What size is a smallholding?

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What size is a smallholding?
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starmoonlilly

Joined: 28 Oct 2006
Posts: 218
Location: Northampton

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 07 10:25 pm Post subject: What size is a smallholding?
Can anyone tell me what the defination of a smallholding is, opposed to a farm? What acreage says its a smallholding? Stupid question I know, and Im sure its a very easy answer.....if I knew it

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 6:56 am Post subject:
A smallholding is a farm, and size makes no difference. In this day and age I think a smallholding is more to do with the various activities being attended to, rather than the size.

Green Man

Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5272
Location: Rural Scotland.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 8:29 am Post subject:
When does a farm become an estate? Often small farms are marketed as 'Small Residential Estates' if they have an elegent detatched farm house. Last edited by Green Man on Thu Feb 15, 07 9:16 am; edited 1 time in total

Gervase

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 8:48 am Post subject:
If it makes money it's a farm, if it doesn't it's a smallholding!

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 8:56 am Post subject:
If you need a definition then Wiki's seems reasonable, under 50 acres a smallholding and over 50 a farm. There will always be different opinions though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallholding

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 9:06 am Post subject:
I thought the less-than-fifty-acres thing was the criteria for getting a smallholding registration number? Larger than that and DEFRA classify you as a farm.

Green Man

Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5272
Location: Rural Scotland.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 9:15 am Post subject:

Gervase wrote:

If it makes money it's a farm, if it doesn't it's a smallholding!

Most farms are smallholdings then,If it looses a lot of money, it's an estate.

Joke:- How do you end up with a small fortune by farming? Answer :- Start off with a big fortune.

Bog Spavin

Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 362
Location: North Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 9:46 am Post subject:
I understood it as the 50 acre thing but I don't understand when a cottage garden becomes a small holding ie: we have just under an acre layed to paddock, veg patch and garden but I would call it a cottage garden as I would consider it too small to be a holding, the house is a cottage (it is 1 and a half stories tall with dorma windows) what do you think

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 9:52 am Post subject:
If you have a paddock then it's an equestrian property and not a smallholding or farm. Seriously, while looking for smallholdings / farms for sale some estate agents group the smallholdings & farms in one section and equestrian properties in another. There often doesn't seem to be any reason to do this.

Gervase

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 10:13 am Post subject:

It's certainly worth searching under 'equestrian' when looking for places.
When we were hunting for somewhere we were amazed at the number of places we found that had clearly been bought with the intention of running some sort of equestrian business and which had failed and were up for sale. In some cases it was heart-breaking to see how much money had been spent on stables, loose-boxes, maneges and the like - running into the tens of thousands - when a moment's research would have told the owners that there aren't an awful lot of people wanting year-round livery in a dirt-poor part of the UK with Objective One funding.
Their loss has been the smallholders' gain, however, and most of the places were saw are now functioning smallholdings.
Sadly it doesn't stop the odd naive soul even now moving West in the hope of making a living from horses and ponies.

Bog Spavin

Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 362
Location: North Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 10:30 am Post subject:

There are a lot of cottages around here that come with a small paddock, usually 1/2 an acre but up to an acre. I've had horses all my life untill recent ill health put a stop to it. The lass who has the paddock adjoining our land has a 16.2 hunter mare and has to work really hard to keep the place tidy with such a small paddock. These property's offer so much to a downsizer who doesn't have the opportunity to buy many acres. There is plenty of room for either poultry, pigs, or a couple of sheep and I have a large vegetable plot. So yes anybody looking could do a lot worse than checking the equestrian pages of a property site.

Green Man

Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5272
Location: Rural Scotland.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 10:40 am Post subject:
In general you need about 1 acre per horse.

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 11:31 am Post subject:
We have about 3 acres, but didn't think of it as a smallholding until we got livestock and a CPH number to go with them. Before that it was a cottage with a bit of land.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 1:30 pm Post subject:

As far as DEFRA are concerned a smallholding used to be classified as 50 acres, then 80 acres, and the last time I checked it was 100 acres. For the regs though a holding is a holding, and needs a number if it keeps [farm] animals, even if it has no land at all.

I'd agree with the 100acre bit (it'll be forever going up if we keep loosing the smaller commercial units), then up to 500 acres a medium sized farm, up to 2000; a large farm, 2000+ an estate farm. However, that's down here in the lowlands, up in the hills 2000acres can be small

Bog Spavin

Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 362
Location: North Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 07 2:36 pm Post subject:

Cho-ku-ri wrote:

In general you need about 1 acre per horse.

You don't need an acre per horse. Horses can be kept with only a stable as long as a sufficient routine of feeding and exercise is adhered too but it does make hard work of it. Very few of the London horses have any grazing to speak of but horses have done well there for hundreds of years.

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