Farmers Weekly Charlie Flindt the National Trust and End of an Era

Cowcorn said:

Best of luck @silverfox and @Charlie Flindt in your retirement
At the end of the day we are all tenants somebody had it before us and somebody had it after us .
You cant blame Charlie for playing the hand he was dealt to max ad vantage but that doesent excuse the pack of tossers that masquerade as the NT .
Compare how the approached and bought out charlie becuase he held the ace card of an AHA with one generation left with the Disgraceful way the strong armed @Oscar into rewilding and enviro stuff and the crock of shite the handed @bluepower which eventually forced him out .
The NT should be wound up and tenants given first refusal to buy at reasonable rates .
In fact the Gov should make interest free loans available for such measures .
The could do it for the contrary Irish during the land wars why not today for their own people ??
The real tragedy here is that some young farmer wont get to enjoy the same opportunity to farm as charlies father and charlie did with the farm been converted to a fire hazard as thats all rewilding is as has been well demonstrated this summer .
Oh and @Charlie Flindt after so many years of farming a fair spread at small rent ?? And no savings !!! Go on ye hoor ye you must have the price of it under the mattress .....

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You are so true in saying that they are preventing future generations the opportunity to farm the land . We have a son that would dearly have loved to take over the farm from us, we even had a verbal agreement with the agent last but one . He has now left the industry, probably never to return and gone and got a job. His degree in agriculture counted for nothing with the NT.
I personally am amazed at Charlie Flindts' decision. He will now have to live on the farm he has loved and watch those idiots destroy it. I personally would have asked them to pay me out and get the f**k out of it. Just my thoughts!

So @Charlie Flindt has accepted the green shilling....that green shilling has come through the NT charity donations backed by css and ELMs assurances. Swathed in opaqueness so neither the taxpayer or charity donor can discern any slight of hand.
The state and the National Trust acting in unison. Got to be right?

Charlie Flindt said:

I'm confused; the man/woman who bleats on like a stuck pig about me using hurty words like 'lentil knitter' is suggesting I've taken offence and I should 'suck it up'?

I'm also keen to know on what grounds you feel qualified to criticise life decisions that Hazel and I have made that we feel are best for us and our children. (Apart from the inherent sneering arrogance of the eco-fascists/lentil knitters, of course.) I'm very recipient to the idea of you you slipping from behind your mask of anonimity and telling me directly; I'm not hard to find online.

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I don't take offence at anything on here, that was my point. You were the one suggesting I was being insensitive.

I didn't criticise any decision. I asked a question. Did you have any discussions with the NT to try and find a way for your farm to remain in productive use, with you passing on your skills and knowledge, without having to move out ? I consider it to be a constructive question. Apologies if you took any offence at it being asked.

60ish years old, kids got other careers, tenant, rising input costs, rent to pay, BPS evaporating.

Don't know the arrangement, but why wouldn't someone take some sort of stewardship or rewilding if easier life and/or more consistent income or payoff or decent deal. Plus 1,800t to sell for £400,000+, and some machinery to sell.

We don't live for ever.

Where do I sign?

Best of luck to you @Charlie Flindt and Hazel.
You’ve kept us laughing when just about everything else in the pages ahead of your articles either depressed us or made us feel inadequate.
I hope you (and Hazel) will divert your FW scribing to TFF and keep us smiling. I’m sure you’d still find something amusing to write about and give your opinions on those of us still mad enough to keep trying to feed the nation.
Take care and kind regards to you both and the family.

teslacoils said:

Tree planting is a bit different as once you plant trees here......youre stuck with them forever.

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maybe, but it only requires a change of focus or legislation & trees can be cleared. If they are grown for forestry it’s only relatively short period of time before they are all clear felled anyway. Who knows what the world situation will be like in 40 years ?

much harder to clear fell housing estates & peoples homes, to revert that land back to agriculture . . .
once it all goes under concrete & bitumen, that’s it

Huno said:

If this nation can subsidise energy bills to the value of 150 billion im sure it can buy food and bottled water from anywhere it wishes... fact

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And when the country you want to buy food from won't lend you the money to pay for it?

Good luck for the future @Charlie Flindt (and @silverfox @Oscar and the other NT tenants making the changes)

You could have just upset your landlord by getting your neighbour and drinking buddy to contract farm it for you!

Farmer Roy said:

So, I always find it amusing the anger here towards rewilding, or growing trees, on “farmland”, when so many on TFF seem to think that selling their land for housing development is the ultimate goal to aim for . . .

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Fair comment.
But there will a special corner in hell where the current management of NT can be continually dragged through hedges backwards.

"Our founders believed that everyone needs nature, beauty and history, so they set up the National Trust to look after the nation’s coastline, historic sites, countryside and green spaces.

With 5.37 million members, over 50,000 volunteers and 10,000 staff we are now the biggest conservation charity in Europe, caring for over 250,000 hectares of farmland, over 780 miles of coastline and 500 historic properties, gardens and nature reserves, for everyone, for ever."

Caring for farmland, nature and history is not destroying farmsteads rich in every thing they were created to look after.

The NT think they can help farmers navigate their challenges by running 15 store cattle on 407 acres?
That isn't sustainable for anyone or anything.

i wish i could retire , but the next generation want it ! good luck charlie , hope you take to hazels stock!'

Jackov Altraids said:

Fair comment.
But there will a special corner in hell where the current management of NT can be continually dragged through hedges backwards.

"Our founders believed that everyone needs nature, beauty and history, so they set up the National Trust to look after the nation’s coastline, historic sites, countryside and green spaces.

With 5.37 million members, over 50,000 volunteers and 10,000 staff we are now the biggest conservation charity in Europe, caring for over 250,000 hectares of farmland, over 780 miles of coastline and 500 historic properties, gardens and nature reserves, for everyone, for ever."

Caring for farmland, nature and history is not destroying farmsteads rich in every thing they were created to look after.

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How difficult would it be to say that the NT is not a political institution?

010101 said:

How difficult would it be to say that the NT is not a political institution?

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Very.
Especially when it says how it lobbies government.

Is there a strong correlation between the career paths of the top management and public sector?

010101 said:

Is there a strong correlation between the career paths of the top management and public sector?

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Not really.

They make several references to having people with lots of farming experience but that isn't quite true.



There are 2;

Robert Caudwell Robert was appointed to the Council by the National Farmers Union in 2015. He is a delegate on the National Farmers Union council on behalf of Holland Lincolnshire county branch and chairs the HQ audit and remuneration committee. Robert has 40 years of experience of farming in South Lincolnshire on the family farm growing a range of arable and field scale horticultural crops. Robert has been involved in the construction and maintenance of private sea defences in partnership with other landowners. He has been a member of the local Internal Drainage Board and Chaired the Anglian Northern Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, working with DEFRA and the Environment Agency from 1/7/2005-30/6/2015. Robert continues to campaign for improved flood defences and currently advises the National Farmers Union on flooding issues. He is a member of Witham Sailing Club and Boston Rugby Club.

Guy Trehane Guy was elected to the Council in 2019. He is a farmer and Volunteer Specialist who has advised the trust as an individual and as a member of the Land Use, Access and Rural Enterprise Advisory Panels on rural issues and at properties in every region of the Trust. He was honoured to have served on the Trust Council some years ago as a member appointed by the Royal Agricultural Society of England. Guy farms in Dorset, the third generation of his family to manage a forward looking dairy and arable farm on the urban fringes of Bournemouth. Before taking over the farm he worked in the oil industry in South East Asia and agriculture in Japan, Zimbabwe the USA and Argentina. He has been actively involved in agriculture beyond his farm gate as an elected representative in a number of farming organisations, as a trustee of rural charities as well as being a non-executive director of national agricultural service businesses, and of Genus plc, an international livestock genetic, advisory and supply business. A Nuffield Scholar, Guy undertook a study on tariffs and trade in globalised agricultural commodities and their impact on agricultural policy reform. He has recently made significant changes to his farming business in response to the uncertain times in our industry caused by government deregulation and free market competition. He is actively seeking to demonstrate farm management systems that are financially and environmentally sustainable, less stressful to livestock and staff and attractive to a new generation who wish to farm. Guy’s interests are walking our coastline, cycling in exotic places and gardening. With his wife he opens their garden a number of times a year for the National Garden Scheme.



But then maybe their are connections to public sector, I see Mr Caudwell;
Robert Caudwell has been announced as the Chair of the Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force – a group tasked with improving the condition of England’s farmed lowland peat.

Robert, who currently chairs the Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA), will explore how lowland agricultural peatlands can be better managed to safeguard productive agriculture as well as contributing to the government’s net zero by 2050 target. The Task Force will be a key component of the government’s forthcoming England Peat Strategy.

Huno said:

If this nation can subsidise energy bills to the value of 150 billion im sure it can buy food and bottled water from anywhere it wishes... fact

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The nation is sticking its fuel bills on its collective credit card. Anyone who ends up borrowing money to pay the day to day expenses because they can't (or won't) earn enough to live on by their own efforts is in the fast lane to bankruptcy and poverty......such behaviour never ends well.

Because I don't know the answer to the above question I thought it best to fact check a bit before debating the background drivers of Mr & Mrs Flindts' decisions.
Currently practising my google-fu...

010101 said:

Because I don't know the answer to the above question I thought it best to fact check a bit before debating the background drivers of Mr & Mrs Flindts' decisions.
Currently practising my google-fu...

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I have no reason to think that Messrs Flindt's decision making is anything other than exactly as they described.

I think the drivers of decisions at the NT are somewhat more unfathomable.

Thankyou for being so prompt with the research.

NT administration could be aligning with the public mood for the sake of donations, making the landscape more beautiful (in the potential donors' eyes).

If so they will change like smoke in the wind that they follow.

Jackov Altraids said:

The Task Force will be a key component of the government’s forthcoming England Peat Strategy.

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Goodness, do I hope the use of the word "force" to describe a civil administration is merely clumsy and not a Freudian slip.