No one is thinking of tenant farmers when agriculture is in crisis - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Peter Auty, Sunnybank, Great Hatfield.
Climate change enthusiasts don't appear to have much sympathy with the beleaguered tenant farmers in the UK, most of whom have very little authority when the landowner wants change on his property.
There has recently been mention of Joe Ward of Lincolnshire converting his 540 acre farm to a solar farm, this fails to take into account he owned the farm unlike the Sturdy family who were at the mercy of the landlord’s spread sheet.
Perhaps Joe Ward had no option if he wanted a profit, than to take the route he did, tenant farmers don't have that option.
The farming industry is at a cross roads, environmentalists want to rewild, vegans want to clear the countryside of animals, ramblers want to walk anywhere they want, the government wants to build houses anywhere and everywhere.
The green belt is under threat, subsidies have been removed, the alterations to the inheritance tax, diseases, the cost of fertiliser, vets fees, the list goes on and on, yet the farming industry is under pressure to feed the country with less land and government support and a growing population. No wonder there is consternation in the agricultural sector.
Crisis currently threatens world farming, the amount of land being lost in many other countries, yet UK farmers are being told to produce more from less, it beggars believe.
Food security in all staple foods should be a priority, but successive governments are/have ignored the looming crisis in UK farming.
If we truly support UK farming then buy British whenever and wherever you can, look at the labelling or use some of the extremely good local butchers and farm shops, many villages still have one or both.