A year ago, Kilnsey Show was the launch-pad for a campaign to save hill farming. This year's show is now on the horizon and both government and opposition have been working on what can be done.

Alastair Davy, chairman of the campaign Food and Farming 4 REAL, said that in terms of public consciousness of the problems faced by hill farmers the campaign had been a success.

He said city dwellers were now more aware of the part the hills play in the UK's beef and sheep industries – and the importance of farming to the landscape and local economies, but he said political progress had so far been painfully slow in comparison.

The £23m budget for Hill Farm Allowance will be switched into a fund which pays for maintenance of heather moors and drystone walls and stiles.

Assuming the same people get roughly the same money, £10-£30 a hectare, it will mean about £40 a week on average.

Provided this autumn's markets are not disrupted by Bluetongue, this small subsidy, on top of improved earnings, will keep most farmers scratching along in the hope things change.

However, it will not be enough to make up for the loss of the standard Single Farm Payment, in year-on-year lumps up to 2012.

James Paice, farming spokesman for the Tories, told the Yorkshire Post in February that he was still working on a solution for the hills. This week, he said he hoped he would have something to say before the end of the summer show season, but couldn't go into detail.

It is thought he is working on a system for maintaining a sensible density of livestock. The challenge is to come up with a way of encouraging productivity without encouraging over-grazing.

The Lib Dems are also looking at how to pay farmers for producing food, not just minding the gorse.

Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, used to be in their shadow Defra team but dropped out in a row over the party line on Europe.

He remains chairman of the all-party committee on hill farming and an influential voice in the Lib Dems' discussions on rural affairs.

He said: "Hill Farm Allowance is only enough to keep people in a state of miserable subsistence. What the farmers need is proper prices for their products – fair trade at home as well as abroad."

He believes the answer is a watchdog with enough bite to make the supermarkets pay up as required.

This, he admits, is "interventionist" and European and World trade agreements are still broadly against it.

"But it's the job of politicians to find a way to correct the wrongs of the market," he said.

Labour MPs have been discussing ideas like it in the hill farming committee, which Mr Farron says has become quite a lively body under pressure.

"If it was not for that committee," he says, "Hill Farming Allowance would already have gone, two years ago."

The NFU's uplands spokesman, William Cockbain, a farmer near Kendal, said negotiations were going reasonably well, thanks partly to the attention focused on them.

He said: "What the whole livestock industry could really do with is a commitment from ministries like Defence to buy British. Ministers talk about it favourably but then nothing happens."

Kilnsey Show is on Tuesday, August 26. See kilnseyshow.co.uk