Why aren't farmers seen as scroungers?

[Cismyass]

If someone is in receipt of benefits they are seen as a scrounger and if their business doesn't make them minimum wage it is seen as unviable. When some farmers receive huge EU subsidies and make very little money themselves through actual farming why are they seen as any different?

Lazy farmers, getting up at 5am and playing around with their tractors. Being up all night with labouring ewes, heifers etc. Working 365 days a year.

Maybe the op should spend a week in a farmers boots and get back to us.

I'd give you a biscuit.. but if you think farmer's shouldn't get subsides, they'll probably (rightly) go on strike and we won't have enough biscuits .. so I'm keeping mine.

Nothing to do with farming (farmers have a very tough job) but a biscuit means ‘no comment’.

Quiettiger
I know I joined farming in 1983, married wife in 1997.
MMB been abolished was the crime of the century, fucked dairy farming for generations sadly.
I remember, vaguely. the MMB changing it price structure, from been winter heavy, to paying loads more in summer, June, July and August. Think of top of head, was just a deputy manager, we got as little as 15/16p per litre in April and May, went up to roughly 25/26p in July& August and around 19-22p per litre in September to April.
We suddenly started to move cows to calving in June/July and feed cows in the summer with straights, ie beet pulp, brewer grains and potato waste. Because we could make money, because the dairies needed summer milk. You got top price for full fat, high protein milk which was very clean, less for less fat and protein. Then small penalties for dirtier milk, up to 12p fines for constant dirty milk. They also had free insurance if you feared antibiotics had got in the tank, as long as you warned before collection, and had only 1 every six months.
I remember talking the then girlfriend's grandfather to voice his fury at the proposal to kill it off, he remember 1930's farming. He and we lost, saw the other day milk prices dropped 40% in 18 months after demise of MMB

Self defeating victory that was. I bailed out in 2001, it was shit, MIL gave in 2009, at 61, we where subsiding farm. I live and grow up in East Yorkshire, so not a dairy county, but we have lost all near my dairy units. It breaks my heart, like I said, the girlfriend who's grandfather fought, lost her dad, he hung himself in 2003. They lost everything, brankrupt, I was married, but was asked to carry coffin, I did it was my final tribute to a lovely man.

Think I leave now, before I am reduced to tears, my first boss the man who treated me like a 3 son, and I owe virtually everything to work wise, died 2 years ago, lost everything including his family trying to make cows pay. I just wished he would have rang me, but he was too proud.

Shit I am off, bittersweet memories, hard days but fun under MMB, hard but shit under free market, when I started to be unpaid and treated like shit. Sorry, you brought back some fond memories of sadly lovely people. But nightmares too.

User147 that's really sad and I don't recognise your version of being an employee either. In our 3 family farms I can think of 4 men who have been with our family through thick and thin - 20+ years, some 30+. We have never once paid them late, threatened them with a gun.

I'm also someone who spent 10 years out of the industry and am now back in farming. I wouldn't go back to my previous life for a million pounds.

I think the op asks an interesting question. The farmers who need the subsidy don't often get it. The barley barons of the East certainly don't. Arable farmers like my dad should not get it. My generation are farming knowing that in 5 years subsidies (quite rightly) won't exist. My dads generation think they deserve it.

Silvertrap
You owe the bloody farm, I worked on two great farms, both gone bust, small diary, 85 cows on 62 acres, 1 cow/acre was seen as good. Second 125 pedigree HF, on 1200 acre Crown tenant farm in Essex. 1st I worked for for 4 years, and regularly went back at all times I could help them out for next decade, he was the second death see above. 2nd for 4 years, only left both to 1) become deputy manger at 2. Left second to become manager at 15000 head Saudi farm, but both my brother and dad died within months off getting job so came home. Less said about others the better.

All the people I know who have left farming or have lost their farms are small livestock, small tenancy farmers and people try to start new farms.

Why? Because the bulk of subsidy goes to Arable farmers, who mostly produce non human crops. Set a side isn't available to grassland, quotas killed new dairy farms, loads of diary farmers sold up their herds then lived off leasing quota to the like of us, 5.5 to 9p/ litre to get possible 16p for it. Like I said 12 years I helped MIL, 2 years a profit off less than £4000, 1 year she broke even, 9 we lost money. In fact last 3 years she held her subsidy after she left farm, after renting a small field, she made money, stupid.

I have worked 7 days 0500 to 2400, milking cows, silaging, bale hauling and chasing combines, for less than £22000 a year, including a free house, thanks. Was doing 0500 to 1330 at work, then 1400 to 2300 for MIL, for free tea in last few years of her farming. Its bollocks.
I left farming doing 90 hour weeks in 2001, yes free damp ridden house included, not guaranteed to be paid many weeks. For about £12000/ year after tax. walked into job doing 36 hour week for £22000. Best thing I ever did.

Good job OP.
Looking forward to seeing you back to discuss issues raised.

Or not.

Oh come ON.

I suspect the OP won't be back, will you, @Cismyass?

Any way seeing the like of Derxa and Curious obviously want to silence my experiences of farming, lived from the employee end, not the employer, I will leave That lie and the accusations of bullying are too far, user!

Nobody has tried to silence you, we have replied, made our own observations and actually AGREED with you on many of the points you make.

But you seem to want to be Simply The Very Last Word... the Great Expert, The One Who Knows... well you od, you know what you went through. How it was f r you and yours was shit, just as it is form many farmers. But that doesn't mean they are all bad people. And if you can't hear people whose experiences are different from yours, maybe threads like this will not be a happy place for you.

But none of that is a reason to lie about what posters have said, or to cal them bullies! If you think that is true simply report the posts.... MN will delete them if they agree with you!

Oh God, six weeks of this.

The OP may have been a troll and run, but this has been an interesting read. Thanks to the posters who've shared their own experiences too.
One thing I've noticed a lot where I live is part-time or hobby type farming ( although for hill farmers it has always been thus) with people having a few fields, a handful of stock but working full time in a paid job too. Best or worst of both worlds?