- Location
- East Sussex
I live in the affluent South East and farm in what is considered to be a very picturesque area and has a designation of an AONB.
There are two River valleys that have changed very little in terms of development but agriculturally the upper parts of the valleys are dying.
I went for a walk this evening being a beautiful sunny evening and walked some miles along what is the largest of the valleys and was shocked as to what has happened to what were very productive farms.
In this valley there used to be over 20 different farmers who lived on the farms and were mostly mixed livestock and arable with a couple of fruit farms. Now on the same land only 5 still live on the farms they run. The rest have sold off all the properties and many of the buildings have been converted.
The lower land of several hundred acres which is good grade 2 arable land is contract farmed and no one lives there.
Then there is a block of mostly sheep run by one family that have around 3,000 ewes and do live in the valley.
There is another block of 300 acres that has summer grazed cattle and environmental scheme by an absentee owner.
Then an organic beef and sheep farm which is farmed reasonably well and the owner and his son do live on the farm but is very undergrazed.
Then there is a sizeable fruit farm which is run entirely by East Europeans and the owner lives miles away.
After this there were a number of small farms with nice old houses, all sold off to people who bought them for the attractive landscape that was a patchwork of fields and managed woodland. Pockets of the land are grazed but most is now derelict or a few horses. Probably an area of between 500 and a thousand acres some of which is in environmental schemes but mostly ungrazed and rushes and scrub. This was all good grade 3 land that used to have sheep and cattle on it.
The ditches, gates and fences are all falling into disrepair and it would be difficult for this land to be turned around without significant amounts of money being spent. There are no livestock buildings left and no handling facilities.
I asked myself what would or could be the turning point to put this land back into productive farmland? Will it take another war? Or this time will it just revert to scrub and woodland and everyone be happy that this is "rewilding" whatever that means.
There are two River valleys that have changed very little in terms of development but agriculturally the upper parts of the valleys are dying.
I went for a walk this evening being a beautiful sunny evening and walked some miles along what is the largest of the valleys and was shocked as to what has happened to what were very productive farms.
In this valley there used to be over 20 different farmers who lived on the farms and were mostly mixed livestock and arable with a couple of fruit farms. Now on the same land only 5 still live on the farms they run. The rest have sold off all the properties and many of the buildings have been converted.
The lower land of several hundred acres which is good grade 2 arable land is contract farmed and no one lives there.
Then there is a block of mostly sheep run by one family that have around 3,000 ewes and do live in the valley.
There is another block of 300 acres that has summer grazed cattle and environmental scheme by an absentee owner.
Then an organic beef and sheep farm which is farmed reasonably well and the owner and his son do live on the farm but is very undergrazed.
Then there is a sizeable fruit farm which is run entirely by East Europeans and the owner lives miles away.
After this there were a number of small farms with nice old houses, all sold off to people who bought them for the attractive landscape that was a patchwork of fields and managed woodland. Pockets of the land are grazed but most is now derelict or a few horses. Probably an area of between 500 and a thousand acres some of which is in environmental schemes but mostly ungrazed and rushes and scrub. This was all good grade 3 land that used to have sheep and cattle on it.
The ditches, gates and fences are all falling into disrepair and it would be difficult for this land to be turned around without significant amounts of money being spent. There are no livestock buildings left and no handling facilities.
I asked myself what would or could be the turning point to put this land back into productive farmland? Will it take another war? Or this time will it just revert to scrub and woodland and everyone be happy that this is "rewilding" whatever that means.