Farming in the Uplands - ARCHIVE: Defra

Ev 26 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence
10 November 2010 Dr Andrew Clark, Will Cockbain, William Worsley and Professor Allan Buckwell
are built to a standard—they can work. In the village
in North Yorkshire where I live I was involved 20
years ago in the building of some affordable houses.
The great thing about them is that they are in the
village and nobody knows they are affordable
housing.
Chair: I have seen it.
Will Cockbain: On flexibility to allow development
on a farm, where it is to be a house in return for
that flexibility I think there would have to be some
conditions. We do not want to see the system abused,
but it should not be beyond the wit of man—I do not
think the conditions should apply for ever and a day—
to provide that, in return for that flexibility, for a
sensible period that house cannot be flogged off—I
nearly said “to the nearest banker with a large
bonus”—because that would be an abuse and would
not solve the problems we are talking about. There
should be proper conditions for a reasonable length
of time.
Q113 Amber Rudd: Given the many differences
between the regional aspects of the uplands, do you
think a national strategy is appropriate?
Dr Clark: Perhaps I may start off and then Will may
say a bit more because he has been round many of the
uplands already. Our view is that we really do not
need another strategy. We have stacks of strategies
already out there. We look forward to the work that
Defra are doing, but we hope that it will be a
confidence-building coherent policy statement—
period. Let’s get on with some action after that. The
last thing we need is another consultation period, a
pseudo-White Paper, steering groups and that sort of
thing. We need confidence building so we feel there
is genuine commitment to look at upland areas in a
coherent way and see food production as part of the
recipe for those upland areas. As to regional changes,
Will has been round many upland areas.
Will Cockbain: I think that if we had the coherent
policy we talked about at the start, which recognises
food production and environmental management and
did not set one off against the other, that could filter
down to other agencies: Natural England and national
parks. In my trips around the English uplands, if you
like, on the whole the national parks are reasonably
supportive but they do not all see eye to eye; there
are differences of opinion on the importance of food
production as opposed to environmental management
or eco-system services. What is required is that Defra
produce a coherent policy that makes sense to all
those farming in the uplands and that filters down to
other agencies rather than trying to develop another
strategy.
William Worsley: We hope this will emerge from the
CRC report and the work of this Committee. We
would like to see Defra pull this together and agree a
strategy and then get on with implementing it. We
would hate to see yet another talking shop.
Effectively, the work has been done by the CRC and
we want to get on with it.
Q114 Amber Rudd: What do you think would be the
most important aspect of this coherent policy to have
sustainable communities in the uplands?
William Worsley: There are four things in particular.
First, we need changes in the planning system, as I
have already alluded to; we need to enable rural
economic diversification; we need to provide
affordable housing; we need to develop the rural
infrastructure, especially adequate broadband
capacity, which is something on which the CLA have
been lobbying very hard for quite a long time, with
some success I am pleased to say. It is also very
important to focus on medium and small-sized
abattoirs. We would like to see a framework to bring
new financial support to the uplands for carbon and
water management and some form of banking
structure; we also need to argue strongly to defend the
CAP and payments to support these farmers.
Dr Clark: From our point of view, first the statement
itself will be important in indicating there is
confidence and understanding. Secondly, we have
already talked about succession. Facilitation of
succession is incredibly important and the planning
system and national park authorities have a role to
play because of their importance in upland areas. We
think that the recommendation that came out of CRC
in terms of the demonstration farm network that helps
to improve knowledge transfer and research so we can
farm in novel and productive ways is a good bit of
the puzzle to maximise food production. You can then
move into some quick wins.
Q115 Amber Rudd: Dr Clark, the NFU’s
memorandum said that a national strategy should
consider the short-term actions required to address the
immediate challenges faced in the uplands. What
short-term actions have you identified?
Dr Clark: We are thinking of things like listening to
people, as we mentioned earlier. We think it would be
a good idea to establish a national hill-farming panel,
where ministers would be engaged with the farming
community—we would also like them to be engaged
with the NFU—and would talk, listen and understand
and see what it feels like.
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Q116 Amber Rudd: There is no danger of it being
the talking shop you described earlier?
Dr Clark: We have talked about upland demonstration
farms, a network of demonstration farms that pick up
rural development and use RDR funding and some of
the knowledge transfer, technology strategy board
type of activity. We have talked about home on the
farm, which helps with succession. CLG could deliver
an immediate policy change on that and enable some
of that building work to start for investment in the
next generation. We then have a series of ideas around
the upland entry level scheme and facilitating entry
for those on commons and tenant farmers where you
need a bit of extra work rather than simply saying,
“Here’s a scheme. Get on with it.” We need to oil the
wheels and perhaps use some of the people out there
better than we do currently.
I have already mentioned LFA reclassification. I want
to see Defra identifying the criteria needed to define
upland areas and less favoured areas where there is a
natural handicap, as the Commission are talking about
them, and making sure they are suited to the UK
climate, not just a central European one which is the