Bleating Farmers
Despite my own rural background, I can see sense in telling Farming Unionists such as Federated Fuckwits President Charlie Pedersen to "STFU".
Gumboot Charlie is drowning out a long and extendedly embarrassing charm offensive through obviously stupid PR advice to stick his head up in public and declare poverty at every turn.
"When I started farming 31 years ago the average dairy herd size was 125 cows. Today it's 347 and even at that size you are really just scratching along," Pedersen said.
He estimated that the disposable income generated by an average-sized herd would be about the same as that of a city couple with incomes from jobs like teaching and administrative work.
On top of this report
The surge in basic food prices – at a time when Fonterra's 10,000 dairy farmers are expected to pocket an average payout of over $700,000 in addition to soaring capital gains on land and cattle – has aroused concerns over how households will cope.
The average dairy farm this year will make gross $700,000. If a husband and wife worked this farm (ie. the wife actually got off her arse and contributed) then it would be a hell of a good teaching and administrative job in the city that would be the same as that even net after expenses. Many farms this size have a sharemilker and so have to split the $700K in half. Even then the deal is far better than someone in the city working average jobs.
Added to this, unlike professional working couples or PAYE earners, farming couples can form Partnerships and split their income so generally pay less tax anyway.
And lets face it, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be a farmer, just visit Lincoln or Massey "University" agricultural departments to see the holding pen of dim-witted offspring of farmers. Nowadays you just need a nice banker or Daddy and loads of start-up dosh. You don't even have to work nearly as hard anymore thanks to technological advancement. I challenge any farmer to actually prove they work harder and cope with any more stress than a city worker or small business owner.
Most people still live in the past about how difficult farming actually is. Like my departed Grandmother whom I will never forget in my teens trying to sit my father down with "here have the comfy chair, you have walked a long way to get the cows". I reminded Grandmother of a recent invention called the motorbike. She didn't understand and regaled a story about cooking a hearty bacon and egg breakfast for my departed Grandfather so he could manage the excessively hard day's labour.
I have had my entire life of rural people (mostly related by birth) moaning about how hard they have it and how they can't afford things....And complaining about us city workers.
Sick of it. And also the emotive "farming will die out" followed by some story of inter-generational theft where the children have been gifted the family farm - only to have eyes on flogging it to the highest bidder to appease his money-hungry city housewife when the old man karks it anyway.
There is now no financial point in keeping small farms as they are worth more sold with the huge capital gain (tax free) earning interest in the bank than the net profit they generate. For efficiency reasons older farmers who own these farms should flog them to Corporates as soon as they can. Like this guy.
Then the Corporates should look to cheap, hard working, non-unionised overseas labour from Asia to man the farms under local Farm Managers.
And how about Fonterra pay their carbon credits for Kyoto?
Then the farming poverty may be real.
Bring on Jeanette Fitzsimons!!!
posted by Cactus Kate at 1:45 AM
8 Comments:
The Fast Forward Fund (and the Electoral Finance Act!) should be the first thing axed by the ne government. Why taxpayers should subsidise the farm industry in this time of record food prices (or any other time) is completely beyond me.
That post was like my favourite soup, delicious and fulfilling.. And just as I was preparing to spoon the last mouthful in I found the pubic hair of Kyoto on it.
Sigh...
Plus add that the government requires Telecom charge rural customers (all farms are residential not business of course) the same as urban, despite the cost of supplying them being roughly 12x more expensive.
How does he square that with thoseads on the tele imploring us to ditch the city and go farming?
Farmers are as much of a self-interested lobby group, happy to suckle the taxpayer tit, as any sector.
Every rise in income is converted straight into increase in land value.
At a guess, the land value settles at a rate to just give the farmer a modest return and no more...apart from the cap gain of course.
Farmers, eh?
Farming has always been a low return industry. When this was pointed out to farmers, they would say "yes, but it is a way of life". If they can justify a meagre income and seven-days-a-week commitment year-round that way, then good on them - that is their choice - but don't start poor-mouthing.
Asset rich and cash poor. In recent years, their standard of accommodation has improved. The return in farming is in the tax free capital gain in the value of the land. Whilst the price of agricultural land has soared in recent years, it does not compare well with the capital gains that have been made from beach property. Residential property in desirable locations has also been a better appreciating asset. Most of the spectacular capital gains on farming land has been some of the poorest productive land, just north of Auckland, where urban sprawl has been the most dramatic.
Farmers are their own worst enemies. They publish their turnover figures as income, and everybody else thinks farmers are creaming it.
"The surge in basic food prices – at a time when Fonterra's 10,000 dairy farmers are expected to pocket an average payout of over $700,000 in addition to soaring capital gains on land and cattle..."
The reality is that farmers either get a 2% to 3% return on capital and no salary, or a reasonable salary and no return on their capital. Few farmers would work less than 2500 hours per annum, and most considerably more. Comparison with urban jobs would need take into account urban overtime, weekends and paid holidays.
Urban sprawl consumes the most productive land (Takapuna to Orewa excepted) as farms have developed outwards from the earliest communities which settled on the best soils. So farm development is forever moving onto more marginal land, like forestry land, and other poorer contoured land. Very expensive, as is the big push onto dry land with irrigation. Lots of development money ending up in the servicing industries, creating urban employment.
Today, the smart urban money is investing in farm land because the revenue services the mortgages, the capital gains are there, the income is paid every month without fail(dairying), and the returns less risky than rental property. If all were to collapse, investors would at least be able to feed and clothe themselves on their own properties.
Most (generalisation) people who start out in farming do so because they can't do anything else. School Careers Advisors had that as their yardstick 30 years ago.
Most do not enjoy milking cows. They don't like the long hours, particularly the early mornings in the dark, more with daylight saving extended. What they do like are the "free" house, milk, meat, firewood, clean untreated water, grazing for children's ponies, the school bus at the gate, no traffic worries, and fresh air. But most will never go far in farming, that is for the really committed few. Mostly they are happiest when they have something to moan about. It is either too wet, or too dry, or too this, or too that.
So they go to Federated Farmers meetings.
And another Charlie says ......
There are those who wrest a living from the land and that's work; there are those who wrest a living from those who wrest a living from the land and that's trade; and there are those who wrest a living from those who wrest a living from those who wrest a living from the land and that's finance - Vincent McNab. http://homepaddock.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/you-think-yours-is-harder/
omepaddock
Nice of you to drop by. Typical of rural NZ you are about a month behind everything important unless its on your cowshed radio. I tried to comment on your blog but couldn't be stuffed getting past the registration nonsense.
Now while we are forming the basis for "working harder" or the comparative difficulty of rural vs city NZ I wish to take you to 2 examples:
1. The international bankers, M&A specialists, accountants and lawyers you so hate who arrange deals for your effective Employer, Fonterra, so you can sell more product in markets so you can purchase more land to use up carbon that the city now subsidises so you can produce your products that have reached record prices this year so basic workers who have subsidised farmers in bad years, can't afford your produce.
These professionals are up at 5am to work from home and their Blackberry to converse with the close of London, spend an hour in rush hour traffic getting to work because all the taxpayers money has gone into building roads for rural people that comparatively less people use, he works through the day to converse with Australia and Asia and then when you are safely tucked up in beddie byes after kissing the wife and kids goodnight at 9pm he's still working because that's right - London's opened again. He has no break during the day because he's reading up on the latest developments and law and doing meetings so your deals go smoothly. He works supervising a team of 10 staff. Some who don't know what they are doing. His brain never gets a chance to switch off, or have a relaxing morning with his family. In fact he hasn't seen his family all week.
He's completed years at University, studied his arse off at school and has no job security whatsoever. He isn't given a government subsidy during a drought, he's fired the first moment the economy turns to dust or there is a natural disaster.
If a banker or lawyer fucks up, millions of dollars are lost in one split second or incorrect drafting clause. He's fired.
You don't hear a banker whinging and whining about how poor he is in a good year.
He can't income split with his wife using a Partnership structure.
2. The electrician who is up in the morning at 6am because he has to get to an emergency call before a client goes to work, he's struggled for years to make ends meet due to the effects of running a small business on his own. His child is sick but he can't afford the time off and his wife has to work a second job to make ends meet as the cost of petrol, food inflation and the mortgage is crippling their family.
He's worked 60 hours this week, has no "off season", no "relief milker" if he's sick. He loses money. He receives no government subsidies, handouts or assistance in time of drought.
No one seems to care about the entry level cost of being an electrician as they do a dairy farmer.
Then some bloody farmer calls him at 3am because the wiring has blown and there's no electricity supply.
If an electrician fucks up, he puts lives at risk.
You don't hear him whining when he's making more money than he's ever made before.
Without the people mentioned in #1 and #2 you'd still be selling products at local NZ markets to other sweet rural folk and milking cows by hand.
I dropped by the day you did this post but didn’t comment earlier because like you couldn’t be bothered with the registration nonsense :) (though I’ve seen your comments on Kiwiblog & Poneke so you’ll already be registered for homepaddock).
The other anti-farmer comments finally persuaded me to respond. I did so partly in jest, but you’ve taken me seriously and I’ve got the impression you think I don’t understand or appreciate how hard other people work.
I don’t hate any of the professionals you mention, or any other occupation. Our accountant, lawyer and banker all play an important part in our business. I value their contribution and their friendship.
We rely on, value and appreciate the work of trades people too. My brother is an electrician, I know how hard he works and sometimes that’s because of farmer stupidity eg building a cheap shed to house an expensive pump so that birds get in and cause thousands of dollars of damage to the motor.
You’ve assumed I’m a farmer and a bloke, I’m neither but my husband is both. Like the people you mention his brain rarely gets to switch off and when the children were young they hardly saw him because he was working such long hours too. That happens in the country and the city.
I take it you’ve read http://homepaddock.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/you-think-yours-is-harder/ but you seem to have missed the conclusion which was that there’s no point in the my jobs bigger/harder than yours argument. There is no easy way to earn a good living in an office, on a farm or anywhere else. We need each other and while the few moaners get the headlines, most of us are getting on with our jobs under our own steam and appreciate the work done by those who work for, service and supply us or process, transport, market and consume what we produce.
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