Government plans are 'ripping the heart out of valued rural communities'
Highly protected upland areas such as the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors and the Peak District and the communities they are home to, would be irreversibly damaged if government plans to focus farming on the most productive land go ahead, the President of the National Farmers Union has claimed.
Tom Bradshaw told Country Post that Environment Secretary Steve Reed’s revamp of post-Brexit farming subsidies and a new land use masterplan would also undermine the entire farming system and lead to radical changes to some of Britain’s most loved landscapes.
Mr Bradshaw was speaking during a visit to James Mills’ 200-hectare farm a Appleton Roebuck, near York, days after Mr Reed told the Groundswell farming conference that “it would seem odd” if farming budgets were allocated in the least productive areas.
He said his revised land use framework aimed to take some of the least productive land out of our food production, while supporting the more productive land to increase production, to make more space for nature to thrive.
Mr Reed said: “Restoring nature is central to the Government’s approach.
"In the Spending Review, we committed to spending £2.7 billion a year on sustainable farming and nature’s recovery over the next three years. This is the biggest financial investment in nature-friendly farming in our country’s history.
“We have a limited amount of land in this country for the many demands we make of it, for food production, for housing, for energy and for nature, and we need to make sure that we are using them optimally for all of those outcomes.”
He emphasised that communities would be supported through the transition.
Mr Mills said his mixed farming operation was reliant on sheep from the Yorkshire Dales and that the government did not appear to understand how interconnected upland and lowland farms were.
Mr Bradshaw said: “We know the uplands can produce food, but it does so much more than food.
"It’s also wildlife, it’s carbon capture, it’s the people, it’s the heritage and culture, and without those rural businesses that are producing a critical element of food production for the lowlands, they will rip the heart out of those communities.
“There would be a Highland clearance. You would lose the people.
"If you don’t have the people, you don’t have the village school, you lose the village shop, you don’t have the pub. And suddenly the whole of the heart of that community is gone.”
Mr Bradshaw said taking less productive land out of production would undermine the resilience of the food system.
He said: “The management of the upland landscapes are valued by so many people, that’s why they go and visit these national parks. They are not natural environments; they are managed environments. Take the livestock out of there, it won’t look the same.”
The union leader pointed towards moorland wildfires being put out by the commoners. He added: “If you don’t have those people at the heart of communities, what happens next time?
Mr Bradshaw said that while many people regarded the government's relationship with the farming sector as ‘broken’, the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review had been better than expected, but remained insufficient to deliver legislative environmental targets.
He said that with increasingly volatile weather, it would be necessary to build resilient farming systems, which would be difficult without a consistent policy framework.