Farming Today This Week: Rural Tourism

Farming Today

• Episode: Farming Today This Week: Rural Tourism
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:24:53
• Published: 2018-07-28 08:02

Anna Jones visits a farm in Somerset which has developed a range of holiday accommodation which has taken over from farming as their main source of income. Graham and Sue Harris bought Cripps dairy Farm in 1986 but by 2000 they'd found that milk prices had dropped to unsustainable levels and they were forced to diversify. They started with a mixture of touring and static caravans before expanding into on-site lodges and cottages, as well as adding three fishing lakes. Graham and Sue they talk about the move from farming into tourism and how it was the desire to keep ownership of the farm that drove them to change tact and give-up their dairy herd. Anna pops her head into one of their holiday lets and discovers that line-dancing used to be a regular feature of the on-site entertainment. She also asks Graham and Sue how they feel now that they've been able to bring livestock back to the farm and provide visitors with a glimpse of what farming involves. Producer: Toby Field.