Stuart Minting

Leading farming, food industry and landowners figures are urging the Government to focus extra efforts on highlighting the top quality results of British agriculture in the shops.

From a farm which was struggling in the late 1980s, Cannon Hall Farm, near Barnsley, has been turned around in the most spectacular fashion, being catapulted to the forefront of the media, with television programmes made on site and its own Facebook page.

Surrounded by a hinterland of flat fields, the ancient village of Bainton has always been defined by its arable setting near the heart of the Yorkshire Wolds.

While 40 years ago North Stainley had a fraction of the population it has today, which is approaching 800, key elements of its distinctive centre have changed little over the last two centuries.

A fifth-generation farmer who has diversified her family’s enterprise into a £7.4m turnover business has sounded a note of caution after a study revealed a rising proportion of farmers considering developing new income streams.

Farming income across Yorkshire and the Humber dropped by more than ten per cent – £63 million – last year, government figures have revealed.

Recent decades have seen the popularity of Silkstone make it one of the fastest growing and most upwardly mobile villages in the Upper Don area, its rich seam of heritage continues to testify to its humble origins.

Overlooked by a series of limestone outcrops known as the Warrendale Knotts as well as an impressive Gothic copper-domed chapel, those visiting the 17th century heart of Giggleswick cannot help but feel a sense of place and history.

Whichever way Walkington is approached, one could be forgiven for assuming they are in the heart of a vast agricultural hinterland.

When the Sutcliffe family farm began on elevated land between Todmorden and Hebden Bridge, they were delivering milk by horse and cart.