Some of the Westcountry's most
beautiful landscapes could go into decline unless the Government takes
urgent action to prevent the "collapse" of the upland livestock industry,
the National Trust warned yesterday.
In a bleak report, the trust
said that livestock farming in upland areas was facing "rapid and
unmanaged collapse" as a result of controversial government reforms. The
trust, which owns large tracts of land in the Westcountry, said that
recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) would cut livestock
farmers' incomes by half. With many upland livestock farmers already
operating on the margins of viability, the report warned that large
numbers could be forced out of business in the next few years unless the
Government intervened. The report said "urgent action" was needed to
prevent the disappearance of the grazing animals that have shaped
Britain's much loved landscapes.
Fiona Reynolds, director-general
of the National Trust, said: "Farming plays a crucial role in maintaining
the landscape of some of England's most important upland
areas.
"The Government needs to recognise fully the public value of
upland farming which supports wildlife, maintains a rich and varied
landscape, provides access to millions of people and underpins a vibrant
tourism industry.
"Further measures are urgently needed to put
upland farming on a more sustainable footing and avoid chaotic change in
some of our most cherished landscapes."
The warning comes as
farmers begin adjusting to the new financial realities created by reform
of the CAP. In future farm payments will be based on the amount of land a
farmer owns rather than the number of animals he keeps. But hill farmers
will receive substantially lower payments and there are fears that many
will decide to stop keeping livestock, or give up farming altogether -
leaving some of the country's finest landscapes to return to
scrub.
Ian Johnson, spokesman for the South West National Farmers'
Union, said that many upland farmers in the region were already struggling
to cope with poor farmgate prices.
"Hill farmers have fared worse
from the recent changes as a result of arbitrary lines drawn on a map by
civil servants in Whitehall," he said. "There is a lot of hard thinking
going on in the hills about the future and if you add to that mix the
problem of bovine TB it could become all too attractive to throw in the
towel."
Richard Haddock, a South Devon beef farmer and chairman of
the National Farmers' Union's livestock committee, said that without
government intervention livestock numbers would begin to decline
dramatically next year.
"I am very pleased that the National Trust
have woken up to this, it is something we have been warning about for some
time now," he said. "Unless we get a proper package of environmental
payments very soon the suckler cow will not be viable, whether it is in
the hills or in the lowlands. If that happens it will not just be the
landscapes that disappear, it will be the rural economy as well. Farmers
may only be a small part of the economy but the food industry is
huge."
Former agriculture minister Angela Browning said there was a
real risk that the Westcountry's traditional pastoral scenes would
disappear in the next few years.
"It is notable that in Wales and
Scotland where they have large areas of uplands they have gone for a
different system of payments that favours livestock farming. Our
Government chose a system that disadvantages livestock farmers and this is
the result," Mrs Browning, the Tory MP for Tiverton and Honiton,
said.
"In many of these upland areas there is simply no substitute
for grazing by livestock. It is all very well the Government talking about
environmental payments, but you cannot get machinery and equipment up on
to the moors, nor would you want to. You do wonder whether Margaret
Beckett understands all this."
The National Trust study was based
on a survey of tenant farmers in the north of England. The trust's Julian
Lloyd said the issues were much the same for hill farmers in the
Westcountry.
"The transition to help farmers move from the previous
support regime to other forms of land management have not been put in
place," he said. "We are not arguing for the status quo, we recognise that
change could have some environmental benefits. But the opportunity for
environmental benefits and public gain will be lost if the means to
deliver it have fled the hills."
The Lib-Dem environment spokesman
Norman Baker said many farmers believed that ministers were "privately
cheering" as they were forced out of business: "Hill farming is an
integral part of the countryside that we cannot afford to
lose."
Colin Breed, the Lib-Dem's rural affairs spokesman, said
that some change was inevitable, but warned that the changes could have
unforeseen effects: "We could find that problems of overgrazing are
replaced by problems of undergrazing."
A spokesman for the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs dismissed the report's
findings. "It is absolutely wrong to suggest that CAP reform will cause a
collapse of hill farming," he said.
"The single payment scheme and
environmental stewardship will enable farmers to connect directly with
consumers, and put their businesses on a more sustainable footing. It will
remove incentives to over-production and farmers will in general be better
off.
"However, we recognise that mixed grazing can provide
particular environmental benefits, and upland landscapes are among our
most treasured."
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MOORLAND VIEWS COULD BE
TOTALLY DIFFERENT
The Dartmoor known and loved by countless
visitors could soon be dramatically changed as a result of the
change to Single Farm Payments (SFP), it was claimed yesterday. The
warning came from Layland Branfield, who farms near Princetown in
the heart of the moor.