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Milk prices

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vagrantbrain
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Milk prices

#300479

Postby vagrantbrain » April 13th, 2020, 8:18 pm

Apologies if this is the wrong board...

A lot of farmers I know are always (and have been for years) complaining that the price of milk is too low to be sustainable, and from what I can see it's a major issue in other developed countries as well - the USDA apparently bought tens of millions of dollars worth of unsold milk late last year to save US dairy farmers from bankruptcy. As its been going on for years I can't see why farmers still produce so much milk when the laws of supply and demand would suggest that the supply is far too high. Every time i've brought this up with them I get shouted down as a townie, or told that I don't understand rural life etc but no-ones every explained in words of one syllable why farmers as a group continue to produce a product in quantities that the market doesn't want. Anybody know why? Farmers aren't thick so I suspect some sort of subsidies or grants are involved...

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Re: Milk prices

#300504

Postby tjh290633 » April 13th, 2020, 10:07 pm

I know one farm which used to have a prize herd of milking cows, which now raises Dexters for beef because they were losing money on milk.

Farmers are businessmen and do what they think is right. A lot get added value from their milk by converting into cheese, for example.

TJH

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Re: Milk prices

#300506

Postby kempiejon » April 13th, 2020, 10:20 pm

-
tjh290633 wrote:Farmers are businessmen and do what they think is right. A lot get added value from their milk by converting into cheese, for example.


Quite, a friend's family sold their milkers and diversified into a wedding venue. In the modern world of plant milks, methane, veggie, vegan and ethical consumers, cystitis, male calves rose veal etc I'm surprised dairy farmers bother, I'd diversify into eco-poding B&B, zorbing or worm farming.

Dod101
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Re: Milk prices

#300507

Postby Dod101 » April 13th, 2020, 10:21 pm

I think maybe some farmers are businessmen but far too many of them are subsidy junkies (remember the CAP?) That is probably why we have a surplus of milk.

Dod

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Re: Milk prices

#300510

Postby odysseus2000 » April 13th, 2020, 10:36 pm

Dairy farming is an interesting one.

In many parts of the country there are TB tests and reactors are taken for slaughter which must be soul destroying, especially with all the trouble over badgers and culls and public dislike etc.

There are the very long hours associated with dairy although reduced a bit due to the development of computer milking where the cow decides when to be milked and comes to the parlour as it needs to if the farmer can afford this kit.

Often though I think it comes down to Farmers love for the life and a political understanding that the country needs milk and that if there is a national emergency, such as a blockade or a closing of borders which apparently nearly happened with France before our lockdown and we haven't got any of our own milk there will be trouble.

Every now and then some politician or other puts forward the notion that the UK should stop all farming as its cheaper to buy in what we need, but wiser heads generally prevail and when we get a crisis such as the current c19 we quickly realise that with out our own food production we would be in a very weak and vulnerable position. No body likes subsidies to keep business going and there has been abuse of farm subsidies, in an emergency our farmers have a vital role to play. imho we should support them better than we do.

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Re: Milk prices

#300516

Postby colin » April 13th, 2020, 11:06 pm

The EU used to impose a limit on how much milk could be produced untill sanctions on Russia resulted in them banning EU agricultural products so bizzarely the EU removed the limit in the hope that more cheap milk would find new markets in developing countries, but that was some years ago now.

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Re: Milk prices

#300528

Postby gryffron » April 14th, 2020, 12:12 am

Have you ever known farmers to stop complaining? Seriously. It's always too wet, too dry, too hot, too cold. One year we had absolutely perfect growing conditions and they cried because prices were too low.

I think there are always going to be SOME farms which fail economically. And the media and NFU ensure these are the ones we hear about. But "Successful farmer makes loads of money" is not a story either the NFU or media want you to hear.

Btw. Did you know Mr Dyson owns vast tracts of farmland. Is he the sort of person to buy unprofitable investments? No inheritance tax on farmland.

Gryff

Bagger46

Re: Milk prices

#300544

Postby Bagger46 » April 14th, 2020, 8:00 am

gryffron wrote:Have you ever known farmers to stop complaining? Seriously. It's always too wet, too dry, too hot, too cold. One year we had absolutely perfect growing conditions and they cried because prices were too low.

I think there are always going to be SOME farms which fail economically. And the media and NFU ensure these are the ones we hear about. But "Successful farmer makes loads of money" is not a story either the NFU or media want you to hear.

Btw. Did you know Mr Dyson owns vast tracts of farmland. Is he the sort of person to buy unprofitable investments? No inheritance tax on farmland.

Gryff


It is sad to see posts such as yours. You have not got a clue.

The great bulk of farmers work really hard, face immense problems of all sorts, are not appreciated by joe public, and yet you could not live without them. Many of them are giving up, and long term if we keep destroying our farming industry we will regret it.

At the moment, we are going through a nightmare on our farm, which is run by one of our daughters.

Bagger

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Re: Milk prices

#300548

Postby Wuffle » April 14th, 2020, 8:15 am

My partners family are small time dairy farmers.
She got out (with damage).
They are lunatics who have been totally institutionalised by the relentless routine and isolation.
Have not made money in decades, just slowly ramped up the debt and are on the hamster wheel.
One of the kids has been brain washed and is helping to limp it along.
Those small, tatty farms you see are likely the same.
Check the suicide rate.
City money farming is a different beast.

W.

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Re: Milk prices

#300549

Postby Itsallaguess » April 14th, 2020, 8:19 am

Bagger46 wrote:
At the moment, we are going through a nightmare on our farm, which is run by one of our daughters.


Hi Bagger,

Are you in a position to be able to expand a little on the above?

My family on my mothers side have a history of farming that fell by the way-side many years ago, and I'll admit to being completely out of touch with how many UK farmers now run their operations, especially on the cattle and milking side of things.

I'm sure I'm not the only one on these boards that would love to properly hear from the farmers side, and especially regarding the issues that they must be currently suffering with during this pandemic. I deeply suspect that many of the 'popularly held views' regarding UK farmers are based on either out-dated or incorrect information, or possibly both, so is this an opportunity to perhaps help fix some of those issues?

Are you in a position to explain in a little more detail just how things work with modern UK farming, and the issues that they're currently facing?

I hope your daughter's situation is manageable and that she can work her way through what must be a very difficult period right now.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: Milk prices

#300564

Postby colin » April 14th, 2020, 8:57 am

Dod101 wrote:I think maybe some farmers are businessmen but far too many of them are subsidy junkies (remember the CAP?) That is probably why we have a surplus of milk.

Dod

There is no subsidy for milk production as such but as I have posted above there used to be limits on production, there is a subsidy on grazing land which obviously must be grazed. The current situation of too much supply is the dissapearence of markets due to Coronovirus lockdowns as widely reported in the press.

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Re: Milk prices

#300587

Postby ReformedCharacter » April 14th, 2020, 10:18 am

tjh290633 wrote:I know one farm which used to have a prize herd of milking cows, which now raises Dexters for beef because they were losing money on milk.

Farmers are businessmen and do what they think is right. A lot get added value from their milk by converting into cheese, for example.

TJH

40 years ago, a farmer with 200 acres of decent grassland (80Ha) with 100 dairy cattle and followers could provide a decent living for a family, not a life of luxury but a reasonable lifestyle. 10 years ago I calculated that the same farm would provide an income of less than the minimum wage.

When we moved to this part of Cornwall > 25 years ago there were still a few folk producing clotted cream from Jerseys but that has disappeared now. In fact there are very few dairy farms in Cornwall now. Those few that still exist are large units with many hundreds of dairy cattle. I'm not sure it is correct to say that 'a lot get added value from their milk by converting into cheese', some do but many lack(ed) the nous, the capital or the market. Personally I'm very grateful that there has been a revival in cheese making because at one time small scale decent cheese production nearly vanished in this country to be replaced by something resembling a form of edible plastic. I eat quite a lot of a locally made cheese.

As for Dexters, they're not usually considered a beef breed but they are small and easy to manage and will produce milk and beef but neither exceptionally well. Farmers producing beef aren't immune from prices moving against them either. Farm land is expensive stuff but that doesn't seem to be due to the profitability of farming.

RC

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Re: Milk prices

#300598

Postby colin » April 14th, 2020, 10:47 am

ReformedCharacter wrote:Farm land is expensive stuff but that doesn't seem to be due to the profitability of farming.

RC

The price of farmland as of any land is governed by the income which it will produce and for farmland that is heavilly dependent on subsidies , in the west of UK the majority of farmers income does not come from food production but from a combination of subsidies and non farming activities. Near where I live shooting brings in serious money for a few farmers who tolerate far higher numbers of deer than they did previously.
When electricity production from anaerobic digesters was being subsidised tennant farmers complained that the rents on land suitable for harvesting the subsidy was so high that food production was no longer economically viable.
The general public are generally ignorant of the link between food production and ecology, virtually none of the farm land in the west can produce enough food to be profitable in a world where we can import cheaper produce from more productive areas.

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Re: Milk prices

#300616

Postby gryffron » April 14th, 2020, 12:12 pm

Bagger46 wrote:It is sad to see posts such as yours. You have not got a clue.

Sorry you're suffering. But I do understand. Continuing to push this "all farming is doomed" message won't help. I'm not falling for it.

I have several friends who are farmers in Lincolnshire, right now. Yes they work hard, needed, etc. But frankly, they're loaded. Because they all work huge industrial farms. Massive Combines. Massive tractors - you should see the computer screens they have.
I knew a Yorkshire dairy farmer. Sold all his milk to Tesco. Again, huge farm, huge number of cows, huge investment. Robo-milking machines. Massive tanker collected every day. But ultimately comfortably profitable.

The key I think is this...
ReformedCharacter wrote:40 years ago, a farmer with 200 acres of decent grassland (80Ha) with 100 dairy cattle and followers could provide a decent living for a family, not a life of luxury but a reasonable lifestyle. 10 years ago I calculated that the same farm would provide an income of less than the minimum wage.

In the fifties Britain had dozens of general car manufacturers. They were mostly small, and most of them lost money. In the sixties and seventies we propped them up with govt susbsidies. But it didn't help. They could not ultimately compete with the big players. Nowadays, Britain has 3 huge general car manufacturers, and a handful of tiny specialists.

Whether you like it or not, whether your family are involved or not, global farming is going the same way as global manufacturing. Small farms are still common in Western England, in France, in Italy. Where history, and centuries of dividing land between sons has fragmented ownership. These small farms cannot survive, cannot compete with the big boys in general, bulk produce. Their competitors, farms in Eastern England, Germany, Russia, and the Americas are vast. So either they target specialist niches, like Lotus, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, or they go bust and get taken over by the big boys.

Our small farms are going. Most of them anyway, apart from the few that can carve that specialist niche. They cannot compete. They cannot afford the massive complex machinery the big boys use. Subsidies might delay this, but they won't prevent it.

The subsidies could be better targeted. Lincolnshire still gets huge farm subsidies to boost profits. But while the EU continues to subsidise its farmers, we need to support ours. Otherwise we'll see the same foreign takeover of food production that happened in the car industry. HOWEVER the ability to actually produce volumes of food still needs to be ONE of the factors we consider in dishing out these subsidies. Supporting EVERY inefficient tiny farm, because that's how it worked in the 1950s, is not the answer.

Gryff

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Re: Milk prices

#300627

Postby colin » April 14th, 2020, 12:41 pm

gryffron wrote:
Bagger46 wrote:It is sad to see posts such as yours. You have not got a clue.

Sorry you're suffering. But I do understand. Continuing to push this "all farming is doomed" message won't help. I'm not falling for it.

I have several friends who are farmers in Lincolnshire, right now. Yes they work hard, needed, etc. But frankly, they're loaded. Because they all work huge industrial farms. Massive Combines. Massive tractors - you should see the computer screens they have.

No you are very wrong here gryffron , the reason these farmers are doing well is down to ecology, farmers in Lincolnshire also did well before the industrial revolution, they have the best soil in the country.

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Re: Milk prices

#300633

Postby dspp » April 14th, 2020, 12:51 pm

There is also the distorting effect of farms being used as a tax efficient way to store wealth and transfer it through generations. It has a considerable self-perpetuating political lobby for it.

Whilst within the EU the UK was able to influence the EU CAP, for example the UK was (from memory) behind the push to eliminate milk quotas, and milk subsidies. Outside the EU the UK is a competitor to be eliminated. The small guys generally lose last-man-standing games, irrespective of the sector. This is not a pro or anti EU point - similar issues arise between USA and their neighbours, life is not necessarily fair.

Suicide etc is a hazard of life for small farmers (there is a very pithy Dutch expression for this, it is not unique to the UK). It is also so for small manufacturers. Economic side-effects can be very brutal at the personal level.

Around me the farmers on 400 acres up can generally make a go of it, get above 600 acres and thet tend to be chequebook farmers who never get mud on their boots and use contractors for almost everything. Less than 200 acres and they are stuffed. The quality of the land, both from a soil/water perspective, and its amenability to farming (flat/level vs steep/rocky) are also relevant factors.

regards, dspp

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Re: Milk prices

#300639

Postby gryffron » April 14th, 2020, 1:22 pm

colin wrote:the reason these farmers are doing well is down to ecology, farmers in Lincolnshire also did well before the industrial revolution

Grant you our soil is a small advantage. But only a bit. IMO flat land helps mechanisation more. You can't use vast machines on hilly land.

Not convinced we were much better than anyone else before the industrial revolution. After all, the population of Lincolnshire is not/was never large compared to other counties. If farming in Lincolnshire was so great pre-industrial revolution, you'd expect a larger population. Course, much of it was underwater or salt marshes pre 1750's.

But it still doesn't explain how you expect tiny fields/tiny farms to survive/compete with mechanisation in the 21st century.

Gryff

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Re: Milk prices

#300654

Postby colin » April 14th, 2020, 2:51 pm

gryffron wrote:
colin wrote:the reason these farmers are doing well is down to ecology, farmers in Lincolnshire also did well before the industrial revolution

Grant you our soil is a small advantage. But only a bit. IMO flat land helps mechanisation more. You can't use vast machines on hilly land.

Not convinced we were much better than anyone else before the industrial revolution. After all, the population of Lincolnshire is not/was never large compared to other counties. If farming in Lincolnshire was so great pre-industrial revolution, you'd expect a larger population. Course, much of it was underwater or salt marshes pre 1750's.

But it still doesn't explain how you expect tiny fields/tiny farms to survive/compete with mechanisation in the 21st century.

Gryff

Ecology and soils are everything , not 'a small advantage' in the slightest, the land in Lincolnshire needed draining before the underlying fertility could be made productive and true machinery and pumps made that possible on a large industrial scale scale but it began before the steam engine was invented . The rainfall dropping on the fenlands of Lincolnshire is very much less than that which falls on the Somerset levels which were like wise drained yet the peat soil there produces almost no crops as the higher rain fall leaches out the natural fertility of the land to levels bellow which plant roots can access those nutrients and the wetter soil is lacking in oxygen which results in more acid conditions and slower decomposition of organic matter. after drainage very different soils develop and today no one grows arable crops on the levels it would not make any difference how much machinery and computers they used it's all down to soils that develop under the prevailing ecological conditions primarily influeced by climate and geology .Landowners in the west once grew very rich from wool but that market is a shadow of what it once was but for those who can graze Merino sheep there is good demand for the finer wool but the ecological conditions that Merino sheep require to thrive in numbers do not exist in the UK. Anything to do with producing plants and animals is governed by ecology, you can't even garden let alone farm without understanding that.

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Re: Milk prices

#300657

Postby ReformedCharacter » April 14th, 2020, 3:31 pm

colin wrote:Ecology and soils are everything...


If you care about the environment and soil health then you're right but the modern food economy doesn't reward that. The value given to natural fertility in times past was irrevocably changed by artificial fertilisers. pesticides, globalisation, mechanisation, and a perverted economic system of subsidy and taxes.

RC

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Re: Milk prices

#300661

Postby tjh290633 » April 14th, 2020, 3:52 pm

gryffron wrote:In the fifties Britain had dozens of general car manufacturers.

I don't think that there were dozens. Dozens of makes, perhaps, but you had Morris Motors with about 5, Austin with a couple, Rootes with 4, Vauxhall with just one, Rolls Royce with 2, Triumph with 2, then you came down to the small ones. like Reliant, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, Alvis, Allard, and so on. I can think of Jensen, Jowett, Bond, and a few kit cars, but that's about it.

We probably had more dairies. Our milk came in a churn on the front of a tradesman's bike and was ladled out into a jug. He had a farm about 200 yards away. Another put his in bottles, and was the exception.

TJH


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