[Diggers350] Sale of Coop farms

[Fran Ryan]

Surely the land movement (the motley collection of activists) can make a 
bid to secure all the farms for community ownership and use?

I have no idea how big/how much money but we must be able to save some 
of them....... Fran Ryan Oxfordshire Community Land Trust

On 27/02/2014 22:47, david bangs wrote:
>
> The Coop's train crash continues with the proposed sale of the Coop farms.
> These total over 50,000 acres. They focus on supply to their own 
> retail, of course, with big fruit and vegetable enterprises.
> They are on the most high productivity land, such as the Humberhead 
> Levels (Goole), The Fens (Wisbech), Kent (fruit)...
> They have a bunch of farms in Scotland.
> The only one I know is the big farm at Down Ampney outside Cricklade, 
> near Cirencester (Vaughan Williams' home village).
> I'm not impressed with wot I read on their website. They don't even 
> have a 'no peat' policy, just adhering to the gov't's timescale for 
> run-down of usage. They are clearly backing away from their 'no GM' 
> policy. I'm not reassured by wot they say about palm oil, pesticides, 
> biodiversity...and I don't like their enthusiasm for on-shore wind 
> farms (They'll have four, soon).
> They clearly mimic (badly) the model of the big five retailers (or 
> wotever it is now). However, they are constrained by their membership 
> to ameliorate the worst practices.
> I have no doubt that the farms and their staff will suffer badly on 
> sale...and so will the countryside.
> They won't even get full value on at least some of the farms because 
> of their extant tenants and lessees...
> Can anyone shed any light on all this ??
> Dave Bangs
> 


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