Prince’s Countryside Fund convenes Summit to address ‘perfect storm’ facing UK farm businesses

The Prince of Wales, Patron, The Prince's Countryside Fund, will attend a farming crisis summit on Friday 23rd October 2015 convened by the charity at Derbyshire.

HRH The Prince of Wales remains extremely concerned about the state of British farming and the vulnerability of smaller farms in particular. His Royal Highness has asked The Prince’s Countryside Fund to convene a meeting of key figures at Chatsworth to discuss the current issues affecting farm businesses, in order to explore the immediate actions and commitments that are needed to avert a major crisis befalling our farming sector over the winter.

Lord Curry of Kirkharle will chair the summit with an overview of the ‘perfect storm’ which looks set to hit British farmers. This comes following a year of low farmgate prices, increased administrative burden, complexity of access to funding streams and erratic weather which leaves many businesses vulnerable and on the brink of collapse. This is potentially the worst crisis to hit British farming in a decade.

Attendees of the meeting will include representatives of the farming help charities (Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, Farming Community Network, Royal Scottish Agricultural Benevolent Institution and Addington Fund) and organisations that have been supported by the Fund including FarmCornwall CiC, Foundation for Common Land and Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Service as well as representatives from the major UK banks, landowners and key agricultural stakeholders