National trust farms.

bluepower

Member
Livestock Farmer
The circle of life continues to turn.

These farms will in another time be farmed for maximum production.

NT are farming for fashion at the moment.
I don't think they are farming at all, don't know and don't want to know. Their attitude towards tenants shows no compassion. The problem is that most of their farms will soon revert to wastelands and will take years to reclaim when they wake up and realise the error of their ways, if they ever do.

In my eyes conservation and public access do not compliment each other yet they see it differently. Their current policy is so far away from farming I don't see it ever being reconciled. I'm out.
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
The really unsettling part for all agriculturalists is that the National Trust are being guided in farm policy by Natural England.
Friends and partners is the current relationship description.....

This may be so but surely the NT will need some income from the land to support the maintenance of all the houses and other historical properties.
Under the new schemes and without BPS it is very hard to see what income there will be on what is becoming scrub and rushes!

Do any of their tenants sit on the management agricultural committee, if there is one?
 

devonbeef

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon UK
In the main there are very few people within the NT with much understanding of agriculture, therin lies the problem. As you are probably aware we are coming out of an NT farm this autumn which is not going to be relet as a farm again. The house and traditional buildings will probably end up as holiday lets, grain store as a storage unit and the land will go into various wild and wacky schemes and soon revert to scrub, gorse ragwort and the like.
We have always tried to farm to improve and feel that we have wasted our time in their eyes. To do nothing is better than to do something is one of their favourite phrases!However I can hold my head up and know that farm is in a much better state than when we took it on.
However there is one agent within the NT who is dealing with our outgoing who has a very sound knowledge of agriculture and a great deal of common sense. I will speak to him on this matter, not your specific situation but the general ignorance of their employees and see if something can be done.
All this sounds very familiar and seems to be common throughout the country and beggears belief. I for one will be glad to get them out of my hair, they are rapidly losing the plot. We basically decided that we could no longer run a business with them as landlords so made the big decision.
As you say people who left them farms and land would be turning in their graves as they are destroying many family farms, lost forever for the nation.
I am sure they are abusing the core reason they were given the places,most were given over as a rural living community which the person giving them wanted preserved as working places.It is a totally disgrace what they are doing.Near us a fantastic well managed farm is being landscaped (destroyed) making unfarmable.They are one of England's biggest vandals.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Who in the hierarchy of the NT is responsible for the farms and the overall policies?

I have a large NT farm that adjoins me and the tenant has more or less stopped farming the land and does no maintenance at all. I have been in contact with the Agent who is completely ineffective.
All of the boundary fences and gates have fallen into disrepair and those that adjoin me I have been replacing and asked for a 50% share of the costs from the NT, who say the tenant is responsible. He says he is giving up the tenancy so won't pay!! He collects all the payments as well as a large CS scheme.
I have taken over a large area of the land with the tenants agreement and have run cattle on it and at the same time topped and sprayed large areas of the land which is full of thistles and not been properly grazed for some years. I informed the Agent I was doing this even though I presume the tenant should not be sub letting!!
The NT want to take back all the buildings and convert to units, however this leaves the farms with nothing, not even handling pens for sheep or cattle.
All of the gates except for a couple that I have replaced are knackered and none of the internal gates or ditches have been maintained for 50 years. The farms (several hundred acres) used to be immaculate and the owners who gave it to the NT must be turning in their graves.

If anyone knows who in the NT is responsible for the farms I would dearly like to have a chat with them!!
Isnt it up to you to fence your animals in
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Who in the hierarchy of the NT is responsible for the farms and the overall policies?

I have a large NT farm that adjoins me and the tenant has more or less stopped farming the land and does no maintenance at all. I have been in contact with the Agent who is completely ineffective.
All of the boundary fences and gates have fallen into disrepair and those that adjoin me I have been replacing and asked for a 50% share of the costs from the NT, who say the tenant is responsible. He says he is giving up the tenancy so won't pay!! He collects all the payments as well as a large CS scheme.
I have taken over a large area of the land with the tenants agreement and have run cattle on it and at the same time topped and sprayed large areas of the land which is full of thistles and not been properly grazed for some years. I informed the Agent I was doing this even though I presume the tenant should not be sub letting!!
The NT want to take back all the buildings and convert to units, however this leaves the farms with nothing, not even handling pens for sheep or cattle.
All of the gates except for a couple that I have replaced are knackered and none of the internal gates or ditches have been maintained for 50 years. The farms (several hundred acres) used to be immaculate and the owners who gave it to the NT must be turning in their graves.

If anyone knows who in the NT is responsible for the farms I would dearly like to have a chat with them!!
I think the message here or moral is, don't leave a lovely farm to a charity like the NT, I don't know about the Countryside restoration trust, but how a charity is today is not necessarily how it will be in the future. I think we have to accept we can do what we want to the farm in our lifetime, but once we are gone it's up to the next generation to do what they want with it, trying to control what happens (by leaving it to a charity) is trying to control things from beyond the grave.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don't think they are farming at all, don't know and don't want to know. Their attitude towards tenants shows no compassion. The problem is that most of their farms will soon revert to wastelands and will take years to reclaim when they wake up and realise the error of their ways, if they ever do.

In my eyes conservation and public access do not compliment each other yet they see it differently. Their current policy is so far away from farming I don't see it ever being reconciled. I'm out.
I agree with you, I think you can have farming and conservation (with hard work and compromise on both sides), or farming and public access (just about with an awful lot of compromise on the part of farming), but what is totally incompatible is conservation and public access.

As far as food production goes, I think the Nandos/Mc Donnalds shortages are just the very slow start, and in the future food security and availability is going to be far more important, whether the future is bright I suppose depends on how far along the "no cows, rewilding, upland abandoning, factory produced meat" road we go, if it will be in my working lifetime I am not sure. When change happens, it is often not slow but a sudden tipping point. I think Cuba nearly starved with the fall of the USSR (as they provided Cuba's food), sudden change. What I am trying to say is, I am sure in the future we will value food production again instead of demonising it as seems to be happening now.
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Isnt it up to you to fence your animals in

These are shared boundaries and many are wet fences which are always maintained 50/50 as you need the water to go around the system.
When both landowners and tenants have livestock then it is in both their interests to repair and renew the boundaries equally for good relations.
We have many boundaries where land has been sold off and the stipulation is that the new owners have to maintain the boundary.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
These are shared boundaries and many are wet fences which are always maintained 50/50 as you need the water to go around the system.
When both landowners and tenants have livestock then it is in both their interests to repair and renew the boundaries equally for good relations.
We have many boundaries where land has been sold off and the stipulation is that the new owners have to maintain the boundary.
I think in that case there needs to be a clause in the stipulation, and their successors in title, I have heard about land sold for forestry with that stipulation, but the forestry was subsequently sold on and the new owner is not liable!
 

ajcc

Member
Livestock Farmer
This is what is happening with these farms by default.

The difficulty I see for the NT is that they presumably need the income.
No BPS means no rent from the land and I cannot see under the present proposals there will be any ELMS money unless the land is maintained which will mean it has to be farmed. It can only be used for summer grazing and much of it is impossible to mow for hay. A large area was cropped but has been left and is now all weed grasses, thistles and docks.
It cannot be turned over to trees as it is a wetland SSSI.
I do wonder how or if the NT value their land?
I suspect the NT along with RSPB and assorted “wildlife trusts” have a lot more influence in the ELMs makeup than most realise. (They’re writing the rule book.)
Untenanted, derelict Farm land (aka rewilded) has much to commend in the modern middle class eco vision of rural Britain.
Add in unfettered public access for recreation and you have ticked all the boxes of “public money for public goods.”
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
I suspect the NT along with RSPB and assorted “wildlife trusts” have a lot more influence in the ELMs makeup than most realise. (They’re writing the rule book.)
Untenanted, derelict Farm land (aka rewilded) has much to commend in the modern middle class eco vision of rural Britain.
Add in unfettered public access for recreation and you have ticked all the boxes of “public money for public goods.”
but the abandoned land, left to scrub, bracken and brambles is as much an ecological wilderness as wall to wall ryegrass (or for that matter "vegan" arable crops), if we really want what's best for wildlife, we need a mixture of rotational grazing, long rest periods and minimal soil disturbance. However, no point saying that here, as the people who make the decisions would not bother to read what people with mud on their boots think!
 

Bongodog

Member
I suspect the NT along with RSPB and assorted “wildlife trusts” have a lot more influence in the ELMs makeup than most realise. (They’re writing the rule book.)
Untenanted, derelict Farm land (aka rewilded) has much to commend in the modern middle class eco vision of rural Britain.
Add in unfettered public access for recreation and you have ticked all the boxes of “public money for public goods.”
My advice to anyone thinking of leaving property to charities would be to either forget the idea or tie it up in such a way that they lose it if they go against your wishes.
I have seen so many examples of peoples wishes being ignored or a lifetimes work deestroyed.
Great uncle thought he was leaving some land for the benefit of a village organisation that had helped him, in the small print however of their overall constitution all bequests are grabbed by their National HQ. The proceeds would have been very useful locally, but not a penny came back.
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
I suspect the NT along with RSPB and assorted “wildlife trusts” have a lot more influence in the ELMs makeup than most realise. (They’re writing the rule book.)
Untenanted, derelict Farm land (aka rewilded) has much to commend in the modern middle class eco vision of rural Britain.
Add in unfettered public access for recreation and you have ticked all the boxes of “public money for public goods.”

I am sure you are right about the level of influence. However in a way that will be a good thing as in a relatively short period of time the problems this will cause will start to appear.
I am already seeing it as the lack of maintenance on drainage systems are already having an effect on other farmers and potentially local houses that will become flooded.

They are already having to spend more money on maintenance of their land which previously the tenant would have done. The fences and gates are broken and if they want to change tack the cost will be prohibitive and the land devalued.
I am not sure whether NT worry about that as they were given the land for free!

If one assumes that the average rent was the BPS, it is highly unlikely that ELMS for "rewilding" will be anything like that much!
 
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Kernowkid

Member
NT have never been well thought of around here. Terrible landlords. A very productive large coastal farm here has been turned into a weed infested wilderness with full public roaming and the farm house turned to a 3.5k a week holiday let. All the free car parks have had pay and display machines put up and the only modern farm buildings were knocked down to create parking for their new visitor centre.
cant wait for them to go scat one day
 

An Gof

Member
Location
Cornwall
NT have never been well thought of around here. Terrible landlords. A very productive large coastal farm here has been turned into a weed infested wilderness with full public roaming and the farm house turned to a 3.5k a week holiday let. All the free car parks have had pay and display machines put up and the only modern farm buildings were knocked down to create parking for their new visitor centre.
cant wait for them to go scat one day

Where is “around here” ?
It’s really helpful if contributors include their location in their profile. 👍
 

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