@RobertForster3
Countryside is there firstly to provide your food, secondly for nature to live in, public recreation in any form comes after that in my book. We’re just tenants trying to make a living - take your keyboard activism and do one
In 2 hours time I’ve got to explain to these guys that our landlord fancied cattle, not sheep on his farm so he’s taken our base farm tenancy away from us. 1100ac. 7 months of uncertainty & suffering, now many more. They’ll be a lot of tears in our household for a while. I failed
Thanks
@BBCCountryfile
for the usual farmer bashing - let’s not mention everything agriculture’s done to turn the tide and of course we don’t mention housing estates, plastic grass, paved over front gardens or HS2???? Cheap shot
So sad to hear tonight of another young farmer taken her own life. We were lucky enough to have her visit us many times and always enjoyed her company and learnt a lot. We will miss Catherine x
Results from 2019 lambing and 2019 harvest (our first all by ourselves) the sheep made £45373, the arable £24679 before any BPS or CSS and including all costs except tax and capital asset finance and repayments (all working capital and hp included )
As meat suppliers direct to
@Tesco
and loyal
@Tesco
customers I'm disgusted at the meat free advert - the use of a child and the language is totally unnecessary and offensive to the meat eating 90% of your customer base and your loyal meat suppliers. Pull the add and apologise.
Just worked out our rise in costs based on fert, electricity and fuel increases will be £75,000 this year. The increase in grain price will give us an extra £75,000. Our bps has dropped £25,000. Just thought I’d share that!! This all relates to our arable.
MAN DROWNED in vat of sheep’s
Milk!! Neighbour came into the parlour yesterday - chatting away - does that girl still work for you? Which one? I saw a girl out in the field last week? Oh, that might have been me. No - she was thin!!!
So the landed gentry are chucking 300, 500, 1000ac at a time into SFI. These areas would’ve been tenant farms a generation ago. So where will new entrants & 1st gen’s get started in the future??? Tenants=people=rural economy=viable community.
Wake me up in 54 days! Cutting this last harvest on the lost farm is killing us. We’re upset, the kids are upset. I just want to put a match to the lot, let the agents slog the tenants improvements out and go on holiday. So so tired.
Unpopular opinion: if you want to stay farming you may have to make some changes- these may seem drastic for some. Seek out those with profitable systems and emulate them- most farmers are happy to help other farmers. Stamping your feet because ‘my grandad did’ ain’t gonna cut it
Just totted up what we’ve spent on the arable to get to harvest this year - just shy of £700,000 to try and get £800-850,000 back (weather dependant) makes you feel a bit sick!! 🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲
Very happy to see this girl up and running again- brought her to over winter in a shed on the new farm - found out it was rat infested the hard way- main dealer wanted £10k to replace 3 wiring looms, found a guy to do the repairs for £1000.
Not the best pics but the girls love lambing under the panels- privacy, shelter and shade. End of week 1, should have about 1000 lambs on the ground now
Good day. Signed a 90ac solar site and a new cover crop grower has come on board so we’ve just about replaced the sheep bit of the lost farm.
#everydaywerehustling
!!
Well, we’ve done our best, we’re proud of our offering, if it’s not what they’re looking for then it’ll be the start of a new chapter. So grateful for all the support we’ve had. Fingers crossed!!
On another crappy harvesting day let me introduce you to my wall. I have 4 of them on our 16thc farmhouse all in need of repointing. I've never done it but the quote for £3000 focused me. On non harvest days I tend to my wall. I'm proud of my wall!!
A big day in the life of the dairy: all 100 2 tooth’s through this evening, not milking yet, just training. Hoping the dairy techs can get us fully functional this week!!!
Before capital repayments and interest but after everything else it looks like we'll make a grand 'profit' of £4000 off 1600ac of arable this year (excluding all subsidies). Onwards and upwards!! - thank fook it's up horn!! 🐑🐑🐑🐑 To the rescue!
Two weeks into lambing 2000 ewes, we've only 5 in the orphanage and 2 ewes in. 2 shepherd's doing 1000 each, once a day checking- done by lunchtime. Plenty of grass under their feet, stocked at 3/AC except mature singles 5/AC. Good weather.
#livingthedream
@RobertHodgkins1
💕Huge thank you to everyone that took the time to send us a kind message over the weekend. We’ve been bowled over by how many people showed they cared. The whole family has read them and taken comfort from them. Social media can do good! ❤️
Scrapped the spring barley- got 1000 ewes in asap to take this cover off and WW now going in on the chalk - hopefully an easier market come harvest & a more profitable outcome. How many of the 110ha will we get?
Response to our planning application for a new barn from the neighbours 🤦♀️ they haven’t even been in occupation when we’ve been milking - that’ll be an education!!!!
A very worrying 'direct drilling will cure all ills' idea. Pushing farmers down this road will do more to harm than good. Let farmers do what's best for the field on the day
@michaelgove
Time to repair relationships. The process saw our neighbours, ‘friends’, staff and even family compete to take our farm from us and ultimately none of us prospered but the damage has been done - we’ve lost far more than just a farm.
Anyone fancy coming on my agronomy tour? First up grazed wheat vs ungrazed. Yellow rust and septoria needing treatment in the ungrazed. No T0 for the grazed.
Spent today talking cheese with one of our lovely milk buyers - if all goes to plan we have three buyers lined up for this season which should use up all our milk 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🧀🧀🧀🐑🐑🐑
HELP! Sheep Milk Contacts required!!! We had a customer lined up for our sheep milk (300lts/day from this spring) that has fallen through, any contacts would be gratefully received. Please RETWEET!!! 🐑🐑🐑🐑🥛🥛🥛🥛🧀🧀🧀🧀
We're not 'A typical' new entrants or 1st gen, 7yrs ago we started with £40k and a bit of knowledge. We now employ four people and turnover in excess of £1mil. Come and visit us to talk fresh starts in farming, access to capital & making £
Can’t believe the ewe lambs are mixed in with the ewes for their first milking today (and first time in a building!). They’re so calm - the ewes have been coming in for about 10 days now, being milked since Friday- day 5.
Parlour update: sheep on site, fencing and water for them connected. Power goes on Tuesday. One side wired in. Tank in, loads of electrical stuff in. Milk lines, wash lines, gantry & sheep walk way left before first checks. 1/2
£1900 to spray this field with Pacifica which killed X% black grass, £920 to hoe it, taking 70-90%. We did both (following pre em proclus and liberator) begs the question, where’s the money best spent
Rough day - having to dig deep to get the agronomy done on the ‘lost farm’. Shed a few tears every visit now. This process (started 28/09) has tested my love of the industry. Those that took it- the power they wield vs our passion for it - sucks!
Makes me very sad that this is the direction of travel for some. We’re far better off in the same room. Creating a divide that wasn’t there -
@InnovationforAg
@AbiReader
. Not what I’ve spent 20 yrs working towards
Nothing but pretending to care to keep us filling supermarket shelves whilst quietly going bust - or subsidising it through our own pockets or other enterprises - how are the
@NFUtweets
so blind to it?
A) 2020 bps + mid tier = £300,000
B) 2025 mid tier + SFI = £165,000
How many times have we heard that B will replace A. We all knew it wouldn’t but now we see the whites of the eyes.
Got the proper snobby side eye from the fully made up mums at assembly and pick up this avo! - sorry, I work for a living, outside, in all weathers, and you know what it’s cold and wet outside. So Swazi, wellies and weather beaten wrinkles it is!!!!
Big man's bday today
@RobertHodgkins1
a decade ago he had just gone home to farm with his parents, a decade on he's driving his own combine on his own farm harvesting his own wheat that will be drilled for his own flock this winter - not bad I'd say! 😘
🎈Kaiapoi 2022 RAM GIVEAWAY 🍾We have 4 DNA recorded Romney Rams to give away!!! Under 40? - send 300 words telling us about you and why you need a top EBV Myomax Romney Ram in your flock to office
@kaiapoi
.co.uk closes 29th July.
We’re 1st gen, fbt tenants - Increase in interest rates will cost us an extra £80,000 this year, multiple petty crimes £10,000, bps £40,000 less. No SFI money from
@Ruralpay
this year. The business is going to take some driving this year!!
Bit going on, borage drilling & lambing all but finished, some early turnips to get in. T2s nearly ready, last fert to go on. Mobile home getting sited. Shear the dairies on Monday. Steady start to tailing yesterday, full team in now - 2500 to go!!
‘Scruffy’ wheat -
@MzuriDrills
drilled in Jan after a cover crop that turned into a catch crop following the decision to ditch the spring barley and keep drilling wheat where we could. Got 1000 ewes on & turned it round in a month. No pre em
Hell of a way to clear a hangover!! 300 in lamb dairy ewes chased out of their fence and found in four groups up to a mile and a half from where they started. Two groups had crossed an A road. One killed in the pen. All thanks to our friends with no fixed abode! Home safe now.
1st go at our carbon calculation:
arable -35000kg/yr, sheep +775000kg/yr, grassland -998000kg/yr which means our whole farming system sequesters 248000kg of carbon a year (I think, maybe, possibly!!??)
My favourite block of our wheat this year -300ac
@MzuriDrills
drilled end of oct, had
@uniumbioscience
tiros on the home saved skyscraper- after borage, had 100kg of N in 2 splits - GS39 next week
Our ewe lambs are 'pumped up' by their pasture!! An 18month old ley I drilled with a wonderfully cheap homemade mix. Was 1300kgDM 6 weeks ago, 1mm of rain in that time, now look at it!! This 20ac finished 500lambs last autumn on rotation.
100ac of overseeing done! Had to drill a bit, every day for 3 days so I could catch up on the roll - trying to keep close together to keep moisture in the slot - not because I have the hots for the drillman!
All being well, our farming business will run continuously for the next 60hours until the rain closes us out again. We start bright and early with a load of fat lambs away and a load of fert on the wheat before the wind picks up
As a farmer, a consumer & a mother it makes me so sad to see so many passionate people trying to tear each other apart. With these approaches the big loser will be those without a voice - kids, environment, wildlife, stock & crops
#calmconversation
80yrs ago my Great Uncle set off across the English Channel never to return. Found myself quite teary explaining it to the children this morning. We can never understand how they found the courage and the acceptance to do such a brave thing.
Think the drill fill has cost us £6307 making our all on seed cost £205/t Vs home saved at £281/t and bought in at £440/t. Also no waste and less damaging to the seed. It will save us just over £9000 this year on home saved
BIG 24hrs- finished our first in house autumn drilling campaign, had confirmation from our biggest landlord that our fbt will be renewed & hopefully exchange on a new farmstead
#breakingpoint
!!!!