FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR HILL FARMING

Hill farming has been supported financially for social as well as economic reasons since the late 1940s. Today, hill farmers receive a combination of payments including Single Farm Payment, environmental scheme payments and the Hill Farm Allowance.  All these payments are in the process of change.

The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2005 resulted in the end of production-based support and farmers no longer get subsidies for the numbers of sheep and cattle they produce.  Instead, the new Single Farm Payment system pays per hectare rather than per head of livestock and for many hill farmers the change represents a significant fall in income.

A National Trust survey of 60 of their tenanted hill farms indicated an average 40% loss of subsidy income by 2012 (“Impact of Common Agricultural Policy Reform on the English Uplands” 2006).

 

There are a number of different environmental schemes in operation and again the system has recently been changed. The old Countryside Stewardship and Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) schemes have been merged into Entry Level Stewardship and Higher Level Stewardship but existing ten year agreements are still running under the old schemes. The new schemes give farmers outside the ESA areas a chance to qualify for environmental support.  However, payments under the new Stewardship schemes are different and in some cases lower than the old ESA schemes.

The Hill Farm Allowance is an area payment to beef and sheep producers farming land in the Severely Disadvantaged Area. It recognises the difficulties that farmers face in these regions and the vital role that they play in delivering the landscape and environmental benefits of England’s uplands. This again used to be paid per head of livestock rather than per area and the new system has resulted in many farmers with moorland losing financially as the payment rates are lower for this type of land.

How these changes will affect farming in the fells in the long term is far from clear.

In the 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic there were major losses of fell sheep throughout the Lake District, on the east fellside of the Pennines and on the Howgill fells. Since then, the majority of farmers have been rebuilding their Swaledale, Rough Fell and Herdwick flocks. However, in recent years, sheep numbers on the fells have been cut under various agri-environment schemes. This has raised concerns that (together with Foot and Mouth losses) this might lead to a breakdown of the heafing system, which depends on there being adequate numbers of sheep on the fells.