Calls for longer farm tenancy leases

New Farming Minister George Eustice has pledged to investigate how farm tenancies can be incentivised to increase their longevity and give tenants greater confidence to invest in their businesses.

Around 200 people attended the National Farmers’ Union’s (NFU) Tenant Farmers’ Conference in Harrogate on Thursday, where Mr Eustice also promised to explore new farming models to make it easier for new entrants to the industry to get started.

The Minister, whose family farms in Cornwall, told Country Week it is “a very difficult balancing act” to ease more new entrants into the industry under legislation introduced in 1995, which granted landowners with greater flexibility to rent out their land.

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He said: “There is a difficult trade-off which is if you have tenancies that are too short term, they don’t lend themselves too well to new entrants who want to come in and have some security so they can invest in the future, so I would like to look at ways in which we can encourage, incentivise, perhaps slightly longer-term tenancies.

“It’s not an easy thing to achieve but I would also like to explore other ways of getting new entrants into the industry so that some of the bright young people we have got in our agricultural colleges today can enter the industry and perhaps have a share of profits in a business or a contract farm agreement or share options.

“There are lots of different options that other industries have developed quite successfully and I think it’s really important that we have that for farming so that we get bright, talented people who can fulfil their aspirations through this industry.”

NFU president Peter Kendall said there is no quick fix. He urged landlords and land agents to give new entrants a chance and think long-term.