WEST Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett visited a farm shop in Lifton last week to throw his support behind a business which he said demonstrated 'imagination and originality'.

Mr Burnett toured Strawberry Fields and Lifton Farm Shop and talked with the owners of the family-run business.

The business began as a pick-your-own strawberry field 12 years ago and expanded to include a wide range of fresh fruit and vegetables before opening a farm shop two years ago.

Mr Burnett said the business showed 'imagination and originality' and should be encouraged.

Mr Burnett said old ideas of farming had to be left in the past, with enterprises like a farm shop and country restaurant representing the future of farming. 'I take my hat off to you, I really do,' he said.

Mr Burnett said: 'Agriculture must change. Unless we allow industry to survive and flourish this area will become a retirement ghetto.'

Mr Burnett said tourism was key to West Devon and visitors to the area wanted to see good quality produce being grown locally, and to get a chance to taste it.

Mr Burnett said local restaurants and hotels were increasingly demanding good quality food produced locally as diners became more interested in where the food on their plate came from.

But Mr Burnett heard that business proprietors Jo and Roger Mounce had been frustrated after a setback earlier this year.

The firm has clashed with West Devon's planning committee over roadside signage promoting the shop.

And a proposal to relocate an agricultural engineering workshop and to manufacture small craft items at the site was turned also down by planners.

The application was rejected on grounds that the size and location of the workshop would have a visually intrusive impact on the surrounding countryside.

Mr Burnett told proprietors Jo and Roger Mounce he felt planners should be doing more to encourage expanding farm diversification projects like theirs, which served the community.

Mr Burnett said: 'I want to see a renaissance of our small to medium-sized farming businesses and they should be given every opportunity by planners to thrive and grow.'

Jo Mounce said: 'We are working very hard, but I don't feel the planners are helping the farming industry. They let all this housing go ahead, but they don't want any industry.'

Mrs Mounce said she felt frustrated that the business always seemed to come up against the planners every time they tried to develop the enterprise.

Mr Burnett, who was a Devon cattle farmer himself before he entered politics, said he hoped to set up a meeting with a planning officer from West Devon Borough Council at the site, to raise some of the planning issues.

But Jane Green, planning services manager for the borough council, dismissed Mr Burnett's criticism that planners should be doing more to allow farm businesses to grow.

'It is a careful balance between helping farms to diversify where that is appropriate and protecting the countryside's own intrinsic quality.

'We are probably more encouraging of appropriate diversification than many other rural authorities,' she said.