FarmI wrote:

40 years is the time frame you mentioned and that is a very short time span
but one in which those things that I mentioned were (and still are in some
quarters) considered to be "new thinking" in the farming community.

Lets no go there. It is too frightening.

Even
today if you read 'The Land' the sodding farmers organisations go on and on
about how government bans on land clearing are stuffing up farming.

True,but I do note that quite a few farmers have been equally stating
the opposite case for longer.

i do not see famers as a unitary mob, but a diverse collective of ideas.
Sadly too conservative in their approach to their "representatives".