Family farms are the backbone of agriculture and the rural community. In this special feature, chief reporter Rachael Brown meets one family who are doing all they can to save their farm from a solar panel development. A decision will be made on October 10
It has been a relentless ongoing campaign for Yorkshire tenant farmers Emma and Robert Sturdy, who face the risk of losing around half of their tenanted land to a solar farm development. And on October 10, they will finally find out if they have been successful in their efforts.
Tenant farmers
Robert and Emma live with their two children, Sebastian and Lizzie, at Eden Farm near Old Malton in North Yorkshire. Robert is the second generation of a three generation Agricultural Holdings Act (AHA) to farm across 113 hectares (280 acres).
Altogether, 52ha has been earmarked for solar panels. This is a combination of 45ha (110 acres) of their land, and 8ha (20 acres) of a neighbouring tenant farm, all of which is valuable farmland meant for food production.
The Sturdy family claim there has been little direct consultation about the solar proposal up to this point. And, of course, the idea of losing a lifetime’s work, half of their family business and security and investment in the farm over generations is, they say, ‘utterly devastating’ and something they cannot possibly comprehend.
Solar farm
Robert says: “My grandad started improving the land back in 1954. He came here and started investing and my father did the same, improving the drainage. I have carried it on.”
For Robert and Emma this is not about being against the development of solar farms. In fact, that could not be further from the truth – both recognise the importance and need for renewable energy. But they believe it should not be a free for all and the location of where solar development is put must be better thought through – not at the expense of valuable, scarce farmland which generates food for us all to eat.
Emma is frustrated by the lack of protection from AHA and believes the moral compass in disputes like this very quickly becomes absent.
Food production
She says: “Solar is totally unregulated in this country, but obviously a lot more profitable than the income you would receive from tenant farming. “The AHA is not strong enough to protect tenants from this sort of non-agricultural development. So, we find ourselves in a really desperate situation from many aspects.
“When Rob’s dad signed the AHA in 1971, the estate agreed to Rob’s father and to Rob and his offspring, to farm this land and we have kept to our side of the bargain, above and beyond. Rob is a good farmer, a good tenant, and the land is being improved constantly. He farms positively and as well as he can with the land and the restrictions that we have got.”
Financial and emotional cost
Inevitably the fear of the scale of the development, and the unrelenting campaigning over the last three years has not only come at a financial cost for the Sturdy family, but has had an undeniable toll on their family’s emotional well-being too.
Emma says: “There is no escape. We are out campaigning and then go home and sit and think, will everything be okay? It is everything. Everything is on hold right now. “It has quite honestly taken over our lives. We are completely different people to the people we were three years ago. [Campaigning] has become my full-time job.
“My kids are sick of hearing about solar farms. I stayed at home to be with my kids and to be in the moment, but this has taken that all away; three years of our lives, but we had no other choice.”