I met with the Chairman of the Tenant Farmers Association to better understand the particular needs of Tenant Farmers, an important part of our farming industry.
Tenanted farmers are those that rent rather than own the land they farm. The tenanted sector is reponaible for farming at leasta third of agricultural land in England and Wales with higher proportions in livestock and dairy. The benefit of being a tenanted famer is that you require less financial capital to either set up or expand a farm.
The downside of this is that as a tenant farmer you do not have ownership of the land but only rent it. If the lease you have is only for short duration (on average they appear to be 4-6 years) this makes it difficult to have long term security over your farming bsuiness. In turn, this makes it hard to invest large amounts in equipment that will last a long time, or in soil development that is positive for yields and the environment, but takes years to come to fruition.
Part of the long-term, sustainable solution to this may be to reform the taxation system to incentivise landlords to prefer long term tenancies.