Farming in the Uplands - ARCHIVE: Defra

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Ev 10 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence 27 October 2010 Dr Stuart Burgess and Professor Mark Shucksmith Stuart Burgess: Absolutely. I’ve spent many hours with many farmers down there, on this very issue. I think one has to be a little wary of some local knowledge. On the other hand, it’s not just about local knowledge; it’s also local wisdom. Wisdom is, I think, quite different from knowledge, and it is the wisdom and experience coming out of some of those farmers down in Devon and down in the South West, which they feel and I also felt was not really being recognised in the places that it should be. I resonate exactly with what we’ve said. Professor Shucksmith: Could I point you to the bottom of page 93, top of page 94, in our report, which deals with these and provides some quotes on these points? Q38 Neil Parish: Can I ask you one that’s sort of linked, I think, to stocking rates? Did you look at all— probably you didn’t—to Wales and Scotland? The reason I ask you this question—it’s a loaded one—is that the system of payment, as you well know, moved from being on per sheep, per suckler cow, and all went into the Single Farm Payment. The Welsh farmers and the Scottish farmers were paid on a historic basis, whereas the English farmers have this complicated system of seriously disadvantaged, non-seriously disadvantaged and Moorland Line, and so the farmers, in a way, have not only lost out through perhaps Hill Farm payment, but they’re also losing out on stocking rate through this spreading of the payment. I think that needs to be looked at again. Of course, you talk about further reform of CAP, but did you look at something called Article 68? Stuart Burgess: We did. Q39 Neil Parish: What’s your conclusion? Stuart Burgess: We did, but can I just make a comment about Wales and Scotland? We have to be pretty careful here, because we’re only concerned for England. On the other hand, we went into the borderland around Herefordshire, for example, and we also had papers coming out of Wales. Mark did the crofting report up in Scotland, so we were well connected from that point of view, but we have to be a little careful, as I’m sure you would very much appreciate. Mark will probably fill in. Professor Shucksmith: I’m not sure that I can immediately give you chapter and verse on Article 68. It’s a while since I looked at that. It was one of the possibilities, as I’m trying to recall. That’s one of the possibilities where you can top slice the Single Farm Payment. I would think that’s worth exploring. Certainly, when I chaired the Commission inquiry into the future of crofting in Scotland, and straying from my CRC hat here, we recommended that Article 68 should be used as a means of trying to support farming in the remote rural areas of Scotland. I can’t speak about Wales but, in Scotland, I have in my possession maps of where the Less Favoured Area payments go in Scotland compared with where the high nature value and the public goods are. They’re not to the same places: the Less Favoured Area payments in Scotland were kept on a historic basis and, as I recall, the formula that decides where they go to was the result of many iterations and applications of the formula, until they got a formula that gave the money to the same people who’d always had it. There’s a real issue there about the targeting of the LFA payments, but that’s not the point you’re making; they have stuck with the historic basis. Q40 Neil Parish: Bluntly, do you consider the Scottish hill farmer is getting a better payment in the end than the English hill farmer is? Professor Shucksmith: It depends very much where they are in Scotland. If they’re in the southern uplands, then probably yes, I guess. I haven’t done the calculation, so it’s a tentative “yes”. If they’re a crofter in some of the areas with the greatest highnature value, certainly not. Q41 Thomas Docherty: Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood this, but at the moment, farmers are told what they are to do very clearly on stocking rates, rather than an approach that says, “This is the outcome we want to achieve and we’ll leave it up to you; give you local flexibility to determine how you would achieve that outcome.” Could I put to you that it might be more effective if the emphasis was shifted, so that it was the latter approach that simply says, “This is the goal. You, as the farmer, would be able to use your local knowledge to decide how to do it”? Stuart Burgess: Absolutely, that is what I support. Professor Shucksmith: We’ve discussed this at length, and we’re all in agreement on that point. Quite apart from being focused on the outcomes and giving greater freedom, responsibility and initiative to farmers—an approach they would almost certainly welcome, so long as the outcome measures were ones that were appropriate—the other great virtue of that method is that it encourages innovation and diversity, so that the likelihood is that different people would try different ways of trying to reach those outcomes. That could be a learning experience, so we might find better ways of doing it. We’re very much in favour of that. EMBARGOED ADVANCE COPY: Not to be published in full, or part, in any form before 00.01am GMT Wednesday 16 February 2011 Q42 Chair: Could I just ask a question linking stocking to the common land? Where the graziers have rights in perpetuity, would you agree that should be continued without interference from the landowner or the landlord, in other respects, who may have other rights on the land? Professor Shucksmith: Indeed, yes. Clearly there are complex issues around trying to negotiate reductions in stocking rates or increases in stocking rates over common land, but we wouldn’t wish to challenge the principle that the rights should remain. Chair: Thank you very much. That was very helpful. Q43 Neil Parish: Research and development in the uplands: what are the key themes that you refer to in your recommendations? You’ve also been talking about ruminants in particular and how to make better use of that. Stuart Burgess: Could we just pause for a moment? Forgive us. Neil Parish: Who should fund it? Should it be Government? Should it be private business?
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev 11 27 October 2010 Dr Stuart Burgess and Professor Mark Shucksmith Professor Shucksmith: These are our recommendations 6.4, 6.5 and so on. These were very much ideas developed by one of our colleagues, Howard Petch, who you may know. He was extremely worried to find that, in his view and I think we all share this view, there was no comparable research and development going on into advancing hill farming, compared with what there had been in lowland farming. One aspect of that would be the fact that there is now no longer an experimental husbandry farm. There used to be the Redesdale Experimental Husbandry Farm. He was worried also that there seems to be no degree-level courses in hill farming in any of the colleges. He felt, and this was confirmed by people who we spoke to, that there was a lack of research and development specifically into hill farming practices and the training of future generations of hill farmers. Stuart Burgess: I’ve been around most of the agricultural colleges in this country, and I know that Howard Petch and others have felt very strongly that one land-based college should take the lead in all this and be particularly concerned with the future of hill farming. I know there has been a lot of concern over the potential loss of Newton Rigg for example, up in Cumbria, because some people had identified that as a way in which a land-based college, set in Cumbria as well, could be used for apprenticeships and training in hill farming. There’s a sense that potential and opportunity could now be lost. We must look for other opportunities, because I think it is about education. It is about the realisation that many young farmers, and I’m very committed to young farmers—I think there are some fantastic people out there—have grasped the idea of a new business acumen, and are really going for it. I come across so many young farmers who want to spend their time up on the hills, which for many people may sound very strange and very odd, but some people are very committed to this. How are we going to facilitate that? How are we going to help that? How are we going to make sure that there is some kind of succession going on in the future? The idea of promoting a land-based agricultural college, which would specialise and put great emphasis upon the training, the resourcing and especially providing apprenticeships, we thought, would be a marvellous opportunity. Q44 Neil Parish: One of the problems, and it goes around and around in circles, is the income of hill farmers is low. You have statistics of £10,000. Farmers and young farmers don’t go into it just for the money. On the other hand, they have to have a living for their families. That’s one of the problems, and it’s probably because colleges aren’t providing the courses because the students aren’t necessarily there. Somehow or other, we have to stimulate that whole thing. Do you have any ideas on that one? Stuart Burgess: I know this is difficult but it can be achieved in areas where some people get the hill farmers to diversify, and many of them have diversified. In the more remote areas of the hill farming community, it’s more difficult to do that. In the not so remote areas in the uplands, diversification has helped enormously, and some of the young farmers are the pioneers in all this also. They diversify only, for example, if they have good broadband access and mobile phone coverage. This facilitates and this helps build up their businesses and so on. Many people in hill farming, yes, are hill farming, but they want to do other things also and they realise that. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg question. On the other hand, what we’ve tried to say in our report is there is huge potential out there, and it’s long-term potential as well as short-term potential or medium-term potential. I say broadband and CAP reform are maybe short term and medium term. Longer term, we’re into carbon storage and water sequestration, which may help fund and maintain those young hill farmers, who we desperately want in the future in England. Q45 Neil Parish: One final point on it: who will pay for the college? How are you going to fund the college? Stuart Burgess: There’s a sense in which many of these agricultural colleges, as people around the room will be aware, have already diversified. For example, you can go to Bishop Burton College near Beverley, which is diversification personified. What they’re saying there is, where they’re making the money, for example in equine, that will subsidise areas to which they find it more difficult to attract students, for example, or provide bursaries. This is part of the total package, rather than saying we can’t possibly do it. There are opportunities and there are ways of doing it. Bishop Burton College is one among many, like Harper Adams, for example, that are really pushing out the boat in very innovative ways. It can be done. Professor Shucksmith: Could I just add that, where there are subjects that are regarded as vitally important to the national interest, and the value assets of the hills and uplands may be in that category, then, it would seem to me, that is the prime case for Government support, and I think that’s accepted by this Government, as it was by the past Government. There’s a question about what are the things that are deemed worthy of support, but I think that’s important to say. EMBARGOED ADVANCE COPY: Not to be published in full, or part, in any form before 00.01am GMT Wednesday 16 February 2011 Q46 Chair: How easy do you think it is for new entrants to come into hill farming and upland farming? In my experience, nearly all the people at the local Askham Bryan College are those who are sons and daughters of farmers, but there are strands and the media do follow some of the good news stories. How easy is it for new entrants to enter into hill farming or upland farming generally? Stuart Burgess: I don’t think it’s particularly easy. We ought to be up front about this. Having said that, and we talked a good deal about this, we need to make hill farming attractive. We have to make farming attractive per se, across the board, for the future, but particularly hill farming, for which we realise there are particular disadvantages. Some people would name it as such, in terms of living in sparse rural communities, for example, without many of the services. On the other hand, what are the great potentials out there? There are many, in terms of the sheer quality of life issues that people have spoken to me about and the innovation that young people are
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