5 replies to this topic

[roughbert]

Hi all,

 

I am starting a tree nursery on a small acreage (ca. 4 acres) in Wales, should be viable (eventually) as turnover per acre is pretty high for this sort of business relative to agriculture.

 

The land is currently agricultural. It would be useful to live on site.

 

Is this sort of thing within the scope of this website / forum?

 

Cheers,

 

R

[j and H]

In a word…No…well, not if you are following the F2F route, .why would you need to live on site for a tree….

it may be worth looking in the common law section and speaking with LN….

 

The F2F  route is for those who have or are buying  12.5 acres or more, and turning it into a working farm, using farm animals ,and lots of them

[adrian007]

not impossible for you... you could rent the extra 8.5 acres close by and this route would give you a start.

 

You're business will be lucrative, as you say - if you were following F2F to the letter, you'd have 12.5 acres and a load of animals, but there's some who don't have so many animals or so many acres and they still follow a similar route - so it isn't a necessity.

 

There's alot of knowledge here...

[bramblebasher]

Roughbert,

 

Actually yes, and in fact this IS agriculture as defined by the town and country planning act, in my opinion you would stand a chance based on the following provisions:

 

1) You will not qualify for permitted development for your barn on a unit less than 12.5 acres so you will need a rock solid business plan to convince the council you need your infrastructure/

 

2) If you get this permission, you are able to stay on site whilst implementing the above.

 

3) You would need to be running a very intensive, closed environment propagation system which runs all year and depends upon automatic crop protection systems running smoothly-heat,humidity,irrigation etc. They will say you can fully rely on automated controls, it is up to you to prove otherwise if you can nb take this element VERY seriously.

 

I completely agree with you such businesses have the ability to be far far more profitable than animal bases enterprises, and if you are specialising in permaculture trees and plants you are helping to create a more sustainable future for us all.

 

The thing that I am now realising however is when councils and government corporations speak of 'sustainability' they do not mean within the context of what's best for the masses, they mean sustainability as it relates to corporate interests, I hate to admit to myself this is true but it's the only explanation that makes any sense in light of the decisions we see being made around us.

 

Good luck  

[bramblebasher]

NB Point 2 above is not a provision it is a statement of fact, wrote it wrong.

[Ladyfarmer]

It seems this forum is exactly where you need to be right now. There are lots of ideas here and many people to advise you.