FARMERS are to set beacons ablaze across the county in a protest move to highlight the current crisis in the countryside.

Some 50 beacons will be lit across the region tomorrow night, including more than a dozen in the area surrounding York and one at Castle Howard.

Leading the protest will be Carolyn Gill, wife of National Farmer's Union president Ben Gill, who lives at Easingwold. Mrs Gill will light a beacon on the family's Home Farm, The Hawkhills, at 6.20pm tomorrow.

At the same time, Castle Howard will have a beacon lit by Simon Howard. It will be constructed by tenants Andrew and Sue Nicholls of Mowthorpe Hill, Terrington, who run an equine and straw business.

The bonfires are a curtain raiser to Sunday's Countryside March, when thousands of farmers and agricultural workers from across Britain are expected to march in London to highlight the current crisis. NFU president Ben Gill, who will be lighting a beacon in Hampshire tomorrow, said: "These beacons, a traditional warning of impending danger, will light the skies across the country.

"They are a symbolic gesture to show the very real fear there now is in the rural community that British agriculture as we know it today is seriously under threat. Farm incomes right across the board are suffering, it's not just one sector, it's every sector and we hope the British public will unite with us in our call to buy British produce and urge the Government to do all it can to protect the interests of our farmers."

Beacons will also be lit at the following local farms: Prospect Farm, York; Farlington Grange, Farlington; Grange Farm, Bolton Percy; Low Moor Farm, Sand Hutton; Pool Spring Farm, Green Hammerton; Boundale Farm, Leavening, Malton; Ferndale Farm, West Barnby, Whitby; Cliff Farm, Kettleness, Whitby; Lodge Farm, Goldsborough, Whitby; Butterpark Farm, Egton Bridge, Whitby; Church Farm, Cowlam, Driffield; Wold Farm, Scarborough Road, Driffield and Binnington Wold Farm, Staxton, Scarborough.

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