“Does a person need to be born into a certain family to have knowledge of farming? Could a person who had knowledge of agriculture not do it just as well if not better?
Current system is a closed shop that benefits only a few, hence why they are crapping themselves at having to part with a tax dime.”
It takes years to have the knowledge and expertise to run a farm. It’s like the longest, most underpaid apprenticeship there is.
There are those not born to farming who go to college and take on a council tenancy or a well priced tenancy, but sadly they tend to fail as they don’t have the decades of experience behind them like those born on farms and brought up with that amount of work being the norm.
Typically on a farm there are three generations - the older ones who are slowing down, playing an increasingly lesser role. The middle generation, increasing responsibility, taking the main role, the endless paperwork, the day to day decisions, and the younger, starting very young feeding lambs/calves, helping a parent with some tractor work, being immersed in farm life, and as they grow older learning the ropes, going to do some contracting as older teenagers, maybe working on other farms until they too start to take on more responsibility on their family farm. A farmer is learning right from being a baby.
For others wanting to farm, my son for example, the road is not as easy. He started working on a farm at 15, started driving tractors at 16, found some contracting work locally so gained some experience that way. He may one day become a farm manager, or a dairy manager.
Taking on the full responsibility of a farm is like having a few jobs in one. You’re the zoo keeper, the secretary, the manager, the night shift, the transport manager. In busy times (calving, lambing, silaging, harvest etc) you may work up to 20 hours a day without any extra pay or anyone to come and take over from you. If you want a holiday you need to coordinate it to a degree where you probably won’t relax (more when you’re a livestock farmer, where it literally never stops), in fact many farmers I know don’t have holidays beyond the odd weekend away. Very few people would take this on willingly, and if they did they’d want a better rate of pay than farmers generally get. It can come across as a closed shop because who in their right mind would want that lifestyle for such a low and unpredictable return?
They’re not crapping themselves because they might have to “part with a tax dime” (which is ridiculous as they already pay tax just like everyone else), they’re crapping themselves because their houses are tied up with the business in a way that no other business is. Because they can see how little they are valued, even at a precarious point in history where farming should be one of our top priorities. Because they’re sick and tired of people calling them multi millionaires and wilfully ignoring the hardships they go through. Because they’re sick of idiots begrudging them having anything nice, most of which is necessary farm equipment anyway and not bought for luxury lifestyle reasons.
Because a large portion of the population seemingly doesn’t understand what it takes to produce food, and how little farmers are paid in order to do that.
Because so many people are coming after them to try to control billionaires who find loopholes to avoid paying tax, but don’t care that they’re hurting people who provide our food in the meantime.
Go after the billionaires, stop millionaires from registering their businesses in low tax rate countries, close the loopholes, but leave farmers alone when it’s blatantly obvious that the loudest voices don’t have a clue what the potential consequences are of these actions.