Autumn Leaves. Photo: Colin Wootton
Richard Fonge writes:
We are having some lovely autumn weather. One of the many privileges of living in our country and in particular in the countryside is the changing of the seasons to appreciate. Autumn is a special season with the colouring of the leaves and its early morning mists. It is also the start of the farming year. Farms are sold and tenancies change hands mostly at Michaelmas (Sept 29th). Why is this so?. Harvest is over and next year’s crops are being planted, rams are put into the ewe flocks for spring lambing, cattle are brought in from the fields in October for the winter. So from a practical aspect an obvious starting point. When a farm changes hands the outgoing farmer usually has a sale, which includes everything from scrap metal, small tools, to machinery and livestock. Whilst these can be great social occasions for the local farming community to catch up on what is going on in the locality, to buy and support the outgoing farmer, they can be very sad times for those directly involved. I speak from the experience of two such sales, firstly at my Father’s retirement, and then my own.
Agriculture tenancies have changed and there is a greater security of tenure today, but this wasn’t so before the 1948 Agriculture Act. This was a comprehensive act of parliament which brought in financial support to the farmer through guaranteed payments or subsidies, with other payments to encourage more home grown production of food whilst keeping the cost of food down. World War 2 had brought home the realisation that we shouldn’t be dependant as an island on imports.
The act also gave tenant farmers greater security, with landowners having to go before a tribunal with good reason to end a tenancy Non payment of rent or bad farming had to be proved. Up to then a tenant could be given as little as six months notice to quit, as happened to my parents, when their landlord decided to give his newly married daughter the farm. The upside of that was we moved to Stuchbury Manor Farm, Sulgrave, where I had a wonderful upbringing in a special place and a lasting love for the area.
Richard Fonge.