Editor’s view: Farming’s motivations still a mystery to many
© Albinoni/Adobe Stock In the time-honoured manner, much of this week’s magazine (and website) is stuffed with reflections on the year that has passed and predictions for the year to come.
It’s a ticklish business trying to see much further ahead than tomorrow, so I salute the efforts of anyone who attempts it in the hope of helping others.
A look back at the final Farmers Weekly editorial for 2021 will find me confidently forecasting that 2022 will be the year we get farm policy clarity. That went well, didn’t it?
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Even for those of us immersed in the industry, it is hard enough to see much past our noses, given we are at the mercy of the weather and world events.
No one can be blamed at the end of 2019 for not forecasting that a global pandemic was on the way, and few outside military circles really had an inkling about what was about to hit Ukraine until it happened.
Yet spare a thought for the myriad industries clustered around farming that desperately want to understand farmers better, normally so they can sell them something or lobby them to change their ways.
I am thinking here of any hopeful-looking person with a small stall and a solution to a problem that barely exists at farming events, as well as environmentalists and other lobbyists.
One of the key reasons people who don’t know better (and some that should – such as policymakers) misunderstand our industry is that too often they conflate farmers and landowners as one and the same.
As Tenant Farmers Association Cymru’s Dennis Matheson points out in his excellent letter this week, tenant farmers in Wales will be excluded from much of the Sustainable Farming Scheme, because trees and woodland are outside the scope of most tenancy agreements.
This is, of course, despite repeated warnings that so far appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
Small vs large-scale landowners
And when forecasting whether farm business owners are likely to take up a new scheme or gadget, salespeople and policymakers underplay another point – what the primary motivations of the largest and smallest landowners actually are.
These two groups have at least one thing in common – the ability to sustain their businesses in the manner they see fit for longer than many expect them to.
I am thinking here of the large-scale landowners who own farms primarily for sentimental reasons, tax purposes or sporting rights.
A change in market forces or farm policy will not necessarily see them bother to change how they operate if it goes against their grain. They take a longer view.
Likewise, small landowners whose primary income comes from working off the farm often choose to farm in a way that fits with their lifestyle.
While they may lack the resources of the largest farmers, their resilience to an economic downturn is also legendary, as they often can run their operation on a shoestring and live off external income.
It is the group in the middle – farming tenants and landowners whose only business is farming – who are truly motivated to squeeze every ounce of productivity and profitability from their land, and be open to new ways of doing it.
So here is a new year’s resolution for anyone who wants something from farmers or farming in 2023: Make your pitch that genuinely aligns with our interests as well as your own, and do all you can to get it right the first time.
Happy new year.