"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

Gordon Couger wrote in message
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"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

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?

the thing about the Common Agricultural Policy is that it is common and
the EU lays down regulations to ensure that it is stuck to. An example
is the "green currency". Basically pre euro, and for those countries not
in the euro zone, farm subsidies were/are paid in ecu/euro. As your
currency strengthens against the euro the amount of subsidy you farmers
get falls, as your currency weakens against the euro the amount farmers
get increases.
To stop countries running a weak currency and siphoning money off europe
into their agriculture the EU set up a system to ensure that at regular
intervals, or if currencies fluctuated outside certain limits, the
"green" currency was revalued meaning farmers got the same Euros as they
would have if their currency had remained static against the Euro.
Hence when the Pound crashed out of the ERM on black wednesday we did
OK, because we got more euros. Just briefly until the falling £ hit
another band and the green £ was revalued. When the £ goes up and is
strong against the Euro then the member state can pay money to make up
the difference so their farmers don't miss out.
The rules for weak currencies are statutory, countries have no choice.
The EU knows its member states and tries to put in rules to stop them
unfairly favouring their own nationals.
The rules for strong currencies aren't compulsory because the EU
couldn't believe that a member state would knowingly crucify it's own
industries.
Needless to say the UK government has paid only a proportion of the
money necessary to compensate for the strong currency, and calculations
show (you can get the figures of the statistics sections of the defra
website) that over a billion £ sterling are being sucked out of UK
agriculture every year. It is probable that already not paying this
money to UK agriculture has already covered the costs of BSE.



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.


we have smallholders and I don't think that there is any government
outreach to them. They can get drawn into the net of paperwork and form
filling but will probably not get much in the way of support payments.
=====================
There is not much paper work over here. If you go off the program it's no
big deal. Progams only cover small grains, cotton beans, corn, feed grains
peants and few more. Fruits, vetgables and such are not under any kind of
price support. Some cattlmen have nothing to do with govement programs
except the disease programs.

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.


round here we have a lot of contractors, more small farmers, farmers
sons or similar who have a tractor, slurry tanker, round baler and
wrapper, etc. Some will do mowing, ploughing etc. There are outfits who
can put a couple of silage teams into the field (self propelled
harvester, three tractors and trailers, a rake, two mowers and a loading
shovel for the pit) but these are the minority.


Where you aren't big enough to capitalize your equipment contracting or
partnerships can make it work. The thing is if things get tough people cut
out contractors first.

Gordon