It is a minority of farmers. But in my experience not a small minority...it’s something I experience in maybe 20 percent of my farmland walks. I’m surprised there are not more comments on on these types of problems on this forum...but guess most members tend to do most of their walks in areas where most of the walk is in open country, rather than arable farmland, or stocked farmland?
Is it a minority or a growing number?
My brother in law was a member of the Country Landowners Associations for a number of years, this was around the time I was a member of my county council's Local Access Forum, during that time I had the chance to read the CLA's monthly Land and Business publication. He is a small farmer, not the the sort of person immediately associated with the identity of "landowner", those few years access to this publication gave me intro to the propaganda that is the basis of an endemic anti access attitude.
My bro in law now has realised that he was being conned by the CLA and has given up his membership so I no longer have an insight to recent articles, but it was not before I discovered I could access their website through his membership number and I was able to download their policy on access. Curiously the active CLA member on out LAF did not inform us that the CLA had a policy on access and that had had been updated in 2012, though at the time we were notified by the joint policy published by interested user parties (RA, BMA, BHS etc.).
I agree with Pauldawes, there is a worrying lack of interest amongst walkers in general about this growing trend, logically the landowner should be pro access as it has been shown in a number of surveys that the contribution to the rural economy from access is considerable and growing, yet the CLA policy is to trim the access network to those paths most used and accelerate the closure of little used paths, rather than explore how the Access network can be made more effective. They have closed their minds to 'lostways', which a little research show many to be missing parts of long distance routes, preferring to believe and publish biased innuendo supplied by their own membership.
Have you noticed that about cows, lolling around at stiles and gates just to annoy hikers!
Gunwarfman's observation may be a bit off track, but there are plenty of real signs about how this orchestrated animosity manifests itself.
Here I questioned the true course of the Offa's Dyke trail, the part of the actual dyke that probably is the most revealing part about it construction and purpose is not on the route but 20 miles away in the land owned by the landowner, who wrote and published the CLA's policy on access. Surprise, surprise......there is no access to this section of Offa's Dyke.
It would be an open and shut case.
A neat reply, trouble is the gates in the minds of the landowners are firmly shut and corroded up with inherited slurry.