FROM 'ONE OF THE COUNTRY'S GREATEST ASSETS' TO ALIENATION AND ANGER: VOICES OF THE LOWER WHARFEDALE FARMING COMMUNITY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. (April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rowling, Jane
• Is Part Of: Family & community history. Volume 17:Number 1(2014)
• Page Start: 21
• Page End: 35
• Publication Date: 2014-04
• Subjects: Families -- Great Britain -- History -- Periodicals; Communities -- Great Britain -- History -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Periodicals; 941.08
• DOI: 10.1179/1463118014Z.00000000024
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1463-1180

Abstract

Abstract : The British farming community is rapidly diminishing due to its ageing workforce, the rise of second-home ownership, and the costs involved in running a farming business in the twenty-first century. The private nature of this community, often coupled with a deeply held mistrust of non-farmers has made it difficult to ascertain farmers' own feelings on their current situation, and how things have reached such a position. This article explores how some of the major twentieth-century events for agriculture have affected a single Yorkshire farming community by tracing the deteriorating relationship between farmers and the government, through changing legislation and reactions to crises, from a point where farmers were held to be vital to Britain's survival through to one where the agricultural community finds it plausible that their own government would actively try to destroy their livelihoods.