Comment

New upland payments are recognition of the valuable environmental work farmers carry out in the hills according to the NFU, which lobbied hard for the addition to the Entry Level Scheme.

The NFU's hill farming spokesman Will Cockbain represented farmers that will be affected when the current Hill Farm Allowance is scrapped and worked with Defra on developing the new Uplands Entry Level Scheme.

"We are pleased the Secretary of State has acknowledged the huge contribution farming makes to the maintenance of our unique uplands landscape," he said. "The fact the future UELS seeks to reward active farmers and land managers and also recognises the importance of grazing animals and the moorlands is vital and is something we have lobbied very hard for.

"This scheme highlights the vast amount of public goods delivered by hill farmers and justifies the payment in a way which can easily be audited. It will also have a minimum stocking rate to help avert under-grazing on some of our most important farming uplands."

However the NFU has some concerns about the new scheme and will work with Defra to ensure it is up and running in time for farmers to move from the current Hill Farm Allowance to the new UELS when it is introduced in 2010.

Mr Cockbain said: "The NFU does have concerns in certain areas such as the compulsory management requirements for entry into the scheme which may not be easily incorporated into all upland farming systems and businesses, and also land on short term lets.

"One of our key objectives is to ensure the scheme allows farmers to evolve their businesses to be more market focused. Hopefully in the next two months, as UELS is tested on a sample of farms in all the upland regions of England, these concerns will be addressed by Defra so we can be confident we have a scheme that is practical and fair to all."

9:17am Wednesday 23rd July 2008

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