The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has said that it believes many hill farmers in England are losing out on vital support payments necessary for the survival of their businesses. 

Before this year hill farmers in England, regardless of the nature of their land occupation, received a payment known as the Hill Farm Allowance in recognition of the physical natural handicaps associated with farming in some of the most remote and harsh environments in the country. image expired

In 2010 the Hill Farm Allowance was abolished and replaced with an uplands version of the pre-existing Entry Level Stewardship Agri-environment Scheme. However, the TFA said many tenants on short term tenancy agreements and other hill farmers without ownership rights to the land that they are farming, are ineligible to get in to the new scheme and are therefore losing out.

TFA Chief Executive George Dunn said, “At the time of the change to the scheme the TFA expressed its concerns to the Government about the implications for tenants on short term agreements and other farmers but was told by the last administration that whilst these problems were understood, the change would go ahead as planned. In some cases it is now the landowner rather than the farmer who is getting the payment. Even when the payments are getting to the farmer the extra scheme requirements are also adding to costs.”

The association challenged the Coalition Government to provide details of the scheme uptake; the response shows that 34per cent of those farmers who were previously in receipt of the Hill Farm Allowance are not in the new scheme. 

Mr Dunn commented, “It is very concerning that over a third of previous recipients of Hill Farm Allowance are outside the new scheme arrangements. Given the precarious nature of hill farming and the low income associated with it, this is a serious concern.”

The TFA said its 2020 Vision for Upland Agriculture, produced last year, expressed the need for a fundamental review of the way in which upland agriculture is supported. It said the government should develop a new scheme tailored to benefit upland areas, which would “deliver an integrated upland environmental land management scheme with stock rearing at its core.” It suggested looking again at rewarding hill farmers for keeping breeding livestock in hill areas for both food security and environmental land management reasons.

Mr Dunn concluded, “Our hill areas are important national assets but by their very nature they are physically, socially and economically remote. Agriculture, through grazing of breeding livestock, continues to be and should continue to be the mainstay of economic and environmental management for these areas. Despite the severe natural handicaps encountered by farmers who operate in hill areas, responsibly managed, grazing livestock systems are the best way to ensure the long term sustainable management of this land.”