"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"anton" wrote
martin wrote
Quitting the rat race of urban stress and heading for a new life in
the countryside is becoming increasingly popular. Research by the
Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors shows nearly two-thirds of
farms sold between April and June were bought by non-farmers. Rob
Jeffrey, founder of NewLandOwners, says: "For them, it's living the
dream, but in many ways they are the saviours of the
countryside."...............


There's a legal farce going on at present concerning the
Common Agricultural Policy which means that farmers who
sell or buy farms at the moment don't know exactly what they are
selling or
buying. The result is that the market is dominated by
those who are getting out of farming and those who are not buying
farms for
the purpose of farming them.

Presumably when those legislating get their act together,
farmers will be able to buy and sell farms again.
Anton

So how will the countryside look in, say, ten years time ??
Will it all be reverting to the wild :~))
Jenny


Now that would be the CAP approved "set aside" policy, leave the land alone
for a while, let the wildlife use it and reap the benefits from the
subsidies. The "old" subsidy system meant that farmers had to maintain
fields in a state fit to produce crops, which meant they tended to poison
everything once a year, and plough it at least once.

The farmer behind us does this, and this year we thought maybe he'd been
given money for "set aside", then out came the poison machine and down went
every living thing in the field. It's all so pointless, we see pheasants,
partridge, hares, deer and they are all simply passing through looking for
some land that will still be able to support them.

Duncan