HebrideanUltraTerfHecate on Nostr: https://unherd.com/2025/02/the-fate-of-britains-tenant-farmers/ On a clear day in ...
https://unherd.com/2025/02/the-fate-of-britains-tenant-farmers/
On a clear day in February, Patrick Greed takes me to the brow of a hill overlooking what used to be his farm. Around us stretches the green countryside of Devon’s Killerton estate, radiant in the winter sun. Nestled in a fold in the landscape, we can see the farmhouse where Greed lived with his family for much of his life. At one time, the hillsides nearby were carpeted in golden wheat; Greed has images to prove it, which he shows me with evident pride. Now though, those same fields are covered in a stubble of plastic cylinders. Greed’s former landlord, the National Trust, is planting trees across swathes of Killerton.
Attention has lately focused on the plight of family-owned farms, potential victims of Labour’s inheritance tax policies, but less understood are the struggles of tenant farmers such as Greed. Renting their fields and pastures from landowners, tenant farmers currently manage about a third of England’s farmland, but they are now scrabbling to adapt to a rural economy that is increasingly focused on the environment. This green turn heralds a rural revolution, one with consequences not just for farmers, but also for Britain’s food security.
Greed has done well out of farming, having started in the Eighties. But the land he leased won’t be available for the next generation of tenant farmers. Nor, he emphasises, will it be there to feed Britain’s next generation of people. As Greed puts it: “It was a very productive farm that would produce basically enough food for a small town. And it’s gone.” At least he got out clean. Kevin Bateman, a Devon land agent, told me of tenants being squeezed out by environmental schemes. “When you see farmers being kicked out of their homes because their tenancies aren’t being renewed, it’s difficult to watch,” he explains. “You’re not just taking away his farm, you’re taking away his livelihood, and you’re taking away his home.”
https://archive.ph/6ihDS
On a clear day in February, Patrick Greed takes me to the brow of a hill overlooking what used to be his farm. Around us stretches the green countryside of Devon’s Killerton estate, radiant in the winter sun. Nestled in a fold in the landscape, we can see the farmhouse where Greed lived with his family for much of his life. At one time, the hillsides nearby were carpeted in golden wheat; Greed has images to prove it, which he shows me with evident pride. Now though, those same fields are covered in a stubble of plastic cylinders. Greed’s former landlord, the National Trust, is planting trees across swathes of Killerton.
Attention has lately focused on the plight of family-owned farms, potential victims of Labour’s inheritance tax policies, but less understood are the struggles of tenant farmers such as Greed. Renting their fields and pastures from landowners, tenant farmers currently manage about a third of England’s farmland, but they are now scrabbling to adapt to a rural economy that is increasingly focused on the environment. This green turn heralds a rural revolution, one with consequences not just for farmers, but also for Britain’s food security.
Greed has done well out of farming, having started in the Eighties. But the land he leased won’t be available for the next generation of tenant farmers. Nor, he emphasises, will it be there to feed Britain’s next generation of people. As Greed puts it: “It was a very productive farm that would produce basically enough food for a small town. And it’s gone.” At least he got out clean. Kevin Bateman, a Devon land agent, told me of tenants being squeezed out by environmental schemes. “When you see farmers being kicked out of their homes because their tenancies aren’t being renewed, it’s difficult to watch,” he explains. “You’re not just taking away his farm, you’re taking away his livelihood, and you’re taking away his home.”
https://archive.ph/6ihDS