NORTH Yorkshire farmers face their biggest crisis for 50 years, according to the Hon Michael Willoughby, the new chairman of the Country Land and Business Association.

Mr Willoughby, heir to Lord Middleton, is director of the Birdsall Estates Company near Malton, which owns some 12,000 acres and 15 tenanted farms. He is also a director of Birdsall Beef Co, and of the Beef Improvement Group, breeding Charolais and composite cattle from the USA.

His family has owned land in the Malton area since 1724.

"There are a lot of pressures, appalling commodity prices and a poor exchange rate which are each hitting not only farming but all manufacturing business," he said.

He takes over the chairmanship as the association widens its remit after generations as the Country Landowners' Association.

"Land and rural businesses are intertwined; a lot of landowners are involved in tourism and other businesses today," said Mr Willoughby. "The association's role is that of a major lobbier of both the British and European parliaments," said Mr Willoughby.

"Our principal objective is to see profitability restored to agriculture, without it everything disintegrates.

"While diversification has played a key part in helping a number of farms survive, for many it is a difficult step to take because of the lack of capital.

"The public would not like to see an unfarmed rural Britain The landscape is created by its use - from trees to wheat fields. "

Mr Willoughby said the answer was to find a way to provide a sustainable agricultural industry. "It is almost inevitable there will have to be subsidies though, even the USA has them."

Environmental issues were also causing concern, with constraints on the use of nitrates and slurry on the land.

The association now has about 3,500 members in the Yorkshire area but they are no longer primarily large estate owners.

Many members today have just 100 acres and Mr Willoughby said the CLA was becoming a more professional organisation, seeking to create a "Friends of the Countryside", and to launch a business membership for rural-related businesses.

He said that, despite the foot-and-mouth crisis, Britain was still importing meat from countries where the disease existed.