16/02/2011

The cross-party environment select committee has spoken out against neglect shown to hill farmers. The committee has called for ministers to do more to help hill farmers, saying many are struggling to earn a decent living and their image expired

The MPs have acknowledged that rural communities are being hit particularly hard in the current economic climate and argue that farmers need help to develop new types of income, such as using land for carbon capture and water quality assessment programmes. They claim the number of livestock farmers going out of business is putting touristic rural landscapes in danger, as without hill farmers there will be no one to maintain footpaths, farm buildings or traditional features such as dry stone walls.

The committee also suggests re-introducing headage payments, funds paid directly to farmers calculated on the basis of the number of animals held, as part of the reform of EU subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Anne McIntosh, Conservative chair of the committee, said the government “must ensure farm businesses can provide a decent income for hard-pressed hill farmers. Farmers in the uplands already do a huge amount of unpaid work that benefits the public. The challenge for ministers is to find a way to reward farmers for those public benefits while preserving their way of life and wonderful landscapes of our uplands."

Tenant farmers associations have welcomed the committee’s suggestions. The farmers believe environmental subsidies for wind farms and maintaining bogs will not keep young people or traditional farming in the uplands, and warn that letting uplands go wild rather than be maintained for sheep farming will have detrimental effects.  

MPs’ suggestions provoke RSPB fury

However, the move has not been universally accepted, RSPB Senior Uplands Conservation Officer Pat Thompson has voiced concern that a return to headage payments could lead to overgrazing in ecologically important areas.

Speaking out against the MPs’ proposals, Thompson said, “We agree with the Committee that land managers should be rewarded for the positive work they do for fragile upland habitats like peatlands, blankets bogs and heathland, but this kind of old fashioned thinking could undo all that effort. To financially reward damaging grazing regimes at a time when the industry and the Government has pledged to protect our natural landscapes would be a big backward step,”

This latest friction over CAP reform comes in the same week as Defra chief Caroline Spelman’s admission that the government’s plans mean that farmers will eventually have to survive without subsidies. Speaking at the NFU annual conference, Spelman said, "With finance ministers trying to balance their nation's books, there's bound to be downward pressure on the Cap budget. A time is coming – but we don't know how soon – when levels of subvention we have to today will not be required."  

Environment Select Committee demands

The MPs of the Environmental Select Committees’ demands to Ministers call upon them to:

• Publish a strategy for the uplands that sets out a clear action plan with practical measures to be implemented immediately
• Provide strong leadership across all Government departments to make sure that rural and upland communities get a fair deal
• Create a statutory definition of the uplands to assist the Government in targeting policy
• Make sure that all farmers and rural communities can get access to development grants once RDAs have been abolished
• Work across Government to put in place policies that support those that live and work in the uplands, in particular rolling out super-fast broadband for remote rural communities and increasing the availability of affordable housing
• Give National Parks a statutory duty to do more to encourage social and economic development