"Jim Webster" wrote in message
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Gordon Couger wrote in message
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If they don't feel they need farmers why are they subsiding them?


here you confuse the EU and UK. Whenever there is a voluntary scheme,
the UK does not pay out on it, if the EU allow an extra top up if a
national government deems it necessary, the UK government doesn't deem
it necessary.

Love them or loathe them, If it wasn't for the EU there probably would
not be organised agriculture in the UK any more, a handful of really big
cereal operations and a lot of part time "ranching" of cattle and sheep
at no input stocking rates.

I am confusing the two. So the UK doesn't contribute any to the farmer?

Half the beef in the US is rasied by the guy with a job in town and few head
at home. It is a real concern how to get him the better genetics that he
needs to move in the right direction.

No till has the potential to put farming in the same boat. I look at that
and think I could buy a old tractor and a planter and farm a couple of
quarters of cotton with a good scout and spray plane and make money at it
particularly if I put in a center pivot and drilled enough wells to get
water for it. Now that we have the boll weevil under control and BT cotton
lets us spray for insects with out having to continue to spray once a week
to keep the boll worm out if we kill the beneficial insects. It makes cotton
a new deal.

I could probably even hire the planting done. But that gets a bit dicey.
You gamble on someone being free when you need them and that is far from a
sure thing. I made a lot of nice money running tractors round the clock so I
could have some extra time to hire out to others at critical times.

Gordon