Farming in the Uplands - ARCHIVE: Defra

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.
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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