Week 27 - How cash strapped farmers make the most out of existing systems
In week 19 we teamed up with the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to discover how policy changes could support more environmentally friendly practices around slurry management.
Who we spoke to and why
Over the course of 2 weeks we spoke to 18 farmers (10 dairy, 5 beef, 2 pig and 1 beef and dairy) across the UK. These included large, medium and small farms, tenant farmers and landowners, some who were already showing signs of good environmentally farming and others who were clearly struggling to comply with existing legislation.
Our goal was to explore farmers' attitudes and beliefs around environmentally friendly slurry management, understand their views on what is reasonable for legislation and enforcement, and to identify motivations, barriers and enablers to good slurry management practices.
The farming industry is volatile
One thing that became clear was the extent to which cash-strapped farmers try to maximise existing systems. Fluctuating material costs and sell prices of milk and cattle significantly impact profitability of the farming business. For the most part, farming doesn’t seem to be steadily profitable, with many farmers either making no profit at all, or just enough to make ends meet. Any profit that is made is mostly reinvested into the business, leaving them very little to spend on personal expenses. Here are some quotes that particularly stood out:
“We take our cows to market today, regardless of what it costs to keep the animal alive, tomorrow it could be £100 or it could be £700.”
“At the end of the year we have nothing to put back in the farm. We take nothing. We haven’t had a holiday for 8 years.”
“Our raw material costs go up overnight, so whilst I project forward three years for the bank, events are happening all the time that affect us that we can't do anything about.”
Brexit impacted staffing
Brexit also significantly impacted the pool of staff willing and able to work on farms, and farmers are having to invest more of their own time into maintaining the business. According to farmers, the cost of skilled labourers has increased and due to the increased use of technology on farms, a more unique set of skills is required to maintain the farm. Unfortunately, this leaves farmers and their families having to cover understaffed positions, increasing the risk of burnout and inevitably impacting the health of the business:
“At the moment I’m working 100 hours a week and haven’t had a day off in months, that’s the biggest challenge right now.”
Little help for farmers
It was striking how little farmers mentioned receiving any help or support from externals or experts. Some farmers did engage with consultants when they were in a tight spot or asked peers from the community, but their default approach was to try and figure things out themselves. It wasn't that farmers wouldn’t accept help, but for many it wasn't clear how or where to get help from, or even when it was needed:
“Probably very little [help]. We read and try to do all of it ourselves but there's no support, no help.”
How farmers invest
Due to this volatile, cash strapped and limited support environment, farmers are simply trying to do the best they can to make the best out of existing systems and processes on their farm. Often, turning to smaller, lower cost investments or incremental improvements to resolve issues around slurry management. For example, to tackle the issue of limited storage capacity, many farmers explored using slurry separators or mixed to reduce the amount of, or make best use of solid manure as a fertiliser.
“One thing that would make life easier, if we could separate our slurry and remove the solid manure, could deal with differently, could spread further away.”
These solutions typically cost farmers under £5k, significantly less than a new and bigger slurry storage, which could cost anything from about £60k. Farmers who were on shorter term tenancies were particularly attracted to these small cost investments, as it was very tricky to make investment decisions when they didn’t know if they would be operating on the same farm 5 years from now.
“Common practice is a 5-year lease. With slurry investments typically being high, it will take 20+ years to recover costs on some investments.”
For landowners and those with longer term tenancies, however, it’s worth noting that even though farmers prioritise small wins, it doesn’t mean they’re looking for quick fixes. Farming is a ‘long term game’ and many farmers plan to pass the farm over to their children. So no matter how big or small the investment is, it needs to have a clear positive effect in the years to come.
“Always think that when you're doing something or fixing something you should always try and make it last a lifetime.”
Money as an enabler
Knowing that farmers will most definitely prioritise investments that have a direct, short term financial impact over improving their slurry system, it’s easy to understand that they do rely on bank loans or wait on subsidies and grant money to finance these improvements. There are farmers that won’t make any moves until they see what grants the government is going to release for this purpose. I’ll wrap up with this quote:
“It makes the difference between just treading water and being able to improve things.”
We learned a vast amount from our 2 weeks with farmers. Hopefully there’ll be more to share in future posts.