Practicing a precautionary landing in a field during PPL training involves getting it set up and down to 500 feet over a hastily selected pasture then if you are reasonably lined up and the instructor believes you would make it, then its power back in and onto the next exercise. The problem after training and receiving a license a lot of pilots who get in over there head with weather push on till its too late instead of actually putting it down when things get a bit hairy. I have the good fortune of flying a taildragger in a rural area and bump in and out of random fields just for fun which made me realise any Cessna or Piper spamcan would get down safe for the pilot (and in most cases for the plane) in a moderately flat 700ft field whether its grass, cropped or just cultivated. I think some folks get into a mentality that the only place to land a aircraft when things are going South is at a towered airfield and will go to extraordinary lengths when in trouble to find that. When I have found myself in these situations a few times I just say bollox to this I am setting this down till things get better. It should not be considered a last option but one of your first. The aircraft rental outfit, insurance company and anyone else who objects can go whistle dixie if they don't like it, I,m looking after No1