THE lost golden era' of farming and the struggles between Wiltshire's agricultural industry and the local towns was a hot topic in a recent debate on farming.

It is one of the many issues that David Stratton, who owns a 3,000 acre farm in Kingston Deverill, spoke about at a farming meeting at the Athenaeum Centre in Warminster in May.

The meeting, hosted by the Warminster and Villages Community Partnership and the Chamber of Commerce, was designed to give an honest view of farming in Wiltshire in the present day.

He said: "Farming is a businesswe just have a large open-planned factory floor.

"Wiltshire is an area where the farms are larger than average and it's not uncommon to find farms with a turnover of more that £1m plus."

Although they are doing well, despite the problems in the economy, the relationship between farms and their local towns appear to have become more strained.

Mr Stratton said: "Local towns were quite an important part of our economythis has of course hugely changed. We have fewer and fewer outlets for produce."

He explained how the relationship had changed drastically over the last 60 or 70 years with grains now being traded elsewhere in the country, using their contacts to trade all over the world.

Large abattoirs are now located in Bristol and markets have amalgamated through the years.

Mr Stratton also recognised the strained relationship between country and villages in terms of the traffic flow generated from the farms.

He said: "We are producing quite a volume of produce which measured into units in terms of lorry loads is quite a lot."

He highlighted how a farm of about 2,000 acres would produce more than 5,000 lorry loads of inputs, such as fertiliser. So a farm of more than three square miles would have approximately 200 lorries going in and out.

"Larger arable farming could challenge our relationship with local communities." This, he said, is down to the noise generated by tractors and other environmental considerations.

The onslaught of BSE and foot and mouth has had its effects on beef farming and other types of farming are also struggling with the costs of feed and competition from abroad.

Mr Stratton said: "We need to get some confidence back into the industry. Cereal and poultry are having a terrible time."

Nostalgic recollections of farming are long gone and it is impossible, he argued, to return to what was seen as the golden era of village life.

Mr Stratton said: "We have got to find some sensitive, appropriate developments for the community."

By this he means we will need to find a way for villages, towns and the farming community to be able to work together.

Bio fuels are also a hot topic as far as Mr Stratton is concerned, as it is an EU requirement that five per cent of petrol and diesel used nationally should be in the form of bio fuels.

The main crops used for bio fuels are wheat, maize, oil-seed rape, sugar and palm oil, therefore the bio fuels are competing with food crops.

However, in the last five years the total wheat production in the world has been less than the total consumption. This raises questions, according to Mr Stratton, over whether it is fair to defend the production of bio fuels when there are people in the world who are starving.