Farmers

Not a massive sympathy to owner farmers around Oxfordshire where i am.

The Farmer in the hamlet one way from me has converted his barns into homes asking 7 figures each (3 of them, i am trying to buy a 4th which is unfinished), he sold the main farmhouse for nearly £2m according to LR data, rents a large farm building to the local wildlife trust as offices, and then rents out the farmland to tenant farmers. He currently lets the 3 finished barns for nearly £7k/week as holiday houses.

The Farmer the other way runs a giant hatchery business on his land, has a fleet of 30+ trucks, an enormous house surrounded by hundreds/thousands of acres used by that business and a driveway which must be getting on for a mile long. Very nice family, also very wealthy.

A farmer a couple of villages over has built himself a recreation french renaissance mansion, absolutely palatial looking place which although new, looks as large as a lot of national trust properties. Amazing looking place.

Yeah...farmers :p
 
When I used to help out on my uncle's farm as a kid (going back 25 odd years now!!), maybe not 20 hours, but 18 sounds feasible, up at 5am to do the milk round, then mucking out/feeding cows, then up to the fields for a few hours harvest/baling etc depending on season, 30 mins stop for lunch and a tea, more harvest/baling etc. until it was dark, back to the farm for dinner, back out for a few odd jobs around the farm, and then bed for me while my uncle was still in the sheds & barns repairing equipment etc.

Good fun as a kid getting to help out & drive tractors etc. but bloody hard work! Obviously no idea of the financial side as I was too young to get involved in any of that

I grew up living on my grandads farm in the early 80's, and i'll attest to all of that. Harvesting in the summer was always the crunch, early mornings and late nights. The life was magical growing up doing all the things you mention, I got involved in all of it. In the end age got the better of my family that had the farm and they gave it up, I had no idea they were struggling in the later years I would have gladly gone back and helped out swapping out the life I have now for it. It would have been hard work, but it's incredibly self rewarding.

To answer the OP though, we/they were never rich, but it was a nice secure life. Obviously though we only had a small farm in a sleepy little village, there's definitely a level and scale of operation where that would vary.
 
I grew up on a farm.

It's massively variable, depending on weather/season/type of farm etc.

Arable farmers will work 24/7 during the harvest, but other times of the year will have nothing to do. Lambing season is also 24/7 for a period. Sleeping out in the lambing shed is not uncommon.

Profits can be big but investments are also massive, particularly when you need to buy/lease big equipment. A combine harvester is ~£250K and only gets used for part of the year.

One bad spell of weather can destroy a crop and turn what could have been a profit into a heavy loss. This autumn was pretty wet and UK wide winter wheat drilling only reached ~50%. That means half of most arable farms fields are doing nothing when they could be adding value.

Farmers tend to be asset rich, but cash poor. Lots of financed assets and planning/hoping for the long term. It's a very difficult industry to break into because of the massive up front investment cost and the price of land these days, so most farmers are long established families/businesses.

If you have a run of good luck with the weather, consumer demand stays high and you manage your farm effectively it can be very profitable. But it can just as easily go the other way the next season.
 
Not a massive sympathy to owner farmers around Oxfordshire where i am.

The Farmer in the hamlet one way from me has converted his barns into homes asking 7 figures each (3 of them, i am trying to buy a 4th which is unfinished), he sold the main farmhouse for nearly £2m according to LR data, rents a large farm building to the local wildlife trust as offices, and then rents out the farmland to tenant farmers. He currently lets the 3 finished barns for nearly £7k/week as holiday houses.

The Farmer the other way runs a giant hatchery business on his land, has a fleet of 30+ trucks, an enormous house surrounded by hundreds/thousands of acres used by that business and a driveway which must be getting on for a mile long. Very nice family, also very wealthy.

A farmer a couple of villages over has built himself a recreation french renaissance mansion, absolutely palatial looking place which although new, looks as large as a lot of national trust properties. Amazing looking place.

Yeah...farmers :p

Hardly your typical farmers though ;)

I know two near to York. One of them held out for over 30 years before finally succumbing to an offer of £7.2m 20 years ago for two fields to a housing developer.

The other one had the York ring road cut his farm in half when they built it. However, his land was ideal for a massive retail park and industrial park with big multiplex cinema etc. He sold his land for millions and still kept the farm and farmed the rest of his land. Only difference was when going past his farm he had a range rover and a helicopter.
 
Farming isn't really a job, its your life.

Friend of a friend is a farmer and I really wouldn't want to do what he has to do. Always loads of work to be done, never enough time, can't afford more help so hardly ever gets to leave and don't think he's ever had a proper holiday. But he likes the life so thats the main thing, can see him having health issues later on.

They don't own the land though so thats the big difference between some of the examples you guys are talking about.
 
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Not a massive sympathy to owner farmers around Oxfordshire where i am.
As Greebo said, they're not exactly farmers though, as they don't actually farm anything... They're just landowners.
Round here there's a lot of rural payment from the government, but again that money all goes to the rich landowner, not the poor struggling farmer who has to rent the land upon which to farm. The only farmer who makes decent money is the guy who rents the fields behind our place, which is only because his mum is his (and our) landlady!
 
Not a massive sympathy to owner farmers around Oxfordshire where i am.

The Farmer in the hamlet one way from me has converted his barns into homes asking 7 figures each (3 of them, i am trying to buy a 4th which is unfinished), he sold the main farmhouse for nearly £2m according to LR data, rents a large farm building to the local wildlife trust as offices, and then rents out the farmland to tenant farmers. He currently lets the 3 finished barns for nearly £7k/week as holiday houses.

The Farmer the other way runs a giant hatchery business on his land, has a fleet of 30+ trucks, an enormous house surrounded by hundreds/thousands of acres used by that business and a driveway which must be getting on for a mile long. Very nice family, also very wealthy.

A farmer a couple of villages over has built himself a recreation french renaissance mansion, absolutely palatial looking place which although new, looks as large as a lot of national trust properties. Amazing looking place.

Yeah...farmers :p
What about those tenant farmers you mentioned? You've not given your impression on how easy their life is? Like ttaskmaster said, the first guy you are talking about is a landowner with a load of assets and not your typical farmer. You're obviously only looking at a select few cases to suit the perspective you've decided to take.
 
Really depends on what they're farming which varies massively from the vast fields of east anglia which is basically agri business, a factory where they grow things, to hill farmers who essentially subsist on subsidies. If they're lambing then yes, its barely any sleep time.
 
During lambing season I've known guys go days without sleep. It's non-stop. Can easily believe 20 hour days.
Yup

My dad is a recently retired farmer.

Lambing season is pretty much 6 weeks of 20 hour days, 7 days a week. It's brutal and you pray that you don't pick up a cold or similar!
 
i watch 2 farmers on youtube. (i play a lot of farming simulator)

10th generation dairy farmer who is a young guy, always on the go doing something.
and the millennial farmer who does do a fair bit but also does a lot of marketing and sideline stuff so i think he is pulling in more than an average farmer.
 
Yup

My dad is a recently retired farmer.

Lambing season is pretty much 6 weeks of 20 hour days, 7 days a week. It's brutal and you pray that you don't pick up a cold or similar!

I have farming friends who farm a few different breeds and their lambing starts before Christmas and doesnt end until April/May. I pretty much know I wont see them out during that time.
 
I used to work for the rural payments agency who pay the eu subsidy schemes.

There is a massive difference between the profitability of different operations. Upland farmers tend to get paid sod all and often work on incomes below minimum wage.

Tenant farmers pay large rents and it was the case that the landowner could claim the subsidy money rather than the farmer (not sure if this is still the case) so these guys have greatly diminished earning potential.

Literacy and numeracy can be a big problem as a good farmer can be a terrible businessman. I've seen some massive overpayments / penalties through not understanding what they'd signed up for.

Some of the large operations were paid enormous subsidies each year (some into 7 figures), but these are the types of people who own half a county and have many fingers in many pies.
 
Most farmers sell their harvest when the plant it, reduces risk. Well unless they believe it will be bumper then they will hold off selling early.

It's similar to other trading like oil and shares
 
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