Introduction and background 2.
Diversification is crucial if agriculture is to adapt successfully for the future.
This is why proposals to support and encourage diversification by tenants are at the heart of the planned legislation. Individually, they will remove various barriers that in the past have constrained the choices available to tenant farmers. Collectively, they will create a new and better balance between the rights of tenant and landlord, and one that better fits the circumstances of the future. It fails to allow tenants to diversify into other economic activities as they would wish. It also fails to take account of the increasing public interest in protecting and enhancing the environment, and in particular in environmentally friendly farming activity.