A DARTMOOR farmer has been found guilty of cultivating moorland for agricultural purposes.

Mary Alford, who denied four charges brought to the court by DEFRA, has been ordered to pay £6,000 in fines and costs by Plymouth Magistrates.

DEFRA claimed Mrs Alford had allowed farmyard manure and calcified seaweed to be spread on a number of fields at Vixen Tor Farm which were uncultivated or of a semi-natural state.

Mrs Alford , who caused controversy when she barred ramblers from her land at Vixen Tor when she bought the property two years ago, was said to have not obtained consent to change the use of the land for intensive agricultural purposes.

Plymouth district judge William Tate, heard from Mrs Alford?s solicitor William Batstone, who said the land has previously been open to ramblers and had been tenanted by two brothers who, he said, had neglected the area for more than 25 years.

Mr Batstone said that after buying the farm jointly with her son Daniel, Mrs Alford?s actions to ?sweeten the land? were those of good husbandry and traditional farming.

He added that the fields would have been limed and fertilised with manure before they were neglected and that Mrs Alford had acted on the advice of an ecologist.

But Mr Tate said he had come to the conclusion that it had been uncultured or semi-natural land and that the spreading of manure and calcified seaweed was an ?intervention?.

He said Mrs Alford should have made a ?screening application? to DEFRA before carrying out the project.

He also found that her actions were for intensive agricultural purposes, saying her intention was to increase the productive value of the land to graze 40 head of cattle.

Mr Batstone said the case had been a ?marginal infringement?.

Mrs Alford was fined £250 on each of the four charges and told to pay £5,000 towards the £7,000 DEFRA said it cost to bring the case.