INDIVIDUAL farmers across Yorkshire and Humberside are moving back into the rural market.

The latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' (RICS) rural land survey showed that 60 per cent of all sales of farmland are now made to individual farmers, compared with only 40 per cent a year ago.

This mirrors the national trend where farmers are continuing to buy as their Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) entitlement becomes clearer.

Across the UK, 45 per cent of sales in the last quarter were to individual farmers, up from 38 per cent for the same period in 2003.

Meanwhile, demand for residential farms, and sales to non farmer-buyers, have slowed due to the impact of interest rate rises in 2004, although the RICS finds no signs of collapse.

Across Yorkshire there is slower growth in demand in both commercial and residential farms for a second successive quarter.

But Andrew Fallows, rural asset manager of Carter Jonas, York, said: "A thin market continues with evidence of private sales at premium prices.

"Commodity outlook is not reflected in land prices."

Updated: 10:52 Tuesday, February 15, 2005