DetectingWales.com

Idly browsing through Faceache this morning and came across an advert for Farm Watch cold caller safety packs. I was vaguely aware of Farm Watch - I knew it was a thing but didn't think it really affected me because I'm not a farmer, I don't have anything worth stealing and I have no intention of stealing anything off farmers.

Looking at the contents of the pack a bit more closely, I immediately became concerned that farmers are putting up 'No Cold Caller' notices - technically, if I go to a 'new' farm to ask for metal detecting permission, I would be a cold caller and therefore unwelcome. Or not . . . ?

What does the group think?

(http://farm watch)

Tried to add a pic of the Farm Watch pack but couldn't work out how to do it - I hit the 'Insert Image' icon and came up with two pairs of square brackets with 'img' and '/img' inside. I guessed that I'd need to place the jpeg  between the two pairs of brackets but nothing happened . . . ???

In general the “no cold callers” notice is meant to stop sales people, like double glazing, building or landscaping.
It depends on how the farm owner interprets it, from my experience there are two types, one will quickly tell you to B off, and the other will talk to you and if you ask nicely explain why you want to do it and then get on to the history of the farm, you may have a chance.

Agree with you Greg - the downside is the friendly farmer has usually already given permission to other people :) I seem to get more than my fair share of unfriendly farmers - but then they don't know me any more than I know them, so I do have understanding of that.

The ones that I find hard to deal with are those that get threatening, when all you are doing is asking nicely for permission.

Some friends of mine went around getting permissions in the Swansea area, the best or worst reply they got from the farmer was “See that field on the left I use that for crops, the one in the middle is for livestock, and I keep the one on the right for metal detectorists, so p¥§§ off before i get my gun”.
Now thats threatening.

And that's the kind of stuff I don't really understand. I've never actually been threatened with a gun - and actually that would be an offence under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act (if you felt you were being intimidated, that's an assault, and would not been seen as acting in reasonable self defence) - but I have been threatened with dogs and driven at by a farmer in a tractor - and tbf quite a lot just respond with 'I've already got someone detecting'  - which is the standard brush off, regardless of if it is true or not.

Farmers get a load of stick from everyone, including us lot to be honest. I think I have been lucky in not being threatened but obviously a blunt no, or others are doing detecting here.
Along with fly tipping and trespass they get a load of grief of which e don't see. I understand where their coming from, and at the end of the day its our hobby, its their living.

Yep getting permissions is a pain but the life blood of the hobby and to be fair in my county of Herefordshire I think most farms have either been done or being done by tectorists hense every where you go you get a ( someone's already doing it) I'm lucky in respects that I've been in this game years and have thousands of acres at my dispersal  in herefordshire but now and again I get a moment of madness to ask another permission and the only joy I get from that these days if it's a farmer that will say yes to anybody so usually there is not much to find so I soon go back to my original places