FINANCIAL strife is nothing new for East Lancashire’s farming community which bore the brunt of a series of crises from the mid 1980s onwards.

Be it the concerns over BSE that devastated the beef industry in the late 80s and throughout the 90s and saw beef on the bone banned, to the horrors of foot and mouth disease at the start of this decade, UK farming has been had a rough time.

In the last 12 months, however, with world food shortages causing prices to rise, East Lancashire farmers had reasons to be cheerful as their premiums for milk and meat increased.

But Geoff Tomlinson, head of rural business at Napthens solicitors, which has a Blackburn office, said the current crisis could have implication for the rural property sector.

He said: “One area that has completely gone dead is the sale of barns for conversions, but the rural economy is nowhere near as badly affected as other sectors like commercial property and conveyancing.

“Certainly in terms of agricultural property there have not been as many transactions as normal. This time of year would traditionally be a little slower than the summer in terms of sales of farms, for instance. However, things seem to be happening more slowly than ever, and people are apprehensive.

“This translates into deals which are not happening in the volumes we would normally expect.

“Farmers tell me perhaps the situation is not as bad as it could have been, and when farms do go up for sale buyers are available.

“Most farms have a significant amount of equity in them, and we are still seeing pieces of land selling for very good prices and it is clear there is still the demand there for the right deal.”