Robigus
Member
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...ed-cottages-to-encourage-retirement-l53l9pqwx
Jerome Starkey, Countryside Correspondent April 28 2017, 12:01am, The Times
The average age of British farmers is 59 and landowners say new blood is needed JOHN GILES/PA
Farmers should be offered retirement cottages to ease them off the land and reinvigorate agriculture with new blood and ideas, say landowners.
British farms are some of the least productive in Europe, government figures show. The average age of farmers is 59.
Christopher Price, head of policy at the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), said that innovation was essential to make farming more competitive after Brexit. A simple way to encourage farmers to retire was to build retirement cottages in the countryside, he said, so that those who had spent their lives on farms did not face the prospect of retiring into towns.
Building rural homes suitable for pensioners might require changes to planning rules, especially in green belt areas.
Mr Price urged the government to offer farmers lump sums as retirement incentives to replace annual grants from the European Union that are worth £3 billion a year. “The farmer has got to be able to retire with dignity [so] we don’t lose his or her expertise,” Mr Price told the CLA’s Buckinghamshire debate on the future of farming. “Rather than getting support each year, if you are a farmer of a certain age you could get your payments all in one go which could facilitate your retirement.”
Share farming, in which two or more farmers split the responsibility without entering a formal partnership, allowed them to be eased out without losing their experience. Under this model the farmer’s share of the land or livestock is gradually reduced until it is worth a few per cent or nothing. Richard King, from the agri-business analysts Andersons, said that farmers who lost money every year had been propped up by EU subsidies. “The basic payment keeps poor farms in business,” he said. “A lot of the bottom third or even half would be challenged to survive on the profits they make.”
Christopher Anstey, chairman of the Buckinghamshire branch of the CLA, said that abolishing subsidies would reduce high rents and land prices, which had made it difficult for young farmers to get on the ladder. “It will mean that a lot of older people will get out of farming,” he said.
A poll of the audience found that no one was in favour of prolonging the area-based payment, under which landowners are paid to own land. Their calls to reform farm subsidies are shared by the Land Workers’ Alliance, the National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Andrew Clark, director of policy at the National Farmers Union, acknowledged that Brexit was a chance to broker “a new deal between farmers and society”.
Jerome Starkey, Countryside Correspondent April 28 2017, 12:01am, The Times
The average age of British farmers is 59 and landowners say new blood is needed JOHN GILES/PA
Farmers should be offered retirement cottages to ease them off the land and reinvigorate agriculture with new blood and ideas, say landowners.
British farms are some of the least productive in Europe, government figures show. The average age of farmers is 59.
Christopher Price, head of policy at the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), said that innovation was essential to make farming more competitive after Brexit. A simple way to encourage farmers to retire was to build retirement cottages in the countryside, he said, so that those who had spent their lives on farms did not face the prospect of retiring into towns.
Building rural homes suitable for pensioners might require changes to planning rules, especially in green belt areas.
Mr Price urged the government to offer farmers lump sums as retirement incentives to replace annual grants from the European Union that are worth £3 billion a year. “The farmer has got to be able to retire with dignity [so] we don’t lose his or her expertise,” Mr Price told the CLA’s Buckinghamshire debate on the future of farming. “Rather than getting support each year, if you are a farmer of a certain age you could get your payments all in one go which could facilitate your retirement.”
Share farming, in which two or more farmers split the responsibility without entering a formal partnership, allowed them to be eased out without losing their experience. Under this model the farmer’s share of the land or livestock is gradually reduced until it is worth a few per cent or nothing. Richard King, from the agri-business analysts Andersons, said that farmers who lost money every year had been propped up by EU subsidies. “The basic payment keeps poor farms in business,” he said. “A lot of the bottom third or even half would be challenged to survive on the profits they make.”
Christopher Anstey, chairman of the Buckinghamshire branch of the CLA, said that abolishing subsidies would reduce high rents and land prices, which had made it difficult for young farmers to get on the ladder. “It will mean that a lot of older people will get out of farming,” he said.
A poll of the audience found that no one was in favour of prolonging the area-based payment, under which landowners are paid to own land. Their calls to reform farm subsidies are shared by the Land Workers’ Alliance, the National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Andrew Clark, director of policy at the National Farmers Union, acknowledged that Brexit was a chance to broker “a new deal between farmers and society”.
