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Nuffield Scholars Field Reports |
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11th June 2003
In the UK we stayed with an English friend Edward Matson who I worked with in WA. We then did day and overnight trips to meet the people I wanted to see. Edwards farm has an old WW2 airstrip which a parachute company rent from his family. His brother makes a bit of sideline cash by videoing peoples jumps and so he suggested that I had a go. I wish I had the time to go on and learn to do it myself as it was fantastic. We have met quite a few interesting farmers in the UK, Ireland and Hungary. Basing my study on the role of people in expanding agricultural business has taken us to some really switched on operators. The bit I find intersting is that about 2 thirds of them have built large farming operations from scratch. The land ownership situation over over here does mean that a lot of land is availiable for lease and so young farmers do have an opportunity to get in without a large amount of capital. One farmer we met made a lot of money by leasing 3600 ha of cropping land in the UK during the mid nineties when rents were reasonably cheap. He now owns 5000 ha in Hungary near the Romanian border and so we are going out to see his operation tomorrow. According to the farmers we have seen, most of them, if they owned all thier land, could not make more than around 2% return on assets. The main problem obviously being thier cost structures which mainly seems to be land prices. You can really see that the number of people in the UK drives the land prices well above reasonable farming values. The Hungarian farm we visited yesterday is run by a group of UK farmers who have each put in some cash and then bought and leased about 3000 ha. Absolutely beautiful soil growing potatoes and cereal crops. The only thing is that you wouldnt want, is the culture with it all. When they bought the state run farm they had to sack 125 workers (retaining 35) who still live in the middle of the village the farm is situated next to. Apparently you can by pretty cheap diesel in the town if you know the right people. They are quite considerate though, because they idle the irrigation pumps down and turn them off before taking all the diesel so you dont have to bleed them in the morning. There are 5 women in the office to conform with all the Government paperwork requirements. One disturbing sight was a room in one of the farm buildings which had enough gas masks for all the people who had worked on the farm. Apparently this was for during the cold war when Hungary was communist run. On another farm we saw a centre pivot irrigator in the middle of a paddock which was full of power poles. Apparently the irrigator had been installed in March and they had been waiting since last year to get the poles moved. They have now missed this season. I hear there has been a fair bit of rain at home so I hope it has been widespread. The temperature in Budapest has been around 35 degrees and the house is not air conditioned so it has been a relief to borrow Simon's car and get out into the country. Mind you driving on the right hand side in Budapest traffic far from relaxing. |
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Presently in Budapest in Hungary staying with Simon Bayley a Tasmanian friend who works here. Em and I left about 2 and a half weeks ago and have had a week in the UK and a week in Ireland. So far the trip has been at a different pace to the last one although we have been doing a fair bit of travelling. Driving around the UK while not long distances seems to take so long. The whole country has become gridlocked with traffic.