On Thursday 6 February, the Hazlewoods Farms and Estates team hosted their popular annual professionals’ breakfast meeting to discuss topical issues affecting the farming and rural industries
On Thursday 6 February, the Hazlewoods Farms and Estates team hosted their popular annual professionals' breakfast meeting to discuss topical issues affecting the farming and rural industries.
As well as providing updates on topics such as cloud accounting, agricultural property relief, capital gains tax and entrepreneurs' relief, the team also took the opportunity to use an interactive polling software for guests to vote on some hot topics live in the room.
Among the questions considered, guests were asked for their opinions on what proportion of farming and landowning clients had considered the impact of the Agriculture Bill, diversification and changing demand for meat on farm incomes.
It was clear that the room considered the impact of the Agriculture Bill will take time to filter through, but 100% of professionals surveyed confirmed that their clients had looked at diversification, with 57% of clients having considered diversification to a significant extent. The implication of this may be that further diversification to regain income lost from changes in the Agriculture Bill may not be that easy for many.
In addition, 87% of people voted that their clients or contacts had expressed some concern that meat consumption may fall in the future, further impacting on the farming industry.
Farms and Estates Partner, Nicholas Smail, said: "Our annual professionals' breakfast always provides a great opportunity for discussion on current topics in our industry and surveying the room in this way was an interesting addition to the event.
"The statistics produced gave a clear indication of the opinions in the room, sometimes varied enabling some healthy debate, but equally, there were many topics where the room was united in opinion."
