Category: South East Farmer Articles

It is hard to believe four years have passed since the UK voted to leave the EU. Many thought the referendum result would impact lifestyles in ways not experienced for generations. Opposing points of view divided families and shortened political careers. Economists filled columns with untested theories predicting either economic disaster or unparalleled growth; for […]

This autumn will have come none too soon for many South East farmers. It’s been a harvest to forget; wet weather last autumn left growers struggling to get wheat in the ground, and then the dry spring and wet weather during August took their toll. The NFU reckons yields could be down by about a […]

All eyes in the shooting community have been focused on Wild Justice’s demands for a judicial review into game bird release, but a lesser publicised planning decision could also have big implications. The authorities recently rejected an appeal against an enforcement notice which restricted the number of shooting days on a much-respected South Downs estate. […]

‘Planning’ and ‘simple’ are two words that rarely go together. As anyone who has had dealings with it will know, the planning system can be complex, confusing and costly. The existence of Permitted Development Rights (PDRs), however, offer farmers a streamlined – and, yes, simple – process for erecting or converting buildings. Assuming you meet […]

“Up horn, down corn”  is an old agricultural saying that, like many old agricultural sayings, is as relevant today as it has ever been. It is, or course, a clarion call for the benefits of mixed farming, highlighting how the fortunes of the various sectors are rarely in step and how tough times in one […]

The Covid-19 crisis is likely to prompt more conversations about succession than ever before.  Mark Weaver of CLM considers why – and shares some tips on securing your farm or estate’s long term future by making this potentially painful process happen smoothly and effectively. The coronavirus crisis will result in big changes to rural businesses […]

The Sun isn’t my usual paper of choice, but I couldn’t help but notice a huge advert on the front of it recently. “Thank you to British Farmers”  the full page message from the supermarket Morrisons proclaimed, recognising the sterling work done by farmers keeping food on the nation’s tables during the coronavirus crisis. The […]

We’ve already got a lot of acronyms in farming. There’s BPS, NVZ, GMs, SSSI, AONBs and the RPA just for starters.  We’ll need to get used to a new one, though – BNG. It stands for Biodiversity Net Gain and it might just prove to be one of the most important concepts some farmers can […]

Farming has received some bad press recently, which I felt the wider effects of while chatting with a grazier who was rounding up escaped sheep. We suspected the poor animals had probably had enough of being pushed around the field by various dog walkers and had attempted the ovine equivalent of The Great Escape.  It […]

In all the ‘excitement’ of Brexit over recent months, you would be forgiven for missing a recent and important new piece of legislation relating to let property, which came into force last March. ‘The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018’ received Royal Assent on 20 December 2018 and has amended the Landlord and Tenant Act […]

Cast your mind back twenty years to the dawn of the new millennium. The world was gripped with excitement and a sense of optimism marred only by predictions of planes falling from the skies, trains grinding to a halt and banks in meltdown as a result of a Y2K software bug. But when the day […]

Charlotte Smith and her panel of experts were on fine form at the South of England Farming Conference at Ardingly on November 13.  One of the strong early memories of my working  career was attending this conference with Tim Calcutt. It has been a regular diary fixture ever since and it is matter of great […]

The report into a pilot of results-based payments for agri-environment schemes, hot off the press, makes for fascinating reading. Published last month by Natural England and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, it outlines the findings into a two-year trial featuring 34 farmers across 230ha. Farmers, so it proclaims, welcomed the freedom to use their […]

When faced with a deadline, there are a number of common responses. 1. Get the job done as quickly as possible without much thought to what you are setting out to achieve. 2. Procrastinate, which often leads to missing the deadline or simply turns into a slower way of arriving at response 1. 3. Give […]

Let’s get straight to the point. If we exit without a deal it is highly likely that farming is going to feel the effect more than most. The table opposite speaks for itself. More than 90% of UK produced crops go to the EU. It is true that imports from the EU are broadly in […]

There was once a time when farming was guided by the weather, the soil and no small amount of hard work. Unfortunately those days are now just a distant memory. There is a phenomenon that increasingly has a great deal of bearing on our industry. We saw it recently with the whole sorry episode surrounding […]

“We’re not going to mention the B word.” Whether it’s referring to Brexit or Boris, that has been a common refrain at the start of most of the events we’ve been involved with or attending over the last few weeks. From the CLA’s ‘Getting to Grips with Grapes’ seminars to a talk on policing at […]

‘It’s time to go native.’ A recent cover of Country Life fascinated me. I’ll be honest, it’s usually the magazine’s property pages I flick to fi rst (for what, I hasten to add, is very much ‘lottery’ house shopping), but this grabbed my attention. My mind boggled at what the glossy might be about to […]

Now is a great time to invest in buildings – it can increase effi ciency, bring new opportunities and future-proof your business against whatever Brexit might bring. So is now the moment to seize the initiative and start building? Favourable permitted development regulations, the availability of cheap fi nance and the contribution that buildings can […]

In a world where much is unknown, here’s one thing we do know: Farms will see a huge drop in direct subsidy payments over the next nine years. A 200ha (500 acre) farm received a BPS payment of £45,700 in 2018; dependent upon fl uctuations in the exchange rate, this will be similar in 2019 […]