Brussels bans the acre

4:58pm Friday 25th July 2008

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Big Brother Brussels this week put the final nail in the coffin of the ancient British measurement, the acre.

In a move likely to be ignored whenever Dales farmers get together, a European Union diktat has banned the imperial measurement - and it will no longer be allowed in documents when land is being registered.

The acre - nowadays defined as 4,840 square yards - will be officially replaced by the hectare, which is 10,000 square metres or the equivalent of 2.471 acres.

One of Britain's most historic units, the acre has been chucked in the delete box along with the inch, ounce and gallon.

The new European Union ruling will come into force from January 2010.

The word "acre" is derived from the Old English for "open field" and was considered the amount of land tillable by a man behind an ox in one day.

A law setting the size of an acre at "four roods of 40 square rods, poles or perches" was established in the early years of the 14th century, under King Edward 1. But its actual size was often different from county to county.

Then, in 1878, Queen Victoria passed the Weights and Measures Act which defined the acre as 4,840 square yards or 43,560 square feet.

Under the new rules, all official documentation and advertisements will have to refer to metric hectares instead of acres. The hectare has been the official measurement for some years now, but it has happily run alongside the old measurement.

But the Brussels decision is hardly likely to change hundreds of years of tradition among the farming community of Craven. They may have to toe the line in official documentation, but when it comes to day-to-day practice, many will still measure their land in acres.

Especially at Tofthouse Farm, Threshfield, where the extended Dean family have farmed since Edward "Longshanks" himself was on the throne.

Angus Dean, who runs the farm with his brother John and mum, Dorothy, said: "It's sad that the acre can no longer be recognised as it has, but it'll make little difference to a lot of farmers.

"I shall continue to use acres - they are much easier to visualise than hectares. If somebody says, say, three acres, I can easily visualise its size.

"I never say, for example, that's 3.2 hectares - I will describe it in acres. And if somewhere is referred to as hectares I then break it down into acres."

Land agent Chris Windle, based at Skipton Auction Mart, said official documentation always referred to hectares.

"But the vast majority of farmers will continue to think in acres. When they look at a field they don't say that's four hectares, but say 10 acres," he said.

Though defending the acre, stockman Mark Dobson, of Bolton-by-Bowland, said land products were measured in metric weights per hectare, so by using hectares farmers could calculate more exactly how much to use.

Henry Rowntree, a former member of the NFU livestock board who farms at Windy Pike in Gisburn, said farmers would continue to use acres.

But he stressed that the official banning of the measurement was, in reality, trivial in comparison with the other huge problems facing the farming industry, especially bovine TB.

"Thousands of cattle are being slaughtered and millions of pounds poured down the drain in terms of the loss of animals, but the Government is not getting to grips with the problem," he said.

Officials needed the courage to accept that there needed to be a cull of badgers, which were spreading the disease, for the sake of the health of both badgers and cattle, he claimed.