this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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It's a tough one. I'm pretty pro-farmer and think that this policy seems to be burning a lot of bridges for very little gain.
The farming community really struggle with optics. You're absolutely bang on about the Brexit thing, that didn't help them. A lot of people point to farmers being very wealthy people - and on paper it's true. The land, the seeded fields and infrastructure, and the colossal machinery means even a small farm is usually a multi-million pound enterprise... but the liquid assets available to farmers are generally next to fuck all, and my anecdotal experience of living rurally is that most farms are one bad crop away from having to cut back and choosing to heat or eat; and two bad crops from bankruptcy.
I don't think the general public quite realise the tiny margins the farmers are on - between the cost of living and doing business, and the absolute pittance that supermarkets and the retail industry have been squeezing them at the point of sale. I've never seen so many Samaritans banners on major routes through the countryside.
Unfortunately, all the general public see are farmers blocking the roads in their £750,000 behemoth trucks waving Tory flags, complaining about 20% inheritance tax rate when everyone else paid double - when that's just a surface level view of the problem.
I should imagine that if you took the takings of a farm per year, and divided it by the number of folk working it and divided it by an 80 hour working week (for generalisations sake), then it would be quite clear that farming isn't the business to be in if you want to be rich.
e: I'm sorry, I used the "you" there, I'm not arguing against the person I'm replying to, I'm largely arguing alongside.
You make some great points. If I may, I'd like to expand on them with an alternative perspective.
When investing:
(These figures are approximate but are close enough for the purposes of my point.)
If a farmer has $10M in land and equipment, then we'd expect to see at least $1M profit per year. This is on top of the money that would be earned as a skilled employee who works significant overtime.
In 2022 Canada, potato farming (the second most profitable kind of farming) saw an average revenue of $600k on $480k of expenses. All the investment in land, its preparation, and the business enables an average Canadian potato farm to make the salary of a Canadian senior software engineer. And the senior software engineer doesn't have nearly the buy-in costs.
Then there is the matter of risk. In Alberta, we've recently had some droughts that resulting in harvests so poor that harvesting what did grow was done at a loss. It's like earning a paycheque so small that it's not worth driving to pick it up. (The farmers did harvest the crops because it was necessary to collect insurance.)
So, yeah. High cost of buy-in, a lot of work, and a lot of risk for for the opportunity to make less than an American SWE.
If you'll excuse my expression... fucking hell!
I've never talked finances with my friends in farming in the UK - it's always been a sore point. Presumably partly because that's just the rural way, but perhaps mainly because it's a source of anxiety, anger, and poor mental health. Maybe I should talk to them about it.
Anyway, thanks for the insight and figures, a lot of it is over my head because I'm thick as fuck but what I take from it in a perversion of a common meme is "line go down :( "
Cheers!