Hamish Macbeth wrote in message
...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

Hamish Macbeth wrote in message
So that is why I chose return on capital. Most businesses do
function on invested capital.


But what figure do you use as capital when you own the farm?

we would basically take the capital as the money we would get if we
cashed everything in. Value of house, land, livestock, machinery, quota,
feed and fertiliser in hand.


To give a non-farming analogy. Lord Bath owns the Longleat Estate and
runs a
bussiness from it.
Do you treat the value of the estate as the captitol and consider the
turnover and profits in relationship to that?

If it was just his private house, and he ran a taxi firm from it, I
wouldn't. In his case the house and access to it is part of the business
so you have to take the value in.
Remember with a lot of these estates that the value might be enhanced if
you could demolish the house and rebuild something of your own design.
In a lot of cases the house is more of a millstone than an asset.


Or do you think his family already owned it as a private property and
utilise it to earn cash. A bit like someone owning a family car and
earning
a little extra money weekends doing private car hire.

If you count the value of the estate as the capitol then you will
probably
deduce he could do better putting the money in the building society
and that
he is running the bussiness on poor returns.

most businesses which are land based fall into that category in the UK.
In the US when land prices are lower they expect a far higher return on
capital.
Remember that the owner of a town centre shop may also be in a similar
position, and from memory several store chains have also had this
problem, they were at risk of being bought up purely for the new owner
to sell sites for development.

If you treat it as a mechanism by which he enjoys the continued
ownership of
a vast estate that otherwise would be lost to his heirs in taxes and
the
capitol is only the extras spent purely to run the business, then the
return
on capitol can look very good.

Your farm may be worth a million pounds as bare land and fixed
buildings but
you could count this as something you own and you run a business to
maintain your possesion. in which case only the non-fixtures count as
business capitol.

remember in many cases the business is paying the mortgage (or
attempting to) so the return on capital of a farm has to take into
account the capital value of land and buildings because it is the
business which has to fund the purchase of them. Longleat or similar is
unusual in this regard. In the case of most farms, even if the current
owner never had to buy the assets on the open market, they will have
often had to buy them off parents (so that parents could afford to
retire) or siblings (as your brothers and sisters are entitled to their
share.

A farm is somewhat different to most businesses, say a hairdressers or
retail shop where the bussiness premisses are normally not part of the
owners private and personal life. There is not the seperation between
what
is enjoyed as a personal posestion and life enhancement and what is
the
source of income.

if you are a businessman, the bank can demand security for your loan and
take your private house as security. In small businesses there is very
little separation between personal and business until you get to the
level where all the managers are employees of the company.


I know that the whole thiing may have been bought under a business
loan but
there is still the duality with a farm that does not exist in most
business
activities.

if you compare farms with businesses of similar size and turn over I
think you will find remarkable similarities. Look at pub landlords,
(whether owner or tenant) privately owned garages and similar.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

we would basically take the capital as the money we would get if we
cashed everything in. Value of house, land, livestock, machinery, quota,
feed and fertiliser in hand.



Fair enough, but I think you need to add to the cash return of the bussiness
the lifestyle value of living on a farm.

Also care has to be made not to double count the investment return.

If you had bought your farm on a loan and a capitol deposit then repaid the
loan out of the business returns then
you either have to compare the return on capitol on the original deposit or
count the growth in value and the loan paid off as part of the return on
capitol.

Also from the lifestyle aspects. Possibly not so significant in cumbria, but
what would it cost to rent a property like your farmhouse if it was
freestanding and not part of farm?

If you start comparing different jobs I think you need to standback and look
at the lifestyle that an activity supports rather than a single metric such
as income as defined by the inland revenue.

Hamish Macbeth wrote in message
...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

we would basically take the capital as the money we would get if we
cashed everything in. Value of house, land, livestock, machinery,
quota,
feed and fertiliser in hand.



Fair enough, but I think you need to add to the cash return of the
bussiness
the lifestyle value of living on a farm.

what cash value to you place on being on call 24hrs a day, living within
200yds of a slurry pit and silage pit.


Also care has to be made not to double count the investment return.

If you had bought your farm on a loan and a capitol deposit then
repaid the
loan out of the business returns then
you either have to compare the return on capitol on the original
deposit or
count the growth in value and the loan paid off as part of the return
on
capitol.

Also from the lifestyle aspects. Possibly not so significant in
cumbria, but
what would it cost to rent a property like your farmhouse if it was
freestanding and not part of farm?

Actually all you have to do is look at the council tax band which does
contain an element of deduction for being part of a farm, but this is
often not enough to drop it a band.


If you start comparing different jobs I think you need to standback
and look
at the lifestyle that an activity supports rather than a single metric
such
as income as defined by the inland revenue.

which part of the life style to you crave. Working outdoors whatever the
weather, the 24 hrs on call, no weekends off, no paid holidays, no sick
leave. No street lighting, roads poorly maintained, poor electricity
supply, poor telephone connection, the fact that if you want to go
anywhere at all there is no viable public transport and you have to have
a car.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

..

which part of the life style to you crave. Working outdoors whatever the
weather, the 24 hrs on call, no weekends off, no paid holidays, no sick
leave. No street lighting, roads poorly maintained, poor electricity
supply, poor telephone connection, the fact that if you want to go
anywhere at all there is no viable public transport and you have to have
a car.


I don't think I implied any craving? I was just suggesting that cash income
from a farm business is probably a poor metric. To compare that with a
statistical average wage really does not produce a meaningful insight.

From this newsgroup it would appear that people given a choice of careers
have chosen farming over others which would have given holidays and sick
leave.

On Tue, 7 Jan 2003 09:23:51 +0000, Tim Lamb
wrote:

In article , Torsten Brinch
writes
There seems to be a more immediate problem in that I am posting to
ukba *now* using current standard terms for measures of Farm Income
and noone seems to know what I am talking about.

Not enough to argue it, anyway.
If your end objective is to convince us that farmers are well rewarded
why start from an obscure accounting system.

What you write illustrates the problem very well. What is suspicious
and obscure to you, is the accounting system and the measures of farm
income of the UK national farm income statistics.

In your example, a gross turnover of 290,000 puts the operation in the
100-200ha size (my guess) and hardly representative of an average farm
business.

Well, I did try to massage the example such that it should roughly
represent the average farm (~105 ha) in your national statistics
(excl. farms with less than 8 ESUs)

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

which part of the life style to you crave. Working outdoors whatever
the
weather, the 24 hrs on call, no weekends off, no paid holidays, no
sick
leave. No street lighting, roads poorly maintained, poor electricity
supply, poor telephone connection, the fact that if you want to go
anywhere at all there is no viable public transport and you have to
have
a car.

So why do you farm Jim?

--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

"Jim Webster" wrote in message

Hamish Macbeth wrote in message
...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...
we would basically take the capital as the money we would get if we
cashed everything in. Value of house, land, livestock, machinery,
quota, feed and fertiliser in hand.
Fair enough, but I think you need to add to the cash return of the
bussiness the lifestyle value of living on a farm.
what cash value to you place on being on call 24hrs a day, living
within 200yds of a slurry pit and silage pit.

Someone really ought to market a deodorant for some of those country
smells :)

Also care has to be made not to double count the investment return.

If you had bought your farm on a loan and a capitol deposit then
repaid the loan out of the business returns then
you either have to compare the return on capitol on the original
deposit or count the growth in value and the loan paid off as part
of the return on capitol.

Also from the lifestyle aspects. Possibly not so significant in
cumbria, but what would it cost to rent a property like your
farmhouse if it was freestanding and not part of farm?

Actually all you have to do is look at the council tax band which does
contain an element of deduction for being part of a farm, but this is
often not enough to drop it a band.

If you start comparing different jobs I think you need to standback
and look at the lifestyle that an activity supports rather than a
single metric such as income as defined by the inland revenue.

which part of the life style to you crave. Working outdoors whatever
the weather,

Has a certain attraction - I tend not to see more than 30 minutes daylight
per day Mon-Fri for 3 months of the year.

the 24 hrs on call,

That's a real bugger. One in six is bad enough.

no weekends off,

I could live with that - _providing_ there were some sheep to be taken from
one valley to another. On foot, of course.

no paid holidays,

Counts for a lot of self-employed/contractors. 45% of the people working
where I do are in this 'boat' (although the agency staff now do get 'paid
leave', this was achieved by dropping the hourly rate by a commensurable
%age which was accrued to give an 'average' day's pay when they took a day
off).

no sick leave.

Ditto.

No street lighting, roads poorly maintained, poor
electricity supply, poor telephone connection,

From a certain PoV, the lack of street lighting is something I don't think
I'd miss. Less light pollution, more stars and other celestial objects to be
seen (assuming the clouds don't make an appearance).

As an aside, how 'bad' is your electric supply? I have fairly regular
brown-outs (enough to bring down a PC) and I've had a few total outages over
the past six months.

The poor telephone is a bugger for modems, though. I could live with a poor
telephone connection on my desk at work, though ;)

the fact that if you
want to go anywhere at all there is no viable public transport and
you have to have a car.

This is true of a many places outside major cities. Even between cities -
the last petrol shortage forced one of my collegues onto the train.
Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester. The connection is OK if you are going between
the major station(s), but the minor outside the city centres are poo - it
was taking him 2.5 hours each way for a 30 mile journey.

(AFAIA, Return On Average Capitol Employed is useful for comparing
performance of companies in the same or similar sectors. It isn't
particularly good for comparing 'chalk with cheese'.)

--
Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is mystery,
The only time we really have is now,
Which is why it is called the present.

Hamish Macbeth wrote in message
...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

.

which part of the life style to you crave. Working outdoors whatever
the
weather, the 24 hrs on call, no weekends off, no paid holidays, no
sick
leave. No street lighting, roads poorly maintained, poor electricity
supply, poor telephone connection, the fact that if you want to go
anywhere at all there is no viable public transport and you have to
have
a car.


I don't think I implied any craving? I was just suggesting that cash
income
from a farm business is probably a poor metric. To compare that with a
statistical average wage really does not produce a meaningful insight.

it was torsten who was keen on comparing it with a wage. I reckon that
to do such is a waste of time.

From this newsgroup it would appear that people given a choice of
careers
have chosen farming over others which would have given holidays and
sick
leave.

yes but remember, when we went into it there was more money and staff
and holidays etc were a definate possibility. The quality of life has
definately deteriorated over the last ten years.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'

Old Codger wrote in message
news:vhIS9.10682$4k6.945006@wards...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

which part of the life style to you crave. Working outdoors whatever
the
weather, the 24 hrs on call, no weekends off, no paid holidays, no
sick
leave. No street lighting, roads poorly maintained, poor electricity
supply, poor telephone connection, the fact that if you want to go
anywhere at all there is no viable public transport and you have to
have
a car.

So why do you farm Jim?

remember the money side of it, the holidays, time off etc is now far
worse than it was ten or twenty years ago. We have seen our quality of
life go backwards


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'


--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...


remember the money side of it, the holidays, time off etc is now far
worse than it was ten or twenty years ago. We have seen our quality of
life go backwards




Certainly if you are unable to take breaks away that is a significant
drop.
Breaks away clear the mind and allow a detached view of work activities.
Not having them is likely to be bad for the individual and bad for the
business.

Hamish Macbeth wrote in message
...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...


remember the money side of it, the holidays, time off etc is now far
worse than it was ten or twenty years ago. We have seen our quality
of
life go backwards




Certainly if you are unable to take breaks away that is a
significant
drop.
Breaks away clear the mind and allow a detached view of work
activities.
Not having them is likely to be bad for the individual and bad for the
business.

Last year I got a five day family holiday which is what my sister and
her family could cover for me. Year before no holiday because of fmd,
but 2001 is not a year that should be included in anything, including
memory.
Prior to 2000 we had an employee and I could normally get two weeks but
remember this holiday was always in the UK and I phoned home every night
to check on details such as calvings, AI, whether anyone had phoned,
called needing me as Brenda and I are the entire management team. Also
because if something went wrong (like relief milker breaking a leg, or
having illness in his family or whatever) we had to be no more than 12
to 18 hours away from home.
Last time I went abroad would be 1984 before my fathers health collapsed
and he had to have a triple heart bypass.

Occassionally I will get a day down to a London meeting which means I go
down one day and back the next, which is a break of sorts.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'

"Hamish Macbeth" wrote in message
...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...


remember the money side of it, the holidays, time off etc is now far
worse than it was ten or twenty years ago. We have seen our quality of
life go backwards




Certainly if you are unable to take breaks away that is a significant
drop.
Breaks away clear the mind and allow a detached view of work activities.
Not having them is likely to be bad for the individual and bad for the
business.

We have not had a holiday for 9 years
We both left the farm together for 3 afternoons last year
He had about 4 days away to play trains -
I had 5 days off farm to run a stand at the Royal Highland show
other days at other events
and one night away at the Scottish National Poultry show which was no
working as such
Our "breaks" are when friends come to stay when we do what is essential and
enjoy having people about.
We cannot afford to have a full time employee and when we have tried it
cannot find anyone competent enough to leave the farm with.
What is the price of farm sitters these days ? - you would be looking at
doubling the costs of a standard holiday price.
It would be great to get away but the worry of what was going on at home
would be so great that I don't think it would be very relaxing
and as we don't really have slack times it would be very difficult to pick a
time.
But we are very small and involved business like many up here
Many of our firends also have not had "holidays" as others perceive them for
years too. A few manage to get away for the odd day or two in the winter if
their business is more summer based but few can afford to spend proper
holidays as a personal expense.

--
Jill Bowis

http://www.poultryscotland.co.uk http://www.henhouses.co.uk
http://www.domesticducks.co.uk http://www.poultry-books.co.uk
http://www.kintaline.co.uk/cottage

In article , Torsten Brinch
writes
On Tue, 7 Jan 2003 09:23:51 +0000, Tim Lamb
wrote:

In article , Torsten Brinch
writes
There seems to be a more immediate problem in that I am posting to
ukba *now* using current standard terms for measures of Farm Income
and noone seems to know what I am talking about.

Not enough to argue it, anyway.
If your end objective is to convince us that farmers are well rewarded
why start from an obscure accounting system.

What you write illustrates the problem very well. What is suspicious
and obscure to you, is the accounting system and the measures of farm
income of the UK national farm income statistics.

Nuff said!

One does try to help:-)

More than 10% of my perceived income is spent on accountants fees!

One big annual complaint is the amount they try to transfer from
*revenue* spend to *drawings* in order to satisfy some disbelief that
anyone can live so cheaply.

regards

--
Tim Lamb

In article nWSS9.10766$4k6.955243@wards, Jill news@REMOVETHISkintalin
e.plus.com writes
We have not had a holiday for 9 years
Sorry but I have no sympathy for this whinging whatsoever. If you don't
like your lifestyle then change it !

I have been a self employed freelance for about 16 years, before that I
was a staff photographer on a daily paper.

When I was a staffer I worked most weekends and several nights each week
often not getting home until the small hours. It was a tough schedule
but at least I had holidays and time off during the week.

But as a freelance I had none of those benefits yet if anything the
schedule was more punishing. I had one holiday in those 16 years so your
life seems very luxurious in comparison.

When I started to get fed up with things I changed what I was doing,
simple as that.

Nobody is holding a gun at your head to make you do what you do and if
you don't like it then do something else. Pathetic whining will get you
nowhere.

Cheers
Dave

--

In article , Jim Webster
writes

Oh come off it Jim !

Working outdoors whatever the
weather,
Many would welcome that, change it for an office job if you don't like
it.

the 24 hrs on call,
I've been on 24 hour call for the vast majority of my working life, so
what ?

no weekends off,
I worked every weekend for years. When I got fed up with it I changed
what I do. I still work some weekend days. I'll be out working this
Sunday while your tucked up in the warm having your Sunday lunch.

no paid holidays,
Same for every self employed person in the country, why should you be
special.

no sick
leave.
Same for every self employed person in the country, why should you be
special.

No street lighting,
Is there a need for it ?

Are you seriously suggesting your farm would benefit from street
lighting ?

Many in urban areas complain of light pollution and would be much
happier without so much road/street lighting.

roads poorly maintained,
Try rural Lincolnshire !!!!

poor electricity
supply,
We are supplied by overhead lines. Regular power cuts although things
have improved lately. No big deal.

Don't forget you pay exactly the same for your electricity as folk in
urban areas yet it costs far more to deliver the supply to your home.
You're on a winner there, I feel quite grateful that in effect my supply
is being subsidised by town dwellers.

poor telephone connection,
I have the same moan, mainly that I can't get broad band. Normal service
here is acceptable.

Don't forget you pay exactly the same for your phone as folk in urban
areas yet it costs far more to deliver the service to your home. I feel
quite grateful that in effect my service is being subsidised by town
dwellers.

Same applies to postal services, this morning some poor sod had to drive
miles through ice and snow to drop my mail off and impressively he was
on time. Yet the price of a stamp to get a letter to my home is exactly
the same as a stamp to deliver a letter in the centre of a city/town but
the costs are far greater.

the fact that if you want to go
anywhere at all there is no viable public transport and you have to have
a car.
But than you do have the benefit of living in a beautiful part of the
world which many would be envious of.

I live where I do because I love it. Whinging about the disadvantages
isn't something that enters the equation. If I get fed up with it I
change it.

You have exactly the same option.

Cheers
Dave

--