Sir, – With a heavy heart I challenge those who 'know' to respond to my plea of how to make money, survive, farming by grazing and finishing store cattle.

We are entreated to become more efficient. So, those who are brave enough, please publish a costing for all costs involved, including the forgotten costs of fencing, water, hedging, liming, the dog, plus the fuel for the quad bike, haulage, insurance, assurance marketing and a fair depreciation charge for machinery and buildings. Not all grass can be physically or financially improved pragmatically.

We don't want to pass on a run down business to the next generation or even to a receiver, therefore the people that I invite to speak out are the banks, farming advisors, QMS, NFUS, STFA, landlords agents and anyone with a credible plan.

Charles Dickens wrote:"We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect, a rather common one."

Another of his characters said: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, result 'joy'. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result 'misery'."

Yours hopefully, Wilkins Micawber.

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