Rebekah Housden: Is highlighting farming issues off-putting?
Rebekah Housden © Rebekah Housden It’s a sunny morning on the round trip to feed the ewes, and Jeremy Vine’s debate show is on the radio.
The topic? The effects of the current world problems on businesses in the UK.
What catches my ear is a caller who asked when farmers will stop complaining like they are the only businesses suffering. Soon after, a funky song begins. But it isn’t an invalid point.
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We all know agriculture has taken a huge number of blows in the past couple of years, with added taxes, reduced subsidies, slashed prices.
And don’t even mention the price of fertiliser because I missed the early boat of ordering pre-Iran conflict.
But it hasn’t all been doom and gloom – beef and lamb prices have been booming, with replacement sheep almost too expensive to buy.
Having my fingers in many pies perhaps provides a different perspective, and in my area several small businesses have had to close since Christmas.
When expenses unavoidably rise and profits are hard to find, you don’t need Lord Sugar to explain that the businesses can quickly become unviable.
Farmers always have to defend their business structure to the public – mainly how, despite it being asset-rich, it can be very cash-poor.
But some continue to spend money even in difficult times. How many struggling cafés would build a new veranda? Have we normalised borrowing?
Have grants and schemes allowed us to feel the need for development when a more conservative business owner might wait for a better year?
Do farms really need to build a new shed or concrete the yard every other year, or would a little more make-do-and-mend suffice?
I would give an arm and a leg to get further into farming, regardless of the forecast. But we’re an ageing industry, with less than 5% of British farmers under 35.
So I do wonder if highlighting our struggles so vociferously is simply putting more youngsters off?
