Hub offers connection across the industry’s generation gap

The “Ageing farmer seeks wife with tractor. Please send picture – of tractor” advert in the lonely hearts club section in the back of one of the farming papers might have been apocryphal.

But a new “dating agency” is being set up to help farmers close to retirement get in touch with go-ahead youngsters keen to start or expand their businesses.

The new joint venture hub will be launched at Agriscot next week as a one-stop-shop designed to help farmers become involved in collabora- tive projects and open up opportunities for their businesses.

A collaboration in itself, the venture will also involve professional organisations such as Johnston Carmichael, Gillespie Macandrew, Brodies LLP, Shepherd & Wedderburn, Savills and SAC Consulting. NFU Scotland yesterday revealed that members would be able to access specially negotiated arrangements with the partner firms.

“This hub is recognition of the need for a service to aid options for use of land, not only for the next generation but also for those looking to step back from day to day duties on the farm,” said union president Andrew Mccornick.

“There is a generation of enthusiastic and talented young people who feel like they cannot get a foothold in agriculture thanks to the soaring price of land and a lack of land availability.”

He added that at the same time a large number of farm owners were approaching retirement with no clear successor to run the operational side of their business. He said this often left them with the feeling that they had no option but to divide up and sell off the farm which they had spent decades, even generations, building up.