Environment protection payment call

12 November 2008 12:18am

Hill farmers should be paid to protect water quality, wildlife, carbon stores and the landscape, the National Trust has said.

On the 10th anniversary of the purchase by the Trust of the famous 4,000 acre hill farm Hafod y Llan in Snowdonia, Wales, the conservation group said upland farming was set for radical change over the next decade.

Where once farmers concentrated on producing meat, in the future the focus could be on farming in a way that boosts wildlife, helps store carbon or maintains the landscape for the public to enjoy.

Currently, costs of production and falling returns from sales are hitting upland farmers extremely hard, and farms such as Hafod y Llan would make a loss without subsidies.

But in the coming years payments will be linked to how farmland is managed for the benefit of society, the Trust said.

The National Trust said better use of existing funds, as well as new investment, was needed to help farmers protect the uplands' natural resources and landscapes. For example, public money such as flood management funding could be redirected to enable farmers to manage the land to reduce flood risk through restoring natural river courses and flood areas.

Private funding, such as investment by water companies to manage peatlands to prevent pollution at source or money from carbon markets, could also be used to help farmers preserve the uplands.

In England, the current Hill Farm Allowance is being replaced from 2010 with an uplands version of the environmental stewardship payments which reward farmers for managing their land in a way that benefits wildlife and landscape.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Defra has committed to rewarding hill farmers for the environmental and landscape benefits they provide, through the replacement to the Hill Farm Allowance from 2010.

"This is consistent with our wider policy on agriculture and will enable us to target funding to benefit the environment and landscape."

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