Preparing for a future of upland maintenance workers

WHO will maintain the sprawling upland hills of the Lake District when the current farmers are gone is one of the major concerns at the heart of a proposed year-long pilot study to be discussed next week.

The Lake District National Park Authority is expected to back the launch of the year-long project, which is aimed at strengthening its links with upland hill farms and safeguarding the generations-old practice.

Members due to meet at the LDNPA offices next Tuesday, have been recommended to back the £130,000 scheme.

One of the fundamental reasons it has been suggested is because of concern by the National Trust about the likelihood of attracting competent future hill farm tenants to their Lake District farms.

The LDNPA's says that it has long been part of its management plan to work with farmers to promote responsible use of the countryside, assist with the repair of damage caused by visitors, managing rights of way and maintaining way marking, assisting with conservation works and helping to produce local products.

The new pilot scheme, called the Fell Farming Futures Experiment, will involve the recruitment of eight trainees to work for a year in order to gain a wide range of skills on farms, ranging from animal husbandry, hill farming and countryside management.

The trainees would work under the management of a part-time project supervisor and be deployed across around 40 farms to learn a programme of work which reflects the full range of skills and knowledge needed in the hill farming environment.

Six of the farms would be within the National Park, one on the Orton, Tebay and Howgill fells and one on the Pennines between Stainmore and Mallerstang.

It is also hoped that the project will result in a wider range of work-experience, training opportunities and a better idea of what skills are needed to cover the future needs of the hill farming sector to plan for the future.

In a report to members, head of park management Bob Cartwright said the LDNPA had already identified the difficulty of "maintaining the fabric of traditional agriculture in its area" and that other organisations had expressed concern that hill farms are not being succeeded by new generations of farmers, and there are labour and skills shortages.

The cost of the project is expected to be met by 50 per cent of European funding, 20 per cent through Defra match funding, 20 per cent from the LDNPA and 10 per cent from the farming community, either in cash for the services of trainees or contributions in management time.

But Mr Cartwright warned that the project could not last beyond a year without "substantial" public subsidy.

January 17, 2003 10:32