Many hill farmers still missing out in scheme

But Defra says the figure is still improving.

Farmers’ organisations objected at the launch of the Uplands Entry Level Stewardship Scheme that the rules made it hard for a lot of tenants to get into it.

It was designed to reward care of the environment rather than numbers of animals produced and that made it complicated to administer and to qualify for.

It was drawn up by Natural England under the last government and both insisted they wanted as many hill farmers as possible to get the money. But a year after Uplands ELS came into effect, after a huge promotion by Natural England, the TFA has established, through a Parliamentary question, that only 66 per cent of Hill Farm Allowance recipients had transferred at the last count.

TFA chief executive George Dunn said this week: “In some cases it is now the landowner rather than the farmer who is getting the payment. Even when the payments are getting to the farmer, the extra scheme requirements are adding to costs. We need a new scheme which will deliver an integrated upland environmental land management scheme with stock rearing at its core.”

Defra said: “We have been clear that our ambition is for 80 per cent or more of land in the Severely Disadvantaged Area, which includes farmers who previously received Hill Farm Allowance, to be in the Uplands Entry Level Scheme by 2015. We have made a good start on this, with 56 per cent of the SDA in the scheme to date. The figures quoted by the TFA relate to the first 6 months of UELS uptake.

“An analysis of the full first year’s Uplands ELS uptake data will be undertaken shortly and published in the autumn. Uptake increased significantly over the six months from January.”

Defra added some farmers were not eligible for UELS money because they were in conflicting stewardship schemes but were getting transitional payments until they could qualify.