Wondering if anyone could give me an idea of what I should be charging per acre for 10 months grass keep for sheep from april this year, in South Shropshire.  The land is fenced but not been manured or fertilised recently.  Access to water.  Has been gazed by sheep every year.  Was hoping that the tenant would control weeds as part of the deal, topping them at least.  Hope someone can help, please.

 what do you call weeds

who claims the sfp ? what sort of acreage ? Grass keep is making far more in this area than can ever be justified.

nettles and thistles

we keep sfp.  20 acres.

Sensible price is up to £60 /acre but would probably fetch £100 plus around here.

Sensible price would be £30/ acre

When sfp came in instead of headage payments the price of keep was ment to go down or if it was a bit rough given away

Did it hell as like I think its more than it use to be

And dont say its worth more now cos there is more money in keeping stock cos thats crap to

Put advert in local paper to test local market asking for bids, get agents in to give advice on price they will do this for free.

Make sure you have a signed agreement, and if the tenant does not do as they say with weed control do the work yourself and charge the tenant and tell them this at the outset. There is far too much oral tradition in farming agreements, not enough contracts to hold farmers to their word.

Market price for grazing could be very good with high prices for finished animals, lack of rainfall in many areas of country. There are also many folk who will rent land when you consider that property should yield about 5% and land can make £6,000 an acre that is £300 per acre. You keep that SFP as this is capitalised into land values anyway.

motley, there is a great deal of sense in what you say, even if it does not go down well with those who own land - or those who want to rent, which is just about everybody.

motley:

There is far too much oral tradition in farming agreements, not enough contracts to hold farmers to their word.

I always take a man's word and a handshake is enough in my book. I always stick to my part of a bargain, if the other person can't then I NEVER do business with them again. Most people are true to their word in my experience.

motley:

There are also many folk who will rent land when you consider that property should yield about 5% and land can make £6,000 an acre that is £300 per acre.

Good luck with making that pay !

welshnwilling:

I always take a man's word and a handshake is enough in my book. I always stick to my part of a bargain, if the other person can't then I NEVER do business with them again. Most people are true to their word in my experience.

Same here.

bovril:

I always take a man's word and a handshake is enough in my book. I always stick to my part of a bargain, if the other person can't then I NEVER do business with them again. Most people are true to their word in my experience.

and if you are dumped on, the rest of the farming community will treat the dumper in the appropriate fashion.

Jungle drums beat extra fast when someone is not playing with a straight bat.

Thanks everyone, some really helpful advice.  I have trusted a tenant's word before on the weed control situation and got stung.  Agreed a low rent on the understanding that he would spray weeds as part of the deal.  But he didn't 'cause of lack of time' and only topped them after I nagged him and after they had set seed.  Continued with him for convenience and now the weeds are taking over and the land deteriorating.  A contract sounds the way forward.

 We had some mowing grass on a per bale rate about 8 years ago, was told £1 bale beforehand, yet after baling it changed to £2.  We paid that year, but never dealt with the owner again, and neither has anyone else, been set-aside ever since.

On the weeds note, we rent a lot of ground on grass keep, and often spray weeds if they are a problem, but last year we cancelled our grassland spraying due to the dry spring and concerns of killing the grass as some of it looked stressed with lack of moisture anyway.  Interestingly, I was chatting to a man from Dow at the dairy show and he said we did the right thing to cancel spraying - and he was the chap selling the stuff.  Give your tenant another chance this year, and if he doesn't pull his socks up, chuck him out.

Handshake agreement is usually good enough for us too, but did have a written agreement once, the place was up for sale though, still have the grass keep from the new owner.

The problem I am having is trying to find any grass keep. I have been casually looking for something in South Wales since August last year. But have been really looking since November, registered with land agents, checking websites daily etc. There is nothing about! Simple supply and demand means I am now looking at spending well over what it will probably be worth, just to get something.