A matter of opinion

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 8

A matter of opinion

There was some difference in opinion at the seminar on the sheep retention incentive scheme at Lincoln College last week-end as to the extent to which these grants should be used to help extinguish debt or should be ploughed back into farms to increase the productive capacity of viable units.

The stock firm view was that the ideal was for a farmer to be only on a seasonal finance basis with his firm and that as far as possible hard core debt should be eliminated, and according to a farm management consultant some

farmers were interested in reducing their debt and paying taxation, but a farmer view was that use of such funds to reduce debt could be a disservice to farmers in that they would be better ploughed back into a productive unit.

The meeting was told farmers had been reducing their personal drawings in the mare recent tighter economlic conditions and the desirability of this was also questioned by a farmer representative where the farmer had a high capital involvement in his enterprise;