Quarter of farm families living in poverty

A QUARTER of farming households in Britain are living below the poverty line, the Government's rural watchdog revealed today.

According to research published by the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) as many as one in four farms are getting by on an annual income of less than 20,000 per year with a third of these having failed to make a profit over the past three years.

The report's authors urged ministers to help farmers access benefits and develop their businesses to help address the problem.

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The CRC said many farmers in the UK had diversified or found ways to earn money away from the farm to survive, with 17 per cent of farms now earning a greater income from their additional enterprises rather than from traditional food production.

However the research also showed many more farmers are lacking the skills or opportunity to branch into new businesses such as farm shops or letting out farm buildings.

Yorkshire farms were shown to fair relatively well in the CRC's poverty index with the areas of the South Pennines, the North Pennines, the Borders and the Lake District more likely to be home to struggling farmers.

The problems are particularly acute for tenant farmers, who can be prevented from diversifying under the terms of their tenancy or find it difficult to access the capital to set up new ventures as the banks view them as having no collateral.

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The CRC study also revealed the take-up of welfare payments to be lower in rural areas than in towns, with 11 per cent of adults in rural districts claiming out-of-work benefits compared with 16 per cent in towns.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that just 23 of the 601

Jobcentre Plus offices are in rural areas.

The character of farmers was also cited for the low-levels of benefit take-up, with farmers seeing a social stigma attached to asking for them.

The CRC called for the Department for Work and Pensions to actively promote the take-up of benefits for farming households and for the Department for Business Innovation and Skills to support farmers to develop their businesses.

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An increase in the supply of affordable housing was also urged in order to keep young people in the countryside.

CRC chairman Dr Stuart Burgess said: "While many farming households have successfully increased production, resilience and farm incomes, one in four are living in poverty.

"These struggling farms are likely to have grazing livestock and be located in upland areas. Many are left trapped in poverty without the resources or support to earn a living wage.

"Tackling poverty among farming households is long overdue. The Government should actively promote farm business support and the take-up of income-related benefits to eligible farming households."

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The report said that while more than half of farms have expanded into new ventures, funding for projects is hard to secure from banks and many have relied on grants to push ahead with their plans.

The difficulty of application forms and a lack of knowledge about which grants are available means many farmers do not take advantage of them.

Planning regulations can also be a barrier if schemes require permissions such as changes to farm buildings.