Referees and Slipper Farmers

Referees, Traffic Wardens and Slipper Farmers were just some of the many types of people that were discussed during a farmer’s meeting, in the Urr Valley Hotel last week. The general consensus was that referees and traffic wardens are all too often misunderstood and that, deep down, they are basically good people who are only doing their jobs.  Slipper Farmers, on the other hand, came out in the discussion as being lower in the popularity polls than either traffic wardens or referees! Although, it has to be said, that they were not at the bottom of the ranking list. No, they did manage to edge in front of the men who club baby seals to death in the Arctic.

The meeting, organised by the National Farmers Union for Scotland, was a chance for every farmer to have his or her say on how they thought the Single Farm Payment should be distributed after the year 2013.  The current method is based on historical figures which relate to each farmer’s production levels in the past.  This is now deemed to be unacceptable to our lords and masters in Brussels so we need to change our system to come within the rules.

The large turnout, of over 100, was to be expected, seeing as almost every farmer will be affected by the changes and it’s almost certain that there will be winners and losers in the process.

For any referees, traffic wardens or seal clubbers who may be reading this I should explain what is meant by the term “Slipper Farmers”.  These are farmers who are not producing anything in the way of public goods anymore but are still able to draw money from Europe based on entitlements that they accrued while they were engaged in active farming.  I hasten to add that there is nothing illegal in what these people are doing and also that it will not be the first time that farmers have been paid for producing nothing.

So why is it now that these non active farmers are becoming the focus for the attentions of the rest of us in the industry?  The reason is that while the European Union continues to increase in size the sum of money, which is spent to support agriculture, is set to get smaller in the future.  Farmers are beginning to realise that the only way for one type of farmer to get more financial support is for another type to get less. The ones that are not active and taking money out of the system, without putting any of it back in, look like obvious targets to get less or possibly even nothing.

If there were any slipper farmers at the meeting they were certainly not popping their heads up above the parapet to fight their corner.  However, most of the other types of farmer were there in the room and made their presence felt.  There were the ‘spare a thought for us poor dairy farmers’. There were also the ‘our fields and our slurry lagoons are bursting full so therefore we must be very efficient and productive farmers’.  ‘The world is going to run out of food farmers’ were also very evident as were the ‘nothing is being done to help new entrants farmers’.  My own particular group of ‘tree hugging farmers’ were also there and after we had turned down the thermostats on the radiators and closed the curtains to save heat we composted the caviar and smoked salmon that had fallen out of the turn-ups of the poor dairy farmers’ trousers. We also, incidentally, decided that discretion would be the better part of valour and kept our heads down during the evening just in case we found ourselves even lower down the list of popularity than the club wielding seal hunters.

The reference to referees that I mentioned earlier was a point well made, by one of the speakers from the floor, during the debate.  He explained how the referees, his term for the inspectors from the department of agriculture, were  busy going round awarding penalties against those farmers whose stock had perhaps lost an ear tag or some other paper related misdemeanour.   While, at the same time, slipper farmers were carrying on with their sedentary lifestyles, raking it in, completely unmolested by referees, rules or regulations.  It is a bit galling, I must confess, especially just after having received a visit from the referees from the department.

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