A friend who used to farm a few miles from me in Norfolk got so fed up with regulations that he let his farm on a FBT and moved to France. These days he lives near Piotiers and runs a successful boarding kennels and cattery.
From what he says he's doing OK and he and his family are loving living in a country that seems to manage perfectly well with a lot less red tape. For the record, he told me that while he was still entitled to receive an SFP on the land he still owns in Norfolk, he hasn't had last years installment yet. Like a lot of us resident in the UK he has had endless trouble over maps and there are still complications over his request to have his entitlement paid in Euro's.
What he really rang to tell me the other evening, however, was about a sight he had seen out of his kitchen window. The neighbouring farmer had decided to spray his spring barley with herbicide. His tractor had no cab, safety or otherwise, and it pulled a trailed sprayer. The trouble was he couldn't reach the levers to control the sprayer from the tractor seat. So he had asked another many to ride on the draw bar of the sprayer in order to turn it off and on after each bout.
The tractor driver was in a T shirt and jeans; the chap balancing on the back wore shorts. There was no sign of any protective clothing. The operation, which clearly broke virtually every rule in the book, lasted for at least half an hour in full view of the village and a main road, but nobody bothered. Indeed such sights are commonplace around the area according to my Norfolk friend, who despite his horror of regulations, did not advocate that way of working.
He was just keen to let me know how relaxed such things are in France where nobody interferes, believing such practices are only the business of those involved.