FARMING families who have made a commitment to staying in the countryside are all too painfully aware that the income from farming alone may not be sufficient to make a satisfactory living in the future.

They recognise that new enterprise may provide the ideal solution, but they need encouragement, improved skills or more information to help get their ideas off the ground.

Help is at hand in the form of a new website created specifically to provide farming families with the encouragement they need to evaluate and plan a new non-farm-but-on-farm enterprise. www.mfep.co.uk is the brainchild of The Marches Farm Enterprise Partnership, a consortium set up with help from the Government and the EU, to provide entrepreneurial farmers in the Marches with independent planning assistance for farm diversification projects.

During the four years since the partnership was set up, more than 400 Marches farms have received personal visits from the partnership's business planning advisors, who have worked closely with farmers and their families to evaluate the viability of potential initiatives and to navigate the preparation and implementation stages.

The partnership comprises ADAS, the consultancy for land-based industries; Business Link for Herefordshire and Worcestershire and Business Link for Shropshire, and the Countryside Development Unit at Harper Adams University College.