Devon knows I'm Miserable Now .....

It’s sobering to realise that some of the normal essentials in my life, effectively make me a terrorist suspect.  Stripped of these essentials, immediately stops me being a liability (at least in this strict context).

And so it was, after discarding my beloved pocket knife, my 200 ml can of shaving foam and, most worryingly, my 200 ml can of deodorant at Edinburgh Airport security, I was eventually allowed on the plane to Exeter.

There was a seminar on the “Missing Rung of the Farming Ladder” in Cornwall. Its a long way to go.  Seminars usually disappoint.  As a return on investment, if judged on a knowledge profit per £ spent - it was going to be a risk.  Yet I managed this risk by obtaining an assurance that my hosts, Nevil and Rona Amiss - first generation farmers and all things poultry - would teach me the ways of the bird the following day.

“The missing rung” referred to tenancies for progressing farming businesses. It was a revelation in some respects. As a Scotsman, I didn’t appreciate that the English system of Council tenancies were such a vital tool for first generation farmers.  I asked my obligatory embarrassing question by saying in my introduction that I was from Scotland and that we normally think we are better than the English at most things but that I was really impressed  with the Council farms setup.  No one laughed: if we were in a pub, they’d have switched off the juke box, stopped talking and just stared.

Their problem is the move from smaller Council tenancies to larger farms on private estates.  The Cornwall Council Land Agent’s mission was to get rid of his best tenants! In other words, to ensure they started but then progressed and finished on larger farms.  His aim was principally to facilitate new entrants up the first few rungs in farming - 50 acres up to 200 acres.  Using my calculator, I suspect that Council Farms are perhaps a light drizzle in the ocean. Yet they are at least that compared to the still waters of Scotland.

The log jam were the private estates and the lack of incentive, will and parallel philosophy to let land. Some said persuasion was the key .... I just can’t see it!  To expect business people to act on guilt or loosely held duty rather than financial incentive is asking too much of human nature. But propaganda may be our only weapon.  Changing the tax system, changing a culture, changing aspirations, changing rural housing legislation (so retiring tenants can move to somewhere as cheap) - I’m not holding my breath.

So revolution maybe the only way to go. This land is a common property for everyone to share. We need radical change.

Here I am - a small boy with a receeding hairline but without my 200 ml of deodorant.  Maybe I’ll have to terrorise the Treasury with only my natural smell as a weapon.