MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has urged the Government to improve proposed support levels for Britain’s upland farmers. He says the current provisions in the Environmental Land Management Schemes do not offer enough to ensure hill farming can remain sufficiently profitable.

The Bridgwater and West Somerset MP outlined his concerns this week at a meeting with Defra Secretary Thérèse Coffey, warning that the Government appeared to be ignoring the ‘special case’ status awarded to hill farms for the best part of a century.

“The ELMS programme quite rightly offers farmers support in return for delivering environmental improvements, a strategy that few people could argue with,” he said.

“My concern is that farmers on the uplands are already living in areas of high environmental value so the chances of achieving any further uplift are very limited indeed.

“Since the 1930s it has been recognised that if we are to keep hill farmers in business on poor, thin soils and in harsh climates then they must receive exceptional levels of support.

“That support continued through the Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances and Environmentally Sensitive Area agreements and the special status of upland farming was also recognised under former European support mechanisms.

“Failure to safeguard hill farms will eventually lead to the loss of a huge and invaluable branch of the livestock industry with far-reaching consequences for the rest of the sector and UK farming in general.

 “Neither should we underestimate the contribution hill farmers make to the tourism industry through maintaining - often unpaid - our finest wild landscapes for the benefit of millions of visitors every year.

“The country’s uplands are a priceless asset. So are are those who farm them - and they deserve a far better deal from the Government than the one currently on the table.”