A farmer’s view: Our 10-year tenancy is good for family and business
©Simon Dack Following the Tenant Farmers Association’s call for longer farm business tenancies, Camilla Puzey shares her thoughts. She farms on a 10-year tenancy with her husband Roly in Sussex.
We often get asked: “When did you both start farming?”
I always have to weigh up which answer to give. Do I recount my earliest memory of standing in a gap in the hedge, making that key decision of when to race ahead of the sheep to make it to the next gap before they did?
Or should I recount the more recent version – when my husband Roly and I were given the opportunity to enter into a share farming agreement in 2009 at the Earth Trust farm in Oxfordshire?
Neither of us had the chance to take on a family farm, so we had to look elsewhere.
Now a couple of years into a 10-year farm business tenancy (FBT) in Sussex, there is no doubt that this longer tenancy has been a godsend for our family, our business and the health of Saddlescombe Farm.
Getting on the farming ladder
To get on the farming ladder we wrote to local landowners asking for land to rent, we placed an advert in Farmers Weekly and in the end we responded to an advert by the conservation charity the Earth Trust.
They were offering a share farming opportunity to run a sheep flock as part of their new entrants’ scheme. We were unsuccessful, but apparently came second. The opportunity was offered to a neighbouring farmer, less risk perhaps?
Having talked ourselves out of the idea, we received a phone call six months later asking if we were still interested, as it hadn’t worked out with the neighbouring farmer.
Three months later we were finally on the farming ladder.
We were offered an annual grazing agreement on 260 acres and a five-year FBT on some farm buildings with the aim of providing some security.
We bought a sheep flock and over the following four years built up our business, adding value to the sheep by any angle we could.
We sold all of the lamb directly through farmers’ markets, from the farmgate, internet orders, local pubs and by cooking lamb burgers at local events.
Our sheep work did not end there though – we set up our “shepherd for the day” experience, held open lambing weekends with our landlord and generally worked our little socks off to generate an income.
Over those four years very little changed on the grassland our sheep occupied. Our business was growing and being nurtured, but the grassland wasn’t.
The chance of a longer tenancy
Then in the autumn of 2012 we saw another advertisement in Farmers Weekly for Saddlescombe Farm in West Sussex, owned by the National Trust which was offering a 10-year tenancy.
For the second time we were plunged into living and breathing a farm we essentially knew nothing about other than from a viewing day on the bleakest, coldest day at the end of November.
I remember lots of things about that day, looking around and desperately trying to picture us making our life and home there while being told the buildings were wholly unsuitable for modern livestock farming. aI was also enjoying them wondering “now is she heavily pregnant, or wearing a lot of layers?”
I was eight months pregnant. Four months later, after writing business plans, getting figures together, various interviews, not to mention lots of snow, Christmas, lambing, and having a baby, we were offered the tenancy here at Saddlescombe.
A 10-year FBT is good for family and business
The security of the 10-year tenancy has given us the confidence to expand the sheep flock, establish a suckler herd, invest in farm machinery and infrastructure, erect and repair fences, reseed and improve grassland, improve soil structure, lay hedges, clear scrub, and build strong links with the local non-farming community.
We have been investing in our business for the long term, and treating the farm as if it were our own. Surely this must be what every landlord would want for their asset?
We are fully supportive of the Tenant Farmers Association campaign for tax breaks for landlords offering a minimum 10-year tenancy.
However, let’s not forget the landlord that is prepared to take the risk in a new entrant with a sound business plan, but no track record – even if they did only offer an annual tenancy.
Shouldn’t there be an incentive for their investment in future farmers too?
