One of the owners of a family-run dairy farm in Blackburn is calling for action as challenges caused by housing, Brexit and the cost of living crisis continue to crop up.

Pulford Farm Dairies has provided milk to local shops and residents in Blackburn with Darwen for more than 50 years, but there have been significant changes in the past few years.

Becki Fielding addressed the concerns over the number of small farms disappearing under new houses being built on green land.

She said: “The government has set out how many affordable houses each council has to build but I don’t necessarily think it will work.

"Just things like water supply for all the extra houses, where’s the reservoir? And food, and roads, and schools.

"The infrastructure isn’t there and it’s taking away from farms all over the country.”

The Fielding family run business has 350 acres all together, with 250 acres on the main site and 100 acres rented in Briercliffe, which is a small farm in comparison to others across the country but covers a large area in Blackburn.

Becki added: “We’re protected in one way from being built upon, because we have pylons carrying a massive electricity supply so that protects us from buildings, but I do think it’s sad.”

The other issue plaguing the farming industry is Brexit, they said. Farms used to receive subsidies from the EU, totalling 60 per cent of farm net income.

But after Brexit, this was slashed by at least 35 per cent.

Becki says smaller farms in particular were stung by this as subsidies will be replaced by environmental schemes but that doesn’t create income for the farmer or ensure food security.

She said: “As the price of food and cost of production rises, it’s having a knock on effect and people expect you to produce at the same price and it’s becoming impossible.

"So when farmers are getting the option to be bought out by bigger companies, it’s the sensible option to them.

“England is a small island and it needs to look after its food supply because if something bad happened there will be an awful lot of people relying on a small amount of food.

"I think we learned that from the Second World War when food was rationed.”

Becki does some work for the National Farmers Union and speaks to MPs and councils about the future of the country’s farming industry, but says she “never sees it as a priority for them”.

To help tackle the industry challenges, Becki also attends schools to speak to students about where their food comes from and the importance of agriculture.

She said: “There needs to be more education at a school level and pushing nutritional information so people appreciate what they’re eating.

“I think people are getting so far removed from the countryside and the food they actually eat and they don’t think about it.

"It’s as though people expect food just appears without any work going into it but that’s not the case.

“There’s a lot that goes into ensuring people are fed but there are less people working in agriculture and I think the government and local councils are becoming very, ‘it’s okay we’ll just buy it in’ attitude.

“One of the reasons this is happening is because the older generation of farmers aren’t being taken over by the younger generation because you can’t make the same living they used to.

“People obviously need higher wages as the cost of living goes up so it’s harder to keep a smaller farm going.”