A FAMILY have quit their farm in Murcot, near Evesham, and moved to France, saying French farmers receive better treatment.

Adrian Hackett, his partner Cate Henderson and their 15-month-old daughter Tilly have left a farm that had been worked by his family for more than a century.

This week they are starting a new life on a farm at the northern tip of the Dordogne region, in central France.

Mr Hackett, aged 37, who ran Murcot Farm with his mother until she retired, believes farmers are looked after better in France and says land is cheaper there.

"We couldn't afford to buy another farm here and so decided to look at France where the farmers are looked on much more favourably," said 35-year-old Ms Henderson.

"As well as being better looked after by the Government, the price of land in France is about a third of what it is here."

The furniture has arrived safely and the family have already started chipping the plaster off their traditional French farm house in Saint Babant.

The couple, who are learning French, have swapped their 200-acre arable farm for a 300-acre property, where they will keep a Limousin beef herd, as well as grow arable crops.

"With the difficulties the farming industry is facing, people are looking not just to France but other countries,'' said Russell Griffin, a spokesman for the National Farmers' Union in Worcestershire.

"The great sadness is that the people doing this are generally young, bright and enthusiastic farmers, normally with new ideas. As far as we are concerned, they are exactly the sort of people the farming industry needs to keep."