‘Get on my land’: the farmers who want strangers wandering their fields

A growing number of landholders are joining forces with right-to-roam campaigners to boost public access to the countryside Patrick Barkham Patrick Barkham Wed 8 Jan 2025 07.00 GMT

When Debra and Tom Willoughby first arrived at their tenant farm in Nottinghamshire, they tried to reroute a bridleway that runs through their farmyard. Now the organic farmers are relieved they were refused permission because of the benefits they have found from the connections they make with people who walk through their farm. They have since opened new permissive footpaths on their land.

Farmers are often cast as vociferous opponents of wider access to the countryside. But a growing band of access-friendly farmers has joined forces with the Right to Roam campaign and will discuss how to open up more land for public enjoyment at this week’s Oxford real farming conference.

“It’s really nice when we get people through the yard – the positives far outweigh the negatives,” said Debra Willoughby, who farms 157 hectares (387 acres) with organic beef cattle, cereals and new agroforestry apple orchards at Normanton-on-Soar near Loughborough. “Farms are very isolated places. It used to be tens of people working on this farm and now it’s just me and my husband.”