Hay religiously watches Countryfile, which I must admit I find slightly boring and would like it offset by Townfile or Cityfile; however, I learned something important on Sunday's programme.
Tenancy terms for farms have been coming down for decades and now stand at around 3 years, which is insufficient for tenant farmer to plan, let alone invest.
Landlords are seeing money in turning their farming land over to solar farms and, while solar farms are good, they should be placed on poor or unproductive land and not that which is highly productive, especially when we, as a nation, are not capable of feeding ourselves, requiring huge imports from abroad. It's driven by market forces, which generally prioritise greed over people.
There needs to be a huge redistribution of land or, failing that, tax incentives for landlords to retain tenant farmers long term. The landlords call themselves farmers, but their only connection with farming is their tenants. They also, invariably, have landholdings that date back to the Norman invasion and were taken by the sword.
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