The NFU is to work with the CLA to develop and promote more flexible business structures and arrangements which ensure better opportunities for tenant farmers to progress, and for new entrants to make a start in farming.
The move was announced by NFU Deputy President, Meurig Raymond, at the NFU Tenants' Conference at Harper Adams University College today (Thursday).
“The farming industry owes it to itself to do everything possible to enable the best people to make the best possible use of our agricultural land, regardless of whether or not they happen to own it”, said Mr Raymond.
“At present, too many of the best people are unable to progress or enter the industry, because traditional tenancies are in decline, county council estates are being dispersed and short-term FBTs offer insufficient security to encourage the necessary investment.
“We need business models that can be used to create many more opportunities for the owners of land to work with farming partners in fair, flexible and tax-efficient arrangements, to their mutual benefit, and to the benefit of sustainably efficient food production. That’s what this initiative with the CLA is all about.”
In his speech to the conference, NFU President Peter Kendall, said: “Farm businesses will need to be innovative, flexible and smartly integrated with science & technology and the renewable energy agenda, if we are to rise to the challenge of producing more, whilst impacting less over the years ahead.
“Farm businesses will need land holding arrangements which are innovative, flexible, and take account of the fact that many, if not most, farms will in future be multi-purpose businesses, producing a variety of outputs.
“Tenants have a fundamental and critical role to play in the future of our industry. We need to look to the future, not be hidebound by the past, if we are to develop the business models between tenants and landowners that will be the key to realising the huge potential of British farming.”
- Find out more about our tenants' conference here.
- Visit our tenant farming channel here.
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