Trust boss pledges to fight for farming
19 December 2000
Trust boss pledges to fight for farming
By FWi staff
THE new director general of the National Trust will strive to make farming and conservation more profitable, reports The Daily Telegraph.
Fiona Reynolds, 42, who takes over the 100,000 job in the New Year is familiar with country issues.
She was once director of the Council of National Parks and of the Council for the Protection of Rural England.
She said: If there was a challenge today that matched the challenge of saving the country houses in the 1950s, it is that agriculture has collapsed.
There has been a collapse of confidence and the Government and others were struggling to find solutions, she said.
Ms Reynolds said the trust was a serious force in the countryside by virtue of landholdings in the and would be able to show it had solutions.
She said the trust was already working as an investment agency, spending money where other investors would not go.
Beneficiaries included farmers converting to organic production or keeping village shops and post offices open.
She said the trust would strive to ensure profitability for tenants without damaging wetlands and meadows.
This could involve marketing produce, added value and whole farm planning, she told The Telegraph.
The National Trust, the countrys largest landowner with 600,000 acres, has 700 tenants.
- National Trust helps tenants, FWi, 23 April 1999
- TFA urges large landowners to cut rents, FWi, 12 March 1999
- The Daily Telegraph 19 December 2000 page 6
- The Independent 19 December 2000 papge 12