Should the countryside be an exclusive club for landowners?

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Yes, lots of setaside and stewardship schemes are aimed at encouraging wildlife and leaving certain bits of fields alone, so although when you walk past you think "what a waste of land- I could ride my horse along that strip" .

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and there is funding for bridleways in these schemes in the Higher Level.

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It would breach your cross compliance rules for claiming the SFP through the RPA though.

We are supposed to leave 2m around the edges of fields that are not mown, ploughed or sprayed as one of the requirements for the claim. Clearly livestock can graze on that land inbetween the mowing, but the idea is to allow wildlife to enjoy the weeds/grasses during the seasons.

Horses are a big bug bear when it comes to claiming SFP. You can't have permanent fencing and I'm pretty sure they don't like you riding through the land.......that would definitely affect your payment.

Fine if you want to open a paid farm ride......not so good if it's just for Joe Public to ride on your land for the sake of it.
 
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.......that would definitely affect your payment.



and that seems to be top of most LO's list!
 
Wheelbarrow - no, not always
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LO are paid not to crop the margins to aid wildlife, flora and fauna etc, the RPA pay the LO to cover the lose of revenue that not cropping that part of the field results in.

To quote the Conservation Walk route map covering my farm (available from defra):

This permissive bridlepath provides a circular route along grass margins around arable farmland, linking with public roads. Under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme field margins are being established to create a new habitat and to buffer features such as hedgerows. These hedges are being planted, restored and managed to enhance the landscape and to benefit wildlife

Our CSS finishes at the end of this September, we have every right to plough up ALL the headlands and barricade access points to deny entry to what would then be private property (We do not and never have had PRoW's on the farm).

A few decades ago the government paid farmers to rip out hedges and cultivate former grassland and wild meadows to increase food production so the the UK was self sufficient and could export grain- the current government prefers to import food and pays farmers to maintain the countryside
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What would you do as a farmer ? Turn down the money offered and sell your products to a rapidly reducing market for less than it cost to grow/produce ? UK farmers dance to a tune playing from Brussels, we ALL pay in to the EU funds, the UK gets far less back than it pays in
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The UK £ supports other poorer EU states - it's not fair but that's politics for you
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The public opinion of farmers is at an all time low, but it is based on out dated information and stereotypical "farmer giles" conceptions.
 
well we don't own our own farm sadly (nor would we pretend we do LOL)
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but I can see both sides of the coin liverying on my hubby's folks farm though, like when right to roam walkers opened the gates where his father had sectioned off the right ewe's to be served by the right tup's, apparentely this didn't matter you see, poor penned in sheep in their huge field..so they left all the gates opened, that year he had NO idea if son's had served mothers, fathers's daughters...so their take on walkers are a tad tainted these days!

They then had problems with the hunt doing the same, they didn't mind them crossing, said used to love seeing them in flow as well as knowing a fox or two might be rooted out, however when they decided to gallop through a field of ewe's with very young lambs, losing quite a few and some ewe's through stress they took their permission away and told them to shove it, don't blame them neither, it's their livelyhood after all to get the sheep producing well!

In the first instance with the walkers the annoying part for them was the footpath's NOT EVEN ON THEIR LAND!! but of course their 'right to roam where they please' BS decided they have the right to go through fields they have zero right to be, mother even had walkers looking into their garden at the house, this was a good mile away from the footpath because 'they thought it went up here' - errr no, you had to force through a hedge to walk up here dears, I know the footpath's...now p*ss off!

My friend owns her own land, properly, as in she's not renting it and saying owns it as it's ultimately the land OWNER that has the ability to give permission, even if you rent it! LOL and has some real tales to tell about it....
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it's one's like that who sadly spoil it for the one's who wouldn't treat it like they own it, mind it doesn't bother me, with over 20 acres to ride on who needs to tackle roads.....LOL
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We rent our farm (although we own some grazing land as well but it is too far away from where we now live to use it, hence considering our options once the credit crunch is over) and I know without a doubt that the farmer would refer any enquiries about using our fields for other horses to hack round to us. He would never give permission like that, land owner or not. He even asks us if it is ok for him to go in our fields for tractor access to his own property, as he doesn't want to scare the horses.
 
I've worked for the RPA, what a shambles. Because of their red tape, our 20 acres of grazing has to be put to a different crop at least once in 5 years, so this winter we won't have that grazing to play with.
 
yep, no doubts because he won't want suing if they flidded at the tractor and cut a leg or the likes, farmers are highly aware nowadays of liability! LOL ah that's a shame, to own land and not be able to use it definately
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now the question is, would you give permission for riders to hack about your fields, because I've found many horse owners when faced with theory say oh yes course I would, but when faced with actually being asked strop like you wouldn't believe on how it's not being allowed and their horses might get upset - that's another addition to the unable to use fields too, farmers say yes, folks who rent it say bog off! LOL
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Strange on the RPA, ed's folks have sheep, that's it - always have done, the fields aren't rotated for crops or owt...yet they still get paid from the RPA, have done for eon's (been at the farm 22 years), weird, unless differant set up's for arable compared to livestock mind
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It is a bit of a shame that we are a little too far away to keep the horses there. But it will be a safe place to park the trailer when we go hacking, now we have transport again. It's only about an hours drive and the hacking round there is fab, so no need to ask any farmers permission. There's endless forestry and moors.

I don't think I was clear on the rotation thing. The 20 acres isn't our proper grazing. It's part of a wheat field set aside as grass. We can use this area from the time the grass is cut and the hay baled (so about this time of year) until whenever they want to get it fertilised. We didn't actually need to do that last winter but we have in previous years. It has to go back to wheat fully for one year and then it can go back to grass. I don't know what they plan to do as they are going to be having 6,000 free range turkeys on it in a week or so until xmas, so it will be quite late for ploughing it and sowing wheat, so we will see.

Yes, I would let people use the edge of our field as a way of linking other fields together, as long as they were respectful and didn't upset our horses. I am thinking of trying to get a network of fields together for local riders to use on a toll basis as we could go for miles if we could get agreements in place.
 
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