News & Events

The Uplands Alliance has brought together over 100 hill farmers with Defra staff to explore how farmers can create a brighter future for their businesses and the environment. Farmers were keen to stress how many public benefits they already provide and that with appropriate support they can provide more.  They also reminded Defra that these public benefits are delivered alongside producing high quality food and being the glue of rural communities.

Leaving the EU will result in the biggest change for seventy years in how farmers are supported. No longer will farmers be paid to farm but instead they will be paid to provide public benefits which are not paid for “at the till” including biodiversity, carbon storage, clean water and heritage landscapes. This new scheme is called the Environmental Land Management Scheme. 

The meetings were facilitated by the Uplands Alliance with funding from the Prince’s Countryside Fund. In each of nine areas we brought together 12-20 farmers to meet with Defra staff. Meetings were held in Bodmin, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Shropshire, Peak District, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Durham and the South Pennines. AHDB also attended three of the meetings.

Our report released this week highlights the key findings of these meetings and include:

• Long term schemes (~25 years) would allow business planning and delivery of environmental benefits
• Payment rates need to be sufficient to ensure business viability and should pay for delivery of existing good practice as well as improvements
• There should be a flexible approach to delivery focusing on outcomes not prescriptions
• Forms that can be filled in by the farmer will result in a higher commitment to delivering outcomes
• Local advisors are needed to support application and delivery
• Monitoring and verification of outcomes should be built into the scheme  

The Uplands Alliance continues to be actively working with Defra in developing the ELM scheme and testing new policies and schemes with those who will be delivering them. 

The full report and the meeting notes from each local meeting are available to download below

In March nine hill farmers travelled to London to meet with Defra officials from the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs) team and from the Future Farming Team. We had an excellent day sharing knowledge. Hill farmers explained to Defra the challenges of running their farms in a time of uncertainty and Defra explained how they are developing the ELMs programme and the phasing out of BPS.

The costs of this meeting were met by grant funding from the Prince’s Countryside Fund which lunch kindly provided by Defra. The day was facilitated by Nigel Stone and Simon Thorp.

This meeting is being followed up with meetings planned across the nine upland areas of England where the farmer who came to London will bring together 15-20 farmers to meet with Defra representatives.

The report of the London meeting can be found here:

The Uplands Alliance is hosting three sessions at the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2019. We’ve prepared a short video about what we will be doing – if you’re attending the conference do join our sessions. they will be in the Christopher Room in St Aldate’s staring at 2.30pm on the Thursday 3rd January. We will also be selling our tea towels

The three sessions are:

Each session will have three short presentations then 30 mins for an interactive mini workshop

Details of the ORFC Uplands Sessions. UA-OFRC-Programme 2019

George Eustice, Minister of State for Agriculture has on several occasions referred to the Uplands Alliance. To ensure there is clarity over what we have said to Minister Eustice we publish our letter dated 29th September 2018 to him. In this we stress the need for a backstop to support the upland farming systems that deliver public benefits.

The Uplands Alliance has asked for an amendment to Part 1 of the bill to include explicit inclusion of the words “farming systems” in part 1 that support the deliver of public benefits. Our full Parliamentary Briefing can be read here

The Uplands Alliance Steering Group met on 18th September to discuss the Agriculture Bill published by the Government on 12th September. The first debate in the House of Commons is on 10th October 2018.

We have produced a parliamentary briefing which we are circulating to relevant Ministers, MPs and Peers as well as civil servants. We have also asked for a meeting with George Eustice MP to discuss our concerns and we are already meeting with a range of civil servants to discuss these.

Our Particular Concerns are:

• There is no assurance on funding post 2022. England’s Uplands currently receive ~£230 million each year. As a minimum this total needs to be guaranteed long term to secure and enhance public benefits; those that are not paid for at the till e.g. wildlife, carbon, water, access, landscape.
• The Secretary of State’s speeches have praised upland shepherds but the Bill and Explanatory Notes provide no assurance that the farming systems that deliver our much loved landscapes will be supported. We seek a backstop to secure upland communities’ traditional management systems where they enhance natural and cultural benefits.
• Landscape is not referenced but we know it is beautiful landscapes that primarily draw the 70 million visits to England’s uplands each year.
• The Bill is silent on actively providing financial support to rural communities to grow and diversify; these communities require diverse economies to underpin public benefits
• The Bill fails to acknowledge the complexity of land tenure with multiple players operating on the same piece of land who all can contribute to public benefits

Please do write to your MP and express your views. The more people who care about the uplands write directly the more influence we will have.

If you would like to include a copy of our Briefing including our suggestions for amendments you can download it here:

UA-Parliamentary Briefing-Ag Bill-Oct 2018-FINAL

Details of the Bill and its progress through Parliament can be found here

The Uplands Alliance Steering Group has been working over the last few months with professional comms support to improve understanding around what we are looking for from England’s Uplands. With the support of our Comms Consultants we have produced a Narrative. This is a working draft and will be the basis for comms products for engaging with farmers and other land managers as well as policy makers.

If you have any comments you’d like to share on this please email us on: uplandsalliance@gmail.com

Uplands Alliance Core Narrative-June 2018

The Uplands Alliance has responded to Defra’s consultation called Health and Harmony. Please find our submission below. We continue to work closely with Defra and attended a Defra Uplands’ Roundtable on 3rd May and will be meeting shortly with the Defra team overseeing the future land management scheme.

If you have any comments on the attached please do get in touch with us at: uplandsalliance@gmail.com

Uplands Alliance-health-and-harmony-response

Health & Harmony, the consultation document presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Defra by the command of Her Majesty the Queen was published today 27th February 2018. We all have until 8th May 2018 to respond via Citizen Space. There will also be meetings across the country to engage. The Uplands Alliance will be responding as a network but we also encourage people to respond separately.

After January’s 25 Year Environment Plan whereby the Uplands were notable by their absence this document represents a complete shift. Defra has listened and actively recognised the importance of the uplands to our nation. The work of the Uplands Alliance is also recognised in Annex A, Stakeholder Proposals. Thank you to all who have worked with us over the last two years to deliver a co-ordinated message to Government.

On page 34 Health & Harmony says: