Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, has met local farmers and landowners to hear about challenges and opportunities they are currently facing, and to discuss legislation on agriculture and the environment and the changes this will bring about.
Richard met Willy Browne-Swinburne, Chairman of the North East Country Land and Business Association (CLA) at Bradley Burn Farm in Wolsingham. The CLA represents farmers and landowners across the UK. Bradley Burn Farm is a mixed arable and beef farm and belongs to CLA members Chris and Jill Stephenson. The farm also has a solar generation scheme, two biomass boilers, a caravan park, self-catering holiday cottages and a farm shop and a café and the farm directly employs 18 people.
Richard was introduced to the business and given a short tour of some of the facilities. He then had a roundtable discussion to talk about the five themes of CLA’s Rural Powerhouse campaign which includes pushing for greater investment in skills and innovation and better connectivity for farmers. They also discussed the Agriculture Bill, the Environment Bill, trade, labour and rural crime.
Chris Stephenson commented “It isn’t just about how the new system will work but also how we transition to a new way of working. With our café, farm-shop, caravan and accommodation business alongside our farming enterprise we have, over the years taken business decisions to ensure we are able to continue to provide food with a high welfare and environmental standard and it is important that these new policies enable us to continue."
Richard stated "It was good to hear first-hand about the challenges and opportunities facing farmers and landowners; the environment is at the forefront of policy makers’ minds at the moment. It is useful to hear about the fantastic work that is already being delivered by farmers and landowners and to understand what more can be done with the correct policy framework to protect the environment at the same time as maintaining and improving productivity."
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