Here's health to our countryside

THE morale-boosting visit to North Yorkshire by Prince Charles could hardly have been better timed. It came at the end of a dismal year in which not only farmers but almost everyone with a stake in the rural economy has found themselves under the cosh.

The floods and the rail crisis were bad enough - but what really did the damage was foot and mouth.

It wasn't only farmers who suffered. Others involved in the agriculture industry - feed suppliers, agricultural markets, slaughterhouses - were hit too. And with the countryside being virtually closed down in an effort to contain spread of the disease, tourism was also devastated. Tourism chiefs in Yorkshire estimate something like £300 million in revenue was lost - and up to 5,000 jobs. Hardest hit were B&Bs and small self-catering business in remote rural areas such as the Dales and Moors. Other rural businesses including country pubs also took a hammering - making Prince Charles's launch yesterday of the Pub Is The Hub guide all the more welcome.

So just how bad a year was it?

At the end of February our rural columnist Grant Burton, like farmers all over the country, was sitting tight on his farm and praying. In a bid to keep his farm disease-free, he lived in virtual self-imposed exile, letting almost no one in or out of his East Riding acres where he keeps 300 breeding sows.

In the event, he admits, farmers such as him in the East Riding and Vale of York got lucky. At one point, as the disease reached Thirsk, it looked as though it could spread to the vulnerable pig herds of the Vale and the East Riding. Thankfully, it never did.

"We have been very fortunate," Grant admits. "Some areas have been devastated. If it had got any nearer than it did, the pigs would have got it. It would have jumped from one pig herd to the next." So it could have been much worse than it was although Grant points out even farmers who did not have to cull livestock were affected. He hasn't sold a cull sow since February.

It is the farmers who had to slaughter herds built up over generations that he feels for, though. Compensation cannot make up for that, he says. Many older farmers - particularly those who do not have children who want to continue the business after them - are simply 'hanging on' until they retire.

Foot and mouth came on the heels of a series of lean years for farming. Farm incomes, Grant says, now average out at about £8,200 a year - way below the minimum wage, especially when you take into consideration the hours farmers put in.

Nevertheless, there is now a glimmer of optimism in the industry. Grant says farmers are 'born optimists'. This autumn hasn't been as wet as last year which, hopefully, means crops won't have been destroyed, as they were at the beginning of this year. There are also signs that the world over-supply of food is being reduced.

On top of that prices, according to North Yorkshire NFU chairman Derek Watson who has a 100-strong cattle herd at West Knapton, are beginning to firm up - while there are also encouraging signs that exports are getting going again.

So in some ways, farming ends the year on a more optimistic note than it began it. What about other areas of rural life?

Rural decline began long before foot and mouth. The village shop and Post Office have long been in danger of becoming extinct - and even village pubs have been finding the going increasingly hard. Country pubs are closing at the rate of six a week.

Then along came foot and mouth - and people deserted the countryside in their droves, leaving many rural businesses that rely on tourism to twist in the wind.

Joanne Royle, head of marketing strategy at the Yorkshire Tourist Board, says small B&B and holiday cottage businesses suffered most.

Ruth Feaster and her husband Stephen run High Farm, at Cropton, near Pickering. It's a small business, with three B&B rooms and three holiday cottages to let. Since Stephen gave up his two TV retail businesses, in Pickering and Norton, it has been the couple's only source of income.

The effect of foot and mouth - and more particularly, the negative publicity about the countryside that accompanied it - was devastating. Until then, it had looked like being a good year. "But when foot and mouth hit, it absolutely stopped everything," says Ruth.

The B&B side of the business dried up almost completely: Ruth had to work hard to ensure regular customers who had already booked stays in the cottages went ahead with their holidays.

Fortunately, she had built up a broad and loyal customer base of regular visitors, and she managed to persuade them they would be welcomed in the countryside and would not be blamed by locals for helping to spread foot and mouth. It wasn't always easy.

"I took phone calls from people quite nervous about their holidays," says Ruth. "People would say 'will we be ostracised from the village pub?' and I would say 'No! You will be welcomed with open arms!'" But in the end it paid off and business is now, at last, beginning to pick up again.

That seems to be generally the case, according to Joanna Royle of the Yorkshire Tourist Board. It has been a dreadful year - but at the end of it there are signs that in the tourist sector, as well as in farming, things are at last beginning to take a turn for the better.

There are many small businesses, particularly in remote areas, that feel they have been neglected and some have gone under. But since October there have been signs of improved bookings - possibly, Joanna says, because post September 11 people who might have gone abroad are opting for short, country breaks instead.

Even so, the boost provided by the Prince of Wales's visit is much needed - and his support for rural pubs is particularly welcome.

The new Pub Is The Hub guide aims to encourage rural landlords to diversify so their pub really does become the heart of the local community.

Operating village shops, post offices and even dry-cleaning services are all being suggested and, hopefully if the idea takes off, it could help more of our country pubs to survive.

"Rural pubs are going through a hard time, and for a number of reasons," says Mark Hastings of the British Beer and Pub Association, which helped compile the guide.

"But the key thing is that, now banks and post offices have closed, they are one of the few remaining services left in the villages. So there is an opportunity for the pubs to develop these local services."

It makes sound sense. After all, what better place can you think of to wash your smalls and do your weekly shop than down your local?

With such ingenuity around, don't write off the rural economy yet.

Updated: 10:45 Tuesday, December 18, 2001