I LIVE on one of the farms affected by the council’s plans to potentially sell its smallholding estate (Close call on decision to sell council’s farmland, Hereford Times, October 29).

Although we are not immediately affected (my stepdad has a lifetime tenancy, whereas our neighbours have a shorter tenancy), I think it would wrong for the council to sell.

One of the major factors affecting young farmers in today’s agricultural industry is the access to land.

Unless a person is born into a farming family with their own farm, it is very challenging for them to find land on which to build a living, a family and a home.

With this in mind, consider what will happen when farmers retire, and there are no young farmers to take over as they cannot get land, particularly in north Herefordshire if all of the council’s farms are sold off.

There could be larger farms, between fewer hands, reducing farmland diversity, and fewer customers for allied industries.

It’s a chain reaction; it might solve the council’s financial problems in the short term, but in the long term, local companies, businesses and families will suffer.

Being an aspiring member of the agricultural industry, I hope that the council reconsiders its decision to sell, and helps to make it easier for young farmers to establish themselves within the industry and continue to make a living farming in the county.

TOM MILLWARD Luston