There is a letter in today’s Farmers Weekly by Phil Stocker of the National Sheep Association about how the sheep sector could be seriously affected by a hard Brexit and the loss of subsidies.
There can’t be a hill-farmer in the country who is not deeply worried
Last year the NSA published a document about sheep in the uplands – I don’t agree with all of it but it is good and worth a read – download it here.
To be honest I think a “hard Brexit” or indeed a “soft Brexit” mean that UK farming will die.
I can’t get my head around how it got to this and I guess I can’t believe it will happen …..
The Uplands are the jewel in UK Farming crown when properly managed by farmers for Stock,
From: Geoff Eyre
Date: 12 January 2017 at 22:37:05 GMT
To: Fairfax Luxmoore
Subject: Re: [New post] The problem with Purple Moor Grass…. Molinia
Dear Fairfax
Fairfax
Since my 11th Feb E-mail 2016
Last year I had valuable dialogue with the heads of Natural England including their chief scientist about my restoration work (several visits) and recently a NE employee is studying the 5000 acres (molinia /bracken/nardus) I did in the Peak District since 1989 (mostly undocumented), my advice / input across the Northern /Scottish moors has seen over 100,000 acres improved mostly on undocumented private moors. I must say that Prof Chambers and Prof Marrs acknowledge my practical work, I very much prefer hands on work,watch results and then adjust to improve what is desired (if we ever know in todays ever changing enviro world what that is) , I suppose I should write a book,that would have to be used in references, I did start once but soon got bored. Never turned down a visit from interested parties so Adrian Colston would be more than welcome if he is ever in my area.
Since your visit my methods have advanced and truly think once we Brexit the uplands should be farmed better alongside increasing wildlife diverse habitats, the GWCT farm cluster approach seems a positive step that should attract major funding for audited targets .(take back control) We can really increase food production from our upland farmed landscape the public love, we just need a Government that realise there could be a future potential exportable meat surplus and could soon be hunting out purchasers across the world, wealth is created from the land /sea be it in food /timber/minerals/fish we can make better use of our upland jewel that takes up over half the landscape,Swiss farmers are supported by their public because of their farmed attractive landscape.
Best for the New Year
Geoff