aibu to ask for further information from a farmer

[notashotasthepreviousyear]

I've just been speaking with a farmer at the supermarket, nice man, didn't seem bad off - new jeep thing, smart clothes and paid with a wad of cash. He was really animated about the price of meat, me being ignorant on farming issues I couldn't comment an awful lot and really felt bad for him but could someone tell me what is going on with farming? I'm not being judgey (I hope not anyway!) I just think I ABU not to know!!

The price farmers get for their livestock is much less than the price supermarkets charge for meat.

He may have smart clothes and a new jeep, but his hourly wage may well be very low, considering farming is not something you can ignore in the evenings, for the weekend, Christmas, holidays etc.

Ah, the "very wealthy farmer" myth. Same as the "teacher who works nine to three" and the "nurse with time for tea breaks"

It's become a thankless job that people do for love, not money.

If he's a livestock farmer then they are usually paid by the weight of the meat but as someone said above it's a lot less than the equivalent sale price in supermarkets. Unfortunately the power of the big retailers has driven down the price of meat for consumers and consequently it's almost unviable to be a red meat livestock farmer without subsidies.

One of highest rates of suicide. Working hours absolutely mental, wanky prices for produce and often isolated from any normal social interaction. Those lucky bastards. They should dress in potato sacks and pay with fives!

Farmers don't know what's going on with farming. There's so so much uncertainty with brexit, we're paid so poorly for the hours we put in. There's so much ignorance around welfare and standards.

There are very few rich farmers, we love what we do but it is very hard

This Easter we were lucky enough to stay on a holiday cottage on a sheep farm in Lancashire. The farmers were lovely but it was unbelievable how hard they worked. The farmer was saying the fleece on one of his breed of sheep is practically worthless because he would only get 25p per fleece but they made good parents whereas his flock that he got marginally more money for the fleece were rubbish parents so he has to keep both types so he can have a hybrid. But I was astounded 25p a fleece, rubbish money. He was laughing saying when he went to get a new mattress they looked at one which was stuffed with wool and the sales man was telling him it was expensive because of the wool being expensive for them to buy and he assertively assured the sales person it wasn't!

It costs the farmer more to have their sheep sheared than the money they get from the wool. Unfortunately for the farmer, sheering is necessary for the well-being of the sheep during the hot summer months. As Goldenhedgehogs says, different sheep are good for different things e.g. wool and meat. Same with cattle - milking breeds don't produce much meat, and meat producing breeds aren't as good for milk.

Regular TB testing is required by law for cattle and if a single animal fails you can't sell anything until a couple of herd-wide TB free tests. Vets and drugs are expensive, but if your animal has a problem birthing you could lose both mother & baby without the vet. Stock needs feeding in winter, and if there's a poor summer you need to start feeding earlier but the food is more expensive. Any that you grow yourself reduces your grazing land. You need to be up early every single day to milk (if dairy), feed, possibly move animals, check on any that aren't in for any reason, do repairs to fences & buildings etc. You can't take holidays or even an overnight stay away as livestock needs to be dealt with at the same time every day - you hear about farmers leaving their own wedding reception for a couple of hours to do milking, or checking on lambing sheep!

The majority of farmers are tenants so they have rent to pay. A decent well-running 4 wheel drive car is an absolute necessity, as well as various other vehicles e.g tractor, quad bike etc.

TL:DR - farming is a very tough life for very little financial reward

Farmers (for the time being) get a huge amount in farming subsidies. The amount depends on many variable but mainly number of acres. They get additional subsidies for things like ecological preservation (maintaining waterways, planting hedges etc).

Farmers with decent size farms who own their land (not tenant farmers) generally do quite well. I am from a rural community and the farmers are very wealthy.

However, food prices in the UK are ridiculously low. The price of a supermarket pint of milk is often less than it costs to produce it. We expect cheap meat, cheap vegetables, cheap everything. So if you don’t own your land and rely on selling produce to make your living you are likely to be struggling.

Was just watching good unwrapped and they said a farmer only gets about £15 profit per pig (raised for at least 6 months) ironically it was Farmer Jimmy saying this and we'd just got back from his farm where we paid £5 for a bloody hot dog!

I've attached a picture of our latest kill sheet for the most recent lot of lambs we sent to slaughter.

There are last years lambs so we have fed (roughly £5000 in concentrate feed) and looked after them for a whole year, we work 16/17 hour days for 6 weeks through lambing time in whatever weather we have at the time. Every lamb has to be tagged in both ears at about 60p per tag. So that's basic cost before you factor in wormers, mark, medications, bedding straw, staff wages etc depending on what type of system you have. Farmers don't tend to tend to cost their own time into these figures, mainly because if they did it would probably end up as a minus figure rather than profit.

we also sold them at the peak of the season so this is pretty much the best price we got for them all year. As you can see we get approximately £4.50 per kilo for them deadweight (which is about half of what they weigh alive). From the costs about you can see not all of that £4.50 per kilo ends up as profit by a long stretch.

ASDA is currently selling its cheapest range lamb chops for £12.11 per kilo

Sainsbury's lamb steaks are £15 per kilo

Tesco easy carve leg joint is £13 a kilo.

Someone's making a good profit out of lamb...

Farmers with decent size farms who own their land (not tenant farmers) generally do quite well. I am from a rural community and the farmers are very wealthy

Unless you know the details of their bank accounts surely you can only ascertain that they merely appear wealthy?

We live in a massive house, and drive a big reasonably new 4x4 pickup but we don't own any of it. We have a nice enough life and don't struggle but we aren't wealthy and our income is very much propped up by my part time job outside the farm. I can see how from the outside it could be perceived differently.

Some farmers got very rich off subsidies purely through luck. Many more did not and would go under without them unless food prices rose dramatically to make up the shortfall.

Did you even read my post. These lambs are a year old.

Are my lambs lives worth more to you than the bunny rabbits that are killed to stop them from eating the lettuces and carrots etc you presumably live on? Or do they not matter?

If you feel strongly enough to call me names why are you hiding behind a name change?

If people want to eat them, someone has to kill them. 🤷

The farmers I know that are wealthy have properties that they let out and do holiday let's. Farming alone isn't enough.

Farmers (for the time being) get a huge amount in farming subsidies. The amount depends on many variable but mainly number of acres. They get additional subsidies for things like ecological preservation (maintaining waterways, planting hedges etc).

Depends on what you class as "huge", and very much depends on what you do with the land. Farming organically, for example, tends to cost a lot more than intensive farming and reduces yields. Certain types of farming cost a lot more per hectare to work. Then there's the cost of the ecological preservation work - maintaining waterways and planting hedges costs money, and again can reduce the yield of the land which is WHY they get the subsidies.

The farmers have to do the work, then apply for the grants. In theory these are paid soon after the work has been done (at the farmer's expense of course) but can take up to a couple of years to go through the system.

Many farmers have had to diversify to stay in business, which can make them ineligible for grants too.