6-8 miles away that has his 3 cows to the HA will even put slurry on your few fields to get maps for nitrates if might even pay you a few bob for nitrates maps along with the slurry.

I say we are not far off 50k now

Not too many mountains will carry an ewe to the acre (heavist stocked i know of has 650 ewes on just over 2000 acres with low land for wintering/lambing.....and its skinned to the clay selling off stores)...price of lamb would be on the floor if they did carry even close ro ewe to the acre.

FarmerDougal

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I taught we were talking about people farming. The required minimum stocking level for such a farm to collect ANC is 18 LU for a full year or 36 for 7 months.

The 18 is equivalent to 120 mature sheep. They could be weathers as far as the department is concerned. You could have 9 donkeys and 60 sheep if you liked.



On that land bank 120-130 ewes would be an easy carry. In general.on mountain land a ewe to an acre is easily carried. I have seen very few mountain farms with out a few green fields unless they are purely commage.

As I gave in my example earlier 300 ewes would net about 15k in turnover. There are other income streams as well. If there is an old farmhouse you can do it up for holiday rentals, with AerBnB you even get people during the winter for 2-3 day hill walking holidays and they pay well.

As well there is a serious amount of deer on our mountains lads pay well for land to shoot on. If you had a holiday home on it they rent that as well.

The young progressive farmer 6-8 miles away that has his 3 cows to the HA will even put slurry on your few fields to get maps for nitrates if might even pay you a few bob for nitrates maps along with the slurry.

I say we are not far off 50k now

You can't claim entitlements and rent out the maps aswell, you also can't sell 50 culls and replace them for nothing??

Donald Trump

FarmerDougal wrote: »

You can't claim entitlements and rent out the maps aswell, you also can't sell 50 culls and replace them for nothing??

I'd imagine he was referring to slurry export forms rather than maps

Bass Reeves

MIKEKC wrote: »

Where is he going to get the 120 units? In the last cap it was max. 90 No one knows what will be available in future

In the last cap he have bought 30 low value entitlements for 2X face value up to two years after BPS replaced SFP. In general hill farms are sold with there payments.

MIKEKC

Bass Reeves wrote: »

In the last cap he have bought 30 low value entitlements for 2X face value up to two years after BPS replaced SFP. In general hill farms are sold with there payments.

Yes if it was bought with payments it would be a different matter. I would imagine if something like that came up for sale demand would be highly

Bass Reeves

FarmerDougal wrote: »

You can't claim entitlements and rent out the maps aswell, you also can't sell 50 culls and replace them for nothing??

On hill farms you generally replace from within the flock. The sheep accustomed to the area they graze and tend not to stray. This is referred to hefted sheep in the UK.

As well If you had read I said the 15 K should cover costs. If you do buy into replace you buy hill lambs similar in price to what you sold. I am allowing prices to be a cheap culls.

The maps are for nitrates purposes for that get ahead dairy farmer to carry 3+ cows/ HA he needs to export slurry

Bass Reeves

MIKEKC wrote: »

Yes if it was bought with payments it would be a different matter. I would imagine if something like that came up for sale demand would be highly

Most demand is for planting land. However with planning required for planting has slowed demand. Returns on forestry on mountain land can be marginal as windblow and poorer growth as well as slower growth(60-80 years rotation and maybe longer) is discouraging planting.

Lots of mountain farms can be adjacent to SAC or be SAC"s it really hits prices.