FIVE years ago, farmer John Seymour was forced to face the reality of modern farming.

Global competition was driving down prices and with it, any chance of making a decent profit.

The owner of 900 acres of farmland, Mr Seymour had a good spread of interest across arable and livestock.

"The decline in farm incomes made us look at trying to get another source of income on the farm," he said. "We were losing money on all the other enterprises; arable, beef and sheep."

Mr Seymour was fortunate in that he had natural beauty surrounding his farm, which is beneath the Cleveland Hills on the outskirts of Stokesley.

He explored the prospect of establishing a golf course or turning over some of his land to horse riding and livery before eventually settling on coarse fishing.

He said: "(Fishing) does not involve anyone from the farm, whereas doing another form of diversification would take up a great deal of time.

"We do not have the staff, the labour force on the farm that we used to have."

Dromonby Fishing Lakes opened last year at Kirkby, near Stokesley, at Mr Seymour's son's Dromonby Farm, for its first season.

The scheme took nearly three years to get planning approval and a total of 2,000 trees and bushes have been planted around three lakes.

Mr Seymour believes farmers and the public need to work together to make diversification a success.

"The whole of the farming industry has to find different ways of maintaining its position in the rural economy.

"It does mean we are all going to have to change and other people need to understand we have to change. That is the big issue.

"If we are going to maintain the number of people in the countryside and if we are going to maintain the countryside the way it has been done for generations, we need to realise we cannot do it just out of farming."