Farming in the Uplands - ARCHIVE: Defra

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev 55
8.8 Firstly, since the UELS requires participants to sign up for a five-year term, there will be many tenants
either on short term agreements for less than five years, or on longer agreements which now have less than
five years to run, who will not be able to access the scheme without their landlord’s consent. In a significant
number of cases, landlord’s consent will not be easy to obtain. The TFA is gravely concerned that these
individuals will be disenfranchised from the new scheme and will therefore experience a significant drop in
their income in comparison to what they were able to achieve under HFA or HLCA.
8.9 Secondly, we are also concerned about those situations where the ELS agreement has been taken out
by someone other than the farm tenant. For example, many landlords in upland areas have applied for and
been accepted into ELS. In these cases it will be up to the landowner concerned to decide whether or not to
take part in UELS to the exclusion of the tenant.
8.10 UELS has many drawbacks which will impact negatively upon its ability to meet its stated
objectives. Along side the problems for the tenanted sector identified, at its core, it fails to address the real
need of finding a mechanism which will sustain ruminant grazing in upland areas for the wide range of
benefits that such management brings.
8.11 The TFA believes that we need a fundamental review of the decision which led to the abandonment
of payments for breeding livestock and the development of a new scheme for the long-term which will deliver
an integrated upland environmental land management reward package with stock rearing at its core.
Supplementary written evidence from the Tenant Farmers Association
1. Introduction
1.1 The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) provided written evidence to the Select Committee for its
Inquiry into Farming in the Uplands on 7 October 2010 and subsequently appeared before the Select
Committee to provide it with oral evidence on 10 November 2010. The Select Committee then wrote to the
TFA on 17 November 2010 to ask for clarification on a number of points discussed during the oral evidence
session. This Supplementary Evidence provides the Select Committee with clarification on the points raised
in its 17 November 2010 letter.
2. Could you circulate information to the Committee on REEDnet, and also provide us with more detail on the
sort of financial backing from Defra that you are looking for the Harper Adams uplands training scheme?
2.1 From the work carried out by Mike Keeble in the northern counties of England for the Red Meat
Industry Forum (RMIF) established following the Curry Commission on Farming and Food, it became
quite clear that balanced production of red meat had to be revitalised and made more sustainable if upland
farming, the landscape and the ecology were to remain intact. Current environmental and farm support
policies are not working and there has been no significant research or development targeted at improving
livestock genetics, pastoral improvement and management practice.
2.2 Concurrently with the above work Mike Keeble also became involved in looking at the needs of
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young people in the uplands in terms of education and opportunity with the latter being of particular
concern to the TFA bearing in mind the high proportion of upland holdings which are tenanted. The
potential ending of the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) in the future is a red light for upland farmers as very
few will survive without it and with the probability that future support will be increasingly based on public
goods and not food production the need for a rethinking of production management has to be a high priority.
2.3 There are a few upland farmers who are profitable without consideration of the SPS. They are using
diVerent genetics from traditional practice, carrying out basic pasture improvement and maximising upland
output by working with low ground farmers who provide winter keep and accommodation for breeding
cows allowing hill stocking to be increased. The rewards for this are much lower costs of production on the
upland farm and increased access to natural fertility for the arable farm in the face of rising fertiliser costs.
Added to this there is a consequent rise in ground nesting birds in the hills as a result of stopping grass
conservation.
2.4 So from this it can be seen that we have some cutting edge farmers who can demonstrate their farming
methods, we have a resource of well educated young people from upland communities who, on leaving
college, do not return to the hills and in 2014 we potentially face a new financial situation. Since the outbreak
of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in 2001 a number of training schemes have been set up in upland areas
which concentrate on skills such as stone walls, tractor driving, shearing and so on. The outcome is that
there are a good number of skilled young people available to work on livestock farms who need employment
that will keep them there.
2.5 Unlike some options, upland farming requires a lot of capital invested in an enterprise with a very
slow turnover and low return on capital making it diYcult for most young people to farm on their own in
the hills. It is almost certain however that upland farm size will increase and that management will change