A family have spoken of their heartbreak when they were forced to quit the Eden Valley farm where they were trying to build their dream business.
Andrew and Diane Williams had to sell their pedigree dairy herd — built up over half a century — for much less than they knew it to be worth after receiving notice to quit the farm from their landlord.
Other tenant farmers in the Eden area have suffered similar anguish in recent months and many more fear the same could happen to them as big landowners seek to reduce their tax liabilities and take advantage of new environmental schemes.
Diane explained that she and Andrew moved to the Eden area in 2013 to take up a 10-year farm business tenancy but were hoping this would be extended or that they could become tenants on a larger farm.
In 2022, however, they received notice to leave the farm and were unable to find another one to move to before the deadline last year — nor were they given any period of grace in which to find a private buyer for their pedigree Holstein herd, which by then numbered around 140 milkers.
Instead, they were forced to sell the cattle by public auction at a time when the market was going through a slump and so received far less money than they were potentially worth.
The couple, together with their two children, had to move out of Cumbria to an area where, at the last minute, Andrew had got a job milking someone else’s cattle.
“We thought we would be farming in the Eden area forever, so we were gutted when we had to leave,” said Diane. “The whole experience was heartbreaking — our dream was to build up a strong farming business, but we had nowhere to go.”
She added: “Andrew is now working for somebody else and it’s been difficult for me to have a job on a farm while supporting the children through this massive upheaval.”
Meanwhile, the Tenant Farmers’ Association (TFA) is calling for constructive talks between other Eden-based tenant farmers and big estates which are seeking to take land back into their own control to minimise inheritance tax payments.
Trustees of estates have served notices on many tenants, with the aim of increasing the amount of trading activity the estates themselves undertake, in order to meet the threshold established by a legal judgment made in 2010 and known as the Balfour case. This puts them in a more favourable tax position.
George Dunn, chief executive of the Tenant Farmers’ Association, said the trustees of two major Cumbrian estates did not consult or communicate with any of their tenants about how the Balfour case threshold could best be met.
Instead, they decided to serve notices to quit on those who had grazing licences or tenancy agreements nearing their end, when “otherwise they would have expected agreements to have been renewed”.
Mr Dunn said the trustees’ actions “sent shockwaves” through the tenant farmers across the two estates, adding that about 120 tenant farmers could be affected.
The Herald has approached several major local estates for comment, but none have so far responded.
