Dr Victoria Edwards, OBE

Farmers have been urged to become 'rural entrepreneurs' as a strategy for survival and growth in the 21st century.

The challenge was issued by Dr Victoria Edwards, OBE, keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants' Farming and Rural Business Group (FRBG) in Harrogate.

Dr Edwards, director of research in the School of Environmental Design at the University of Portsmouth, said the way forward for members of the UK's farming community was to turn themselves into 'resource managers'.

This would require help from chartered accountants to identify new objectives for their 'rural entrepreneur' clients, as they move away from their traditional roles and historical land usage.

In her presentation, entitled "The Challenge of a Changing Countryside", she said that farming needed to be in the vanguard of dynamic change, given current global and national developments, whether financial, physical or ethical.

As rural business advisers, chartered accountants could "help farmers see the bigger picture", said Dr Edwards, and take a view which was not simply focused on profit maximisation.

The FRBG's recent Annual Farm Profits Survey showed income from diversification had increased from around 19% in 2003 to over 51% in 2005, while the more profitable farms were those that developed alternative activities.

Dr Edwards added: "The survey also shows that the farming population is ageing, which in turn can bring a wisdom and a recognition that profit is not the only goal.

"Farmers must be helped to recognise the potential inherent in their assets and to identify their competitive edge in flexible and imaginative ways."

The economic aspects of farming were changing fast, she said. The market place has expanded to embrace a wide range of non-food commodities, such as commercial use of the land itself, woodland-based products or tourism initiatives.

A knowledgeable and concerned public is demanding not just to know whether its food is safe, but whether it has been produced in an ethical, sustainable manner, which increasingly includes support for local suppliers, added Dr Edwards.

The holistic appeal of the countryside to militate against stress and rising obesity offered farmers the opportunity to develop their resource as a 'green gym' and partnerships with other agencies needed to be identified to explore that potential, she said.

Dr Edwards identified three main sources of income for farms in the future:

• Short, monitored grants, rather than long term subsidy - basically a payment for results.

• A system based on negotiations of individual prices with individual providers.

• Provision of quasi-public goods with collective purchasers, particularly free market environmentalism, for example where farmers worked with organisations such as the RSPB or the Woodland Trust.

FRBG chairman Jonathan Tippett said: "Dr Edwards has painted the picture of a dynamic future for agriculture and land use which will provide exciting opportunities for young people to develop rural businesses in tune with the needs and thinking of the 21st century."