Anyone else watching agricultural land prices?

lostinrates

fc123 wrote: »

LIR; Sorry to be nosy...but whose land do you work on at the mo? Family?

''When I am 50......'' this land business etc is deffo going into a possible plan...or a Bsc in Nurtition (always one to spot a gap in the market) but don't think the govt will have any ££££ left to pay me gigantic hourly rates to work on their ''Lets all solve obesity together'' programmes/schemes.

I'm up to speed on essential economic theory now (current hobby)...time for a new one. Agri land management/ how to run a small holding etc.

Thanks for the inspiration

Work as in the manual sense, not paid! But I'm renting some land in the village. It work well for me while I'm here: no more livery for the dobbin, have gained another one, and the land is good land, though not much of it. Before I was ill (during which time my family sold- it looked unlikely I'd be horsing again) it was family land, and sometimes some rented. never had to deal with more than 80 acres. But the thing with animals and grass is, there is NEVER the right amount, always too much or too little, especially horses. Not nosey at all..:)

louby_lou

just going back to the journalist lady who wanted a clone of herself as a baby - id rather my little ones look like my OH - hes dark and attractive, im pale and mousy! i wouldnt wish my intolerance to UV light on them!

Mary_Hartnell

I wonder how much time and effort is wasted by the local authority trying to keep peasants tied to the land?

Anyway getting back to the land market, is this the definitive publication:

http://www.isubscribe.co.uk/title_info.cfm?prodID=1995

I used to read it in the City of London business library, but it seem to be a bit rich even for that authority now.

Anyone know a library with a copy?


Turning to a wild wood dreamer:
I disagree. land does not need to be managed at all. Who manages natural woodland? Mother nature only.

It may need managing to keep it in the unnatural state farmers or whoever have made it. Any untended land in this country will naturally revert to woodland over time. Sounds like a good thing to me!

The weeds start to heal the soil and provide whatever nutrients are missing and gradually the land is healed and woodland is established.

Not in your lifetime! Never mind the fly tipped old tyres and squatting travellers, this is the reality:
Brambles, scrub and that Roman import rabbits is what you will get.
Your neighbours will complain about the ragwort and the rabbits and you might even get Japanese knot weed, turning your land into valueless toxic waste.

On a "sustainable" basis, this country could provide a million tons a year of fire wood from its neglected coppice woodland.
Perhaps rates on agricultural land will be one of the ways our government will try to raise taxes to pay off all these borrowings.
Taxing land does not push up prices, it simply pushes down land prices and it is a very difficult tax to dodge.
Wealth stored in land, is like wealth stored in gold, unless it is released it is not being put to use expanding the economy, and creating jobs..

rozeepozee

Very interesting thread. We have a dream.... of being semi-self sufficient but are also city dwellers at the mo so not sure if we're just deluded. We are looking at Wales, near Aberystwyth (see, still feel we need to be near urbanity). It's been useful to read about the vague applications of the agri-ties as we were thinking about a few acres and selling any excess produce. Didn't realise you'd have five years grace to establish a business.

Oh, and which parts of untrendy Cornwall are cheaper please?

dopester

ixwood wrote: »

I disagree. land does not need to be managed at all. Who manages natural woodland? Mother nature only.

I'm not sure. Only last night I was looking in to it, without having read this thread, and found a great answer on Yahoo Answers.

Important advice and information follows; if you are in the UK trees and woods need to be managed. You can not just buy a bit of woodland and leave it in the UK, because if you do it will slowly die out. It has to be managed. Similarly, you can not just do what you want with that woodland, there are strict rules and legislation (see links).

Traditionally since circa 1066 UK woods have been coppiced. This is a sustainable way of removing useful timber without losing the actual tree and preventing the tree getting so old that it dies, as is happening in Sherwood Forest.

Ash trees are a perfect example of this. An uncoppiced Ash Tree would be lucky to reach eighty years as it is extremely susceptible to fungal attack. When coppiced some of the more famous examples can be 900 years old.

more.. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081115154939AA22nVq

Davesnave

rozeepozee wrote: »

Very interesting thread. We have a dream.... of being semi-self sufficient but are also city dwellers at the mo so not sure if we're just deluded. We are looking at Wales, near Aberystwyth (see, still feel we need to be near urbanity). It's been useful to read about the vague applications of the agri-ties as we were thinking about a few acres and selling any excess produce. Didn't realise you'd have five years grace to establish a business.

Oh, and which parts of untrendy Cornwall are cheaper please?

Areas just south of Aber are relatively cheap, but also sparsely populated and mostly quite elevated. Close to the coast, there's flatter, early cropping land, but there it's harder to find woodland with your smallholding. IMHO West Wales is set for price reductions next year, as many there have just sat on their hands in 2008 rather than reduce prices significantly. Smallholdings there can take ages to sell though. I know of some that have been on the market for around 3 years!

The areas of Cornwall which seem more reasonable are those around inland towns like Launceston or less 'pretty,' formerly more industrialised towns, like St Austell and Redruth.

fc123

dopester wrote: »

I'm not sure. Only last night I was looking in to it, without having read this thread, and found a great answer on Yahoo Answers.



more.. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081115154939AA22nVq

Really? Why?...oh go on tell.....Are we all going for small holding dreams here??

Obviously, I can't join in the dreaming as OH doesn't want to *stamps his foot*...

rozeepozee

Davesnave wrote: »

Areas just south of Aber are relatively cheap, but also sparsely populated and mostly quite elevated. Close to the coast, there's flatter, early cropping land, but there it's harder to find woodland with your smallholding. IMHO West Wales is set for price reductions next year, as many there have just sat on their hands in 2008 rather than reduce prices significantly. Smallholdings there can take ages to sell though. I know of some that have been on the market for around 3 years!

The areas of Cornwall which seem more reasonable are those around inland towns like Launceston or less 'pretty,' formerly more industrialised towns, like St Austell and Redruth.

Yes, I've been looking at Rightmove's website within 10 miles of Aber for about 6 months now and price reductions have been mostly tiny but I've just begun to see a few biggies (£60K). I imagine that those sellers who really want to sell will have to have a serious think about their asking price in the new year.

As for Cornwall, it may be warmer and drier but we want to be reasonably near the coast. Will have a look though - thanks!

Davesnave

dopester wrote: »

I'm not sure. Only last night I was looking in to it, without having read this thread, and found a great answer on Yahoo Answers.

more.. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081115154939AA22nVq

Ah, it all makes sense now! I saw your avatar a few weeks ago on this site under 'eco village.'

http://www.lammas.org.uk/

Looks like an interesting project.

Edit: For anyone who's interested, there's a series of videos about sustainable living on this site, which also has a link from the Lammas site:

http://www.undercurrents.org/livinginthefutre/

dopester

fc123 wrote: »

Really? Why?...oh go on tell.....Are we all going for small holding dreams here??

Haha. Yes.. I'll admit to be charmed by the simplicity in which some people live, like some of the smaller cob homes, with a simple warming rocket-mass heater. Cob homes are warm in winter and cool in summer. There are many examples of really beautiful looking ones - for simple living.

Cob (the word comes from an Old English root, meaning "lump") is a mixture of non-toxic, recyclable, and often free materials. Building with cob requires no forms, no cement, and no machinery of any kind. Builders sculpt their structures by hand.

It is estimated that 30% of the world's population live in earthen homes. Quite a few cob homes in England are over 500 years old.

Making buildings with dirt is an idea that's been around almost as long as man has been on earth. We've all done it -as kids most of us built little things with mud. Cob building, a tradition from Cumbria and Southwest England, is like that, but on a bigger scale. It was used for centuries, dying out in the 1800s until interest in sustainable housing sparked a revival.

Cob is excellent for load bearing, meaning you can easily make a two-storey house, and it has very good insulation for both heat and noise. During the day it absorbs heat outside, so it's cool inside, but at night radiates that heat into the interior.

There is an old Devon saying that "All cob needs is a good hat and a good pair of boots". A stone plinth usually provides the boots and the hat was traditionally thatch.

You can build a warm habitable earthship cob home for as little as £500 to £4000.. such as this YouTube one, or many others...



http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

Alternatively more traditional looking cob houses. Kevin McCabe who has worked on building cob homes, and repairing very old ones which have been incorrectly repaired (cement type renders don't allow cob to breathe.. has to be lime based render or similar), estimates more traditional looking cob houses can be built for £20,000



http://www.findaproperty.com/displaystory.aspx?edid=00&salerent=0&storyid=9587

Trouble is you still need planning permission and everything - for all that I'd like to disappear off-grid sometimes... I reckon I could build a simple cob home from all the research I've done in to it.