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Frank Chislett: We must allow Britain's farmers to be themselves again
THERE has been an immense change in the face of farming since the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) some years back. There was a time when farmers were recognised as just that – farmers and producers of food. Not any more, though.
The word "farmer" has lost its specific meaning and become a generic term for anybody with land. What's worse, this land does not
necessarily have to be productive in an agricultural sense and as a result we are subjugated by government departments to "park-keeper" status providing an environment for the public convenience.
Nowhere is this more evident than Defra's successor to the Hill Farm Allowance (HFA) – the Upland Entry Level Scheme (UELS) – and Natural England's interpretation of it.
My specific grievance about UELS is the requirement for tenants or people with short-term letting arrangements who want to enter the scheme to have a written five-year agreement with the landowner.
Negotiating with a landlord for such an agreement instead of a customary yearly rolling tenancy (grass let) is a tortuous affair and has proved quite impossible, particularly in urban areas.
I am one of a rare breed in that I have created a commercial farm out of accessing redundant scraps of land locally. I cannot help wondering if I am the only one to question the fall-out from CAP reform. I think not. It is my opinion that it would be impossible to do what I did now, given the present Government's attitude to hill farming and hill farm support.
To take just one example: why do landowners of just one hectare and above qualify for the Single Payment Scheme (SFP)? And why does the NFU support such a position when, in my view, this state of affairs has clogged up the support payments of genuine farmers for years?
Small parcels of land that were previously unmapped, so falling beneath Defra's radar, have caused untold problems in this area. It now costs the Government and therefore the taxpayer more than 1,200 to process a claim which may only be for a few pounds on land that yields nothing in terms of food production. And that's a conservative estimate.
I also believe that now landowners have had a slice of the SFP cake, they want more and can see UELS working to their advantage to achieve it. This wasn't the case with the HFA which specifically targeted hill farmers by supporting those who work in inhospitable environments relative to their lowland cousins.
On this basis alone, I will never accept that UELS as it presently
stands is open to and in the interests of all farmers. Neither will I accept that CAP reform as a whole has benefited English farmers – see the French for details.
The way I see it, the result of this approach is that those of us who rely on a timely payment are left frustrated by Defra's incompetence, which, by the way, I think can be placed fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Right Honourable Margaret Beckett MP.
Indeed, Natural England's raison d'tre seems to be to preside over the decline of hill farming and to champion some utopian idea that includes
"re-wilding" (their words not mine) the landscape.
Scant regard is paid to the endeavours of generations of hill farmers who have forged a living out of an unforgiving environment producing food while providing an area of outstanding natural beauty as a by-product (though not a means in itself).
As a member of the NFU Council, I have sought to keep these issues firmly on the agenda. Yorkshire has by far the largest proportion of upland hill farms in the country and those that live and work in "the back of beyond" are deserving of your support. An old NFU strapline was "Keep Britain Farming". I would suggest an addition: "Keep Britain Hill Farming".
Finally, my supreme hope after the General Election is that the word "farmer" regains its original meaning as prescribed in the English Dictionary:
Farm (fahm)n. An area of land together with its buildings, used for growing crops or rearing animals.
Farmer n. A person who runs or owns a farm.
Frank Chislett is a West Riding Council delegate on the National Farmers' Union.
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