Farmers are not accountants

and why the government seems to think it is acceptable to add yet another layer of red tape to their office work is beyond me. 

It seems they are now expected to add a great deal more form filling to their load because of the government's "zero emissions target". I can hear you asking, "But isn't zero emissions what we should be aiming for?"

To put it bluntly it is not something which is possible in the farming sector. If (and it is a very big "if") we are to reach zero emissions it will not be done by placing additional burdens on farmers.  Our friends across the pond in New Zealand realised that when they discovered that a "burp" tax placed on methane emissions from cows simply would not work - unless they killed all the cows.  Yes, it is that ridiculous. 

I am old enough to remember when farmers actually farmed and when the job involved hard physical labour all day long and into the night as well. We may have been "the teacher's kids" but we were well aware of the life of the farmers around us. They waited, still wait, for the annual cheque for the wheat or the wool or the monthly milk cheque from the "factory" down the road from us. Their income is not regular. A good harvest depends as much on the weather as it does on their skills as a farmer. They can look at the sky and know whether it will rain or not rain but they cannot make it rain - or stop it from raining at the wrong time. They do the best they can to control diseases in crops and illness among their animals. Putting down an injured animal is as traumatic for them as anyone else. 

Add to that the ever increasing rules and regulations about what can and cannot be farmed and where it can and cannot be farmed it is a wonder anyone actually wants to be a farmer.  I am very glad I am not a farmer - or married to one. 

When I was a mere kitten some farmers would keep all their bills and receipts in tins or shoe boxes. They had bank books - and an overdraft at the bank. At tax time they would take these things to the local accountant and the accountant would deal with these things - once a year. It was perhaps wildly inefficient but not impossible. Now farmers are expected to have computers and keep everything up to date. Cows are fed and milked according to computer programs which register the amount a cow is fed and how much milk it gives on a daily basis. A computer program tells farmers how much fertiliser to use and much more. Deviate from these things and "regulations" come into play.

Farmers feed us. Farmers are the people who make it possible for the rest of us to go into a supermarket or to a market and buy food. They need support, not increased regulations which add to their work.