To wonder why agricultural land is worth so much?

Stately homes were built to impress other people, by their very nature they were there as a form of entertainment for visitors, whether it was a travelling monarch, extended family, or local and visiting dignitaries/businesses. They often have enough private space for a family to live in away from the visitors.

Farms are not set up for visitors, they are places of work and frequently dangerous.

So what’s your point?

Nit picking on numbers?

Essentially the problem is still there.

We are not at 100% and given that U.K. and France are discussing putting our troops on the ground in Ukraine to fight if Trump withdraws from the war, I’d say that we should begin to prioritise core requirements such as enough food. The world appears to be getting ever more hostile. Sadly.

What about when Derek the tenant farmer dies, 50% of farmers are tenant farmers, so let’s include him

A Jonny
Jonny is a "rich" farmer- he owns land is worth a lot and valuable other assets. Tractors, combine, animals, barns, other equipment is valuable.

B Sid
Sid owns, a nice house, a few cars, perhaps other expensive things a stamp collection etc).

Jonny and Sid both die and their children inherit but are both subject to inheritance tax. Sid's children keep a few bits they want, they sell off the rest. Make a pretty penny, pay the inheritance tax and keep the rest of the money.

Jonny's children however can't really do that, because the farm is a whole, the assets, yes are worth a lot, maybe more that Sid's stuff, but if John's children are to keep farming - what can they sell to pay the inheritance tax?

• Sell the equipment - they can't work the fields, so the farm fails
• Sell the barns - all their crops rot before they go to market, or all the animal feed rots and the animals starve to death. The farm fails.
• Sell their animals - there's nothing to milk, collect eggs from, sheer to sell wool, slaughter to give them meat to sell.

Bear in mind that most farmers will be making quite a lot, but their own wage won't be much. Most of their money, by far, will go into farm up keep - new seeds, vets bills, feed bills, equipment repair and replacement etc. When they die, none of that money will be clawed back.

I did give the correct figures in the post you quoted

I didn't at any point state we were 100% food secure

And just how many people would pay, and how much per visit, to go to an arable farm? All you can see there is yards full of modern machinery and barns full of produce (and e.g. grain isn't THAT interesting to look at). And some muddy fields that may or may not have a load of the same green plant growing in it.

Livestock farms aren't much more interesting. Yes you have "cute" animals but to be honest cows up close seem much less cute when you see the sheer size of them, calves and lambs are only usually born in the spring. They tend to be covered in mud & poo, which even if you hosed everywhere down every day will accumulate within a few hours. There are thousands of farms of varying sizes, types, upkeep standards, "picturesque-ness", and most smaller farmers can't spend the time being on call to show people around if they do happen to choose that farm to turn up at. And you can't leave visitors just wandering around, farms can be VERY dangerous places.

Whereas a big stately home like Chatsworth has the house with all the glorious architecture and antiques in it, and rolling acres of attractive pleasure parkland and gardens. They were designed right from the start to be beautiful filled with even more beautiful things and surrounded by beautiful countryside.

Care to provide the ‘true’ figures?

We aren’t 100% food secure. Please do provide proof that we are and I shall eat my hat. Wait a minute… actually I won’t need to…

Horsieculture, where I live in a very fertile valley in North Somerset a lot is now owned by horse owners. They are prepared to buy land by paying well over the odd. About 20 years ago I had a business idea and needed about 5 acres of land. It should have sold at about £4000 per acre. Several plots came up at one time so there was an adequate supply which is unusual. The cheapest sold at £10,000 per acre. There was no way I could have made money with my plans within 5 years of the outlay.

I look at those fields now and most are really well managed with people knowing what they are doing...but some are dreadfully managed and the owners are having to feed their animals almost all year round.

I'm clearly not referring to his vacuums here.

the figures are not correct, and you ask would someone be happy eating 30% less. Is that to distract from the figures being incorrect?

Farms need to do something similar to what stately homes did

Open their doors and run it as a tourist attraction

Seems to be working for Chatsworth

What kind of a question is this??

Ever heard of the landed gentry?

My life

Farmers don’t think with a hive mind. I will repeat that farmers voted for Brexit in the same proportion as the rest of the country.

Yes. But both Dyson and Clarkson bought land to shelter money.

Clarkson does farm but of course employs people. He publicised farmings woes but he’s odious. Farmers don’t always have the best judgement! Some voted for Brexit!

Land might get developers taking an option on it - hedging it will get included in a development plan. Any farmer sitting on £millions of development land worth squillions takes it! Anyone would!

Very few inventors create something genuinely new. The vast majority of inventions are incremental improvements on things done or created by others before them. Dyson is the one who actually thought of it - everyone else didn’t- that’s how successful people become successful. It’s easy to look back in hindsight and say something was obvious or easy, but no one else actually thought or did it! Some people have vision, most don’t.

Another reason land prices are high is due to big businesses (building warehouses for distribution etc and also houses) buying agricultural land to offset their carbon emissions and this is only going to get worse!

All land that’s useable is very valuable.

Take a look at any new build estate and do the maths. One big field ends up as 300 houses with an average selling point of £450,000. That’s house value of £35,000,000 - obviously it costs a lot to build the houses, but it’s extremely profitable.

likewise try and buy a small plot of buildable land anywhere. I’ve seen tiny plots of bare grass with planning permission here in South Wales for sale for £400,000.

Land that can’t be built on is of much less value- but that’s typically land that can’t be used for farming anything other than sheep or trees.

You haven’t taken any input costs into consideration!!!! Fertiliser, spray chemicals, diesel, wear and tear on the tractors and actual man hours to grow the crop in the first place!!!! Milling wheat is also the highest standard you can get - most wheat goes to feed! Farmers may also get a higher price for oil seed rape but the input costs are huge and it’s very hard to get a decent crop due to flea beetles eating it!
So for the average 50 hectare farm that sells £80k of wheat only £40k of that will be profit and a farmer has probably had to work on average 60 hours a week 52 weeks of the year to make that £40k!

A local farmer told me that his most valuable crop was campers. He had a secluded field for naturist campers too.

The bigger stink, is when it is sold for housing it is often land banked for years. So it's doing nothing. Not being farmed, not being used. What a waste.

@DanielaDressen says we need 100% food security - unless everyone on here has suddenly decided they don't mind reducing their plates by 30% at every meal - what they eat. Is that what you want?

Farms need to thrive, not to be contracting like the are. I agree it shouldn't be an IHT dodge but this feels like a very blunt tool that Labour have used to try and get a share of a pie they shouldn't be meddling with. We all need to eat don't we?!

As for solar panels, there are 1000s of car parks all over the country. They could easily be installed with solar panels. it's what a lot of countries are doing. It provides shade for the cars on hot days too.

https://ecoquotetoday.co.uk/blog/solar-car-parks

In France they've made it compulsory for car parks over 80 spaces to install solar panels.

France imports far less food than we do.

https://tradingeconomics.com/france/food-imports-percent-of-merchandise-imports-wb-data.html#:~:text=Food%20imports%20(%25%20of%20merchandise%20imports)%20in%20France%20was%20reported,compiled%20from%20officially%20recognized%20sources.

I'll be getting my European passport sorted before long. This country is badly run and has been for decades. So very very sad. It's hard to watch things decline but it's just one lot of bad leaders after another.

Totally agree with @PlopSofa , we as a country need to get more secure in our ability to produce our own/more food. Global warning, floods, Russia cutting off wheat from Ukraine……we should reduce our vulnerability to this.

We need to stop building on farming land, we need to stop allowing massive solar panel farms…….theyre applying to cover 7000 acres of a1 agricultural land near me with solar panels. We need to grow food on the fields and put solar panels on roofs or on motorway verges and central reservations.

The govt need to help farmers, not make things less sustainable. Ultimately as a country their ability to make a profit (or not) affects us all.

Try looking in to it properly, rather than with the eyes of the prejudiced. There's a few series on the TV that highlight farming - This Farming Life, Our Yorkshire Farm, Springtime/Summer/Winter on the farm. Though these are mostly based around larger farms, they often have info about struggling smaller farms on there.

There are plenty of stats out there that show quite a few farms are making a net loss year after year

A little googling can also show that much of the income of farms, well over 50% for smaller farms, comes from Direct Payments which are being reduced drastically year on year.

Caleb crying after the rape seed oil crop failed. https://www.devonlive.com/news/celebs-tv/jeremy-clarkson-comforts-kaleb-cooper-9270590.amp

he was also in tears towards the end of the series when he realised he wasn’t going to break even from all the hard work he put in.