To just ask you all to either wear some proper wellies and walk on the footpath, or stick to the sodding pavements

[flamingflamingos]

This is my field. It's winter wheat - it's been ploughed and pressed and drilled and rolled and just as it's starting to grow into what will be harvested for flour to produce bread, the general public have trampled it into the ground.

I understand the need to get outside, absolutely I support this country's network of footpaths - we have 6km of footpaths on this farm which are maintained so that everyone can enjoy the countryside.

But this is taking the piss. If you don't want to walk in the mud, don't walk in the countryside in January. Please, stop this. We are all accountable for how we behave.

I just think some of the words used on here to describe people not from the countryside are very unfair. Cunts, selfish, entitled, arrogant.

If you are born and live in the city you have no idea about this stuff. It doesnt make you a twat it makes you uninformed. I am so sorry to hear about your crops but it just wouldnt occur to me that there would be crops there. I think better signposting is needed and it should be the council's responsibility to handle this.

YANBU @flamingflamingos, bloody hell, that’s carnage, one of the worst examples of creep I’ve seen 😧. You shouldn’t have to do anything, your FP is maintained, but I think it may be worth trying to educate these walkers as I suspect more fall into the ignorant camp than the don’t give a shit camp. Unfortunately “common sense” is a rarity, and many see fields in the same way as public parks; open green spaces they can play on rather than farmers’ work places/livestock’ homes. If you can appeal to their better natures you might be able to see change god, I'm clearly in a tolerant mood today

Could you post that photo on all the local FB groups, informing people about rights of way, the countryside code, etc.? Remind people that by widening the footpath and encroaching into the field it’s destroying the crop used for XYZ purpose. Get people seeing that green space as an active workplace rather than “just” a field of “something that looks like grass so doesn’t matter”? Maybe some cleap, home printed, laminated signs? So annoying though and you shouldn't have to 😟

I’m a keen walker and advocate for healthy living/getting outside, but also hugely sympathetic to landowners, and have been considering writing an educational post about responsible FP use on social media myself. Seriously, if I was in your area I’d bloody well help you.

This is happening where we are too - could you put up electric fences?

[quote flamingflamingos]@Christinaismyperson this land does 3.5tonnes per acre and all told I'll lose about an acre in this field from trespass. Winter wheat spot price is £200/tonne so that's £700 list on this field. Because people either don't want to get muddy feet or can't stick to the footpath. [/quote]
You know what?
I think seeing how much money you are loosing, I would put a fence up. Once that will give a very narrow path for people to walk on. Just fulfilling your legal requirements.
And I wouod add a sign at the start. Be aware, muddy path!

And then leave them struggle with trainers they don’t to get muddy.
Afterall, it’s only normal that you want to protect your income and your business. If people can’t respect that, then they see their abilities to ‘roam the countryside’ reduced...

We have often been walking with our maps and have found that public footpaths have been ploughed and you can't tell where the footpath should be

Scottish land system is very different. Uk relies on network of paths and about 1/4 are missing . Barbed wire across rights of way paths is not uncommon.

[quote flamingflamingos]@Christinaismyperson this land does 3.5tonnes per acre and all told I'll lose about an acre in this field from trespass. Winter wheat spot price is £200/tonne so that's £700 list on this field. Because people either don't want to get muddy feet or can't stick to the footpath. [/quote]
But where IS the footpath @flamingflamingos?

Your photo is very much like a field near me.
The footpath near me runs down the side of the hedge . What's happened near us is that so many people are walking and social distancing that they have over-stepped the footpath and encroached onto the field.

@CrotchBurn

I just think some of the words used on here to describe people not from the countryside are very unfair. Cunts, selfish, entitled, arrogant.

If you are born and live in the city you have no idea about this stuff. It doesnt make you a twat it makes you uninformed. I am so sorry to hear about your crops but it just wouldnt occur to me that there would be crops there. I think better signposting is needed and it should be the council's responsibility to handle this.

I’m sorry but if you have no idea about this stuff as you say you 1- start learning 2- assume that you dint know and therefore you are extra careful.

However, seeing that all that has happened in lockdown, I’d say that they are all locals and should all know better. It’s not as if all those walkers had all come from London and had never see a field or a sheep before.

If you can't tell, keep to the very edge of the field and walk around. It's usually only a temporary problem

Also, even if you dint know there is a crop, surely you can see that this is damaging the land? Surely you can see that the solid has been prepared?
So surely you can think that actually having the soul in this condition is important to the farmer. Otherwise, why would they bother to do that?

Not all townies are stupid and disrespectful.

@midgebabe

If you can't tell, keep to the very edge of the field and walk around. It's usually only a temporary problem

They often run through the middle of fields and it's not a temporary problem.

I am so sorry to hear about your crops but it just wouldnt occur to me that there would be crops there [Really?] I think better signposting is needed and it should be the council's responsibility to handle this.

@CrotchBurn So, even as a townie, you have never ever heard of or read the Countryside Code?

That's your own lack of education talking and it's not the council's job to educate you.

Farmers fields usually contain crops or animals.
That green stuff poking through the soil- which one might it be?

If it wouldn't occur to you that a farmer would plant crops in a field, you should stick to the Asda car park @CrotchBurn.

There is no excuse for ignorance.

As ever instructions that people should learn and take more care fail to recognise that people can't learn what they don't know they don't know .

You should not be walking in the countryside unless you live there or have walked there. Daily exercise should begin and end at the front door. The UK government and the devolved administrations should change the Covid 19 restrictions accordingly, and if you drive to a beauty spot or other parts of the countryside for your daily exercise, it should be points on your licence, not a small fine.

I have sympathy with the OPs opinion.

Incorrect

You can drive a short distance to access open countryside especially if that is safer for example safer than walking narrow busy street

@peak2021

You should not be walking in the countryside unless you live there or have walked there. Daily exercise should begin and end at the front door. The UK government and the devolved administrations should change the Covid 19 restrictions accordingly, and if you drive to a beauty spot or other parts of the countryside for your daily exercise, it should be points on your licence, not a small fine.

I have sympathy with the OPs opinion.

We do go from our front door even though there is nothing in the English regulations that says this

Not in Wales - start and finish exercise from your own door. No driving to start that exercise.

We are not all in Wales

it just wouldnt occur to me that there would be crops there

Seriously? What do you think grows in fields and where do you think your food comes from?

I'm a townie through and through and I can't recall ever studying the countryside code (maybe at school in geography?) but it's pretty much common sense!

@Plussizejumpsuit

I'm actually laughing at the pp's getting all protective over their special knowledge of the countryside. The countryside is shit you're welcome to it.

I am massively anti private land ownership. This isn't the same as thinking we shouldn't grow food. Most farmers despite what they claim are just rich land owners. So stop pretending its about food loss wjen it's clear from pp's about our countryside you just don't want peasants on your land. Ffs

They did an interesting experiment along these lines in the Ukraine in the 1930s. There were a few million or so deaths and deportations, but whatever.

But Mumsnet is full of people who cannot possibly exercise from their front door! I'd love to know where all these 'crowded streets' with 'hundreds of people' are.

@Redrivershore - your post cross posted with mine. I am not saying you are in Wales - it was to clarify a post from an earlier poster.

It seems this is a problem up and down the country. I live in a village with a national trust type, country house estate. The village is ram packed every weekend with people parking across drives, destroying verges, blocking narrow roads. The police were called as the crowds outside the village pub was pretty sizeable. This winter, I haven’t been able to run because all the footpaths and bridle ways look like this, even with wellies you’ll be ankle deep in muddy soup in lots of places. Land that is usually used for grazing is just a sea of mud.