Is "the Good Life" over? - discuss!

[LISA]

I was standing in a queue to pay at our local farm store and overheard the lady in front of me talking to her friend. This lady was apparently "living the dream" with her beautiful house, small holding, chickens, few pigs and sheep and hunters (horses not wellies!). She was completely fed up with the animals, not from an economical perspective but she was fed up with the constant work that they brought, and the fact that she was tied at weekends and holidays.
So are fewer and fewer people keeping livestock/horses/pets due to the negative impact on their busy/social lives. Obviously the biggest reason that people pack up/don't start is economic but are people now trending away from "the good life" are Tom and Barbara over? Discuss.

[victorfirst]

I get revenge on my time consuming animals by consuming them

[Rob R]

Here's the abridged version; Yes.

The trend is on the wane after River Cottage, just as it did after The Goode Life. It'll come back in a few years, and in the meantime the regulars will continue smallholding but the cool kids will be doing something a little easier, like baking...

[Duncan MacIntyre]

The Good Life series was at the end of the day a comedy. And to a certain extent the efforts made by the Goods were comical. Those who have tried to follow the comic dream may well give up and move on, and others may be less likely to try it because it is less trendy. But Smallholding will never die as it provides a way for those who feel strong roots to the land to maintain these without having to be totally supported by that.

I grew up on a farm with cattle and sheep, about 630 acres in total of which 60 were allegedly arable. It was a tenanted farm, and at the time I had to decide what to do after school following my father seemed economically unrealistic if not impossible. So I had resigned myself to no "farming" activity until I was going through a very tough time as a young vet working absolutely ridiculous hours, looked again at continuing the tenancy, final final decision that it was impossible, and somewhere about that time I read a paperback called "Farm Your Garden" which gave a much more practical idea of what could be done in a relatively small area rather than the fanciful comedy of The Good Life. So when we moved to Bute and saw a wee hoose with 2.41acres or thereby for sale we saw our chance. My mother in law gasped when she saw the place and wondered what on earth we would do with all that land. I was wondering how I would confine myself to such a small area.

I now have access to about 100 acres of rented land and keep more cattle as a part time exercise than my father kept as a full time farmer. At the age of 64 I feel ready to retire and keep twice as many cattle.

Good Life Gardening may well be ephemeral if not dead, but Smallholding will live for ever.

Duncan

[Rob R]

Well, I for one found Duncan's timeline highly entertaining, but particularly liked;

I grew up on a farm with cattle and sheep, about 630 acres in total of which 60 were allegedly arable.

and

I was wondering how I would confine myself to such a small area.

I remember thinking that our 37 acres was huge when we first came here, which it is if you had to dig it by hand, but now it is a small part of the area we need to earn a decent living.

At the age of 64 I feel ready to retire and keep twice as many cattle.

I feel exactly the same way as I approach 34.

Good Life Gardening may well be ephemeral if not dead, but Smallholding will live for ever.

Agreed, and it's interesting to see note how the viable unit grows larger as we move through the generations from my great grandfather to me. Small farms are getting bigger, just like the big farms. With the reduction in production due to economic necessity/an aging farming population, I'm still sure that smaller units will become more viable as food prices catch up with what they once were (in real terms, even with recent food price rises, we're still only paying ~80% of the price of food as we were in 1980).

[Jac]

I think it is cyclical.

My observations are that many try it for a few years then get fed up of the work and the ties and decide to jump ship. I cannot say for other areas but it has become more noticeable here over the past few years because the property market has been stagnant. However, for the last twelve months there has been something of a property boom in the smallholding market and new people from the city have now taken their place to 'live the dream'. We have three new neighbours who are all putting us to shame with their energy and enthusiasm.

We have had our own land most of our married lives (40 years) and have been through periods when we were 'fed up'' to the point that we changed direction for a short while but then went back to it because at the end of the day, life is a passage of time and you might as well do something creative with it.

[Louisa Gidney]

I would agree that it's a cyclical thing but it goes back well before TV sitcoms. It was noted that upturns in small scale keeping of goats & geese by the lower orders coincided with periods of economic downturn in C19th. Before that, resurgence of later C17th country house self sufficiency was a statement of the return to the status quo ante bellum.

[Rob R]

It was noted that upturns in small scale keeping of goats & geese by the lower orders coincided with periods of economic downturn in C19th.

By contrast the decline in smallholding now seems to have coincided with a downturn in the economy. I guess because the economies of scale are more significant in modern food production.

[SteveM]

things change, local arable farmers working late into the evening and at weekends.

When my dad was younger they managed to sow the crops with horses, and still have sunday off.

[ann]

Interesting conversation, There are still a lot of people who came off farms and have spent their working lives away from the land and animals, but for many you can never take that love of the land away from them. and it is their dream to have a few animals and some land when they retire. My small holding originally supported a farming couple who only had a few cows, several hundred hens and made their living from it. I currently run between 35 to 50 dexters on less acres than they did, but doubt i could maintain the life style I enjoy on just the dexters.
However i enjoy my dexters and it beats working in an office which is what i did for most of my former life. Needless to say I still had the dexters then, but maybe not quite as many