According to BBC News, the past year has been particularly difficult for farmers, “with the longest wet winter since records began, followed by the driest spring on record”.
The UK government’s decision to implement inheritance taxes on farms, and the abrupt halting of grants for sustainable farming practices also sparked protests from the farming community.
The report said non-farming services, ranging from falconry and helicopter rides to spas and solar farms, now formed a crucial part of farmers’ businesses in the UK.
Mike Churches, a sixth-generation farmer near Glastonbury in Somerset, told BBC News that the “atrocious” income from farming forced him to diversify his business.
He explained that he now earned substantially more money from weddings and events than from raising sheep and cattle.
“It’s about 30% from farming now, 70% from weddings, falconry, helicopter rides, [and] glamping, [amongst others],” Churches said.
Tom Collins, Wiltshire chairperson of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), added that these additional enterprises were essential to many farmers’ income.
“It’s no longer just a bolt-on, it’s a crucial part of the business,” he said.
BBC News reported that recent research carried out by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) indicated that about 26% of farming enterprises in that country derived more than half their income from these diversified enterprises.
Tom Collins, a farmer near Malmesbury, runs a “traditional mixed farm”, farming cattle and pigs, as well as wheat, barley, peas, and beans.
He told the BBC that his old Cotswold farm buildings had become too small for modern farming, and he therefore let them out to several small firms.
“Without diversification, we’d really be struggling. I don’t know a single farm business that isn’t diversified,” Collins said.
According to DEFRA’s research, about 71% of farmers now relied on some additional business, compared with 61% in 2015.
The report, which analysed farming incomes, found that letting out buildings was the most common additional business, followed by farm shops and B&Bs, as well as camping and glamping sites.
BBC News said a new, more controversial source of income was letting out fields to solar power companies.
According to the report, about 28% of respondents said that income from “actual farming was negative: in other words, they lost money growing food”.
Collins reiterated that these figures were only emerging because producing food was “such an unreliable business”.
“The finances aren’t good; the margins are wafer thin. It’s a lot of sawing for not much sawdust, as my grandfather used to say.”
However, a spokesperson for DEFRA told BBC News that the government was investing millions of pounds into farming.
