In just over two months we will have voted on whether Britain should remain or leave the European Union - the referendum date is Thursday, June 23. While I expect we will all heave a collective sigh of relief, bringing an end to the debate, the outcome has ramifications for all of us.

The sector that’s most likely to feel the impact of the decision is the agricultural one – leaving it may represent its biggest upheaval since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

We must therefore all work hard to understand what’s at stake.

We’ve seen plenty of evidence of it being discussed as we visit our clients in and around the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and north Lancashire. We have found compelling arguments on both sides.

In December 2015 the firm published a report on the impact of a possible Brexit on all sectors of the property industry and last week we heard exactly what the rural sector thought. The results coincided with an announcement by the National Farmers' Union.

We asked those attending our rural land seminars for their thoughts and found that 67 per cent of agricultural land owners and property experts believe the UK should stay in the European Union (EU). The NFU also say that farmers’ interests would be best served by the UK remaining in the EU.

In terms un-picking our poll headline result, 76 per cent held that a vote to leave the EU would have a negative impact on income received from the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), the biggest of the European Union’s rural grants and payments that help the farming community. The same 76 per cent thought that income received from the Countryside Stewardship (CS) scheme, would also decrease.

When asked whether their estates would be better off out of the EU, 43 per cent of respondents thought that it would not, while 34 per cent said that they didn’t know. Just 23 per cent of those polled thought that leaving the EU would have a positive impact on their estates.

In relation to the rural property sector, there has been much debate as to how the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will look should there be an exit.

When asked how a Brexit would impact on investor demand for agricultural property in the UK, 50 per cent thought that it would have a negative impact, while 34 per cent thought that there would be no change.

Should the UK vote to leave the EU, the CAP subsidies will likely be reduced, which may also have an effect on rents for both Agricultural Holding Act and Farm Business Tenancy agreements.

In fact many of our clients cited farms rents as an area which would suffer, should trade deal negotiations prove lengthy. This, in turn, could result in a fall in capital values in the short to medium term, though it is thought that best in class and well-located land will continue to increase in value.

However, CAP is not the only subject that should be considered.

Negativity surrounding a possible Brexit was not universally felt among all of Carter Jonas’s clients. The EU’s rural development policy faced criticism from attendees as being poorly targeted and discouraging innovation and new entrants into the industry.

While the lack of clarity surrounding the outcome of a possible Brexit is likely to become a key feature over the weeks ahead (and to be honest, pollsters or economists’ predictions in other news items recently have not proved to be accurate indicators of the outcome), exciting times may be ahead if the ‘out’ campaign prevails - it should be noted, there is still a significant minority of our clients that are not at all fearful of a Brexit scenario.