Vision for uplands should focus on livestock say TFA

The Tenant Farmers Association has joined with the Livestock Auctioneers Association to host meetings focusing on the relationship between livestock and the uplands.

Both associations recognise that grazing livestock and its marketing systems are vital to the future of the uplands and more should be done to ensure its sustainability.

"With Natural England having abandoned its ill-conceived and unpopular vision for the uplands these meetings could not be taking place at a better time. We need a new vision for the uplands which is led by those with the true knowledge of the uplands - farmers, land managers, auctioneers and the local communities" said TFA National Chairman Jeremy Walker.

"The TFA advocates that farming in hill areas provides the most reliable and coherent basis upon which the management of our most beautiful and yet fragile landscapes and ecology will be sustained. The knowledge contained within the farming community in hill areas is invaluable and must be the primary source for new policy development," said Walker.

He went on to say that the hill areas have been badly affected by a number of shifts in policy.

Reward structures, the most significant of which was the introduction of the Single Payment Scheme in 2005, ended payments on breeding livestock rendering those enterprises in difficulty and now in decline.

"It is also vital to ensure that any support payments go to those farming the land rather than those who own it and bear none of the entrepreneurial risk" he said.