OPINION: Opportunities limited in the uplands

We need to encourage more young people into farming. This has been a theme of ministers, Prince Charles, and virtually everyone else across the industry in recent times.

A similar call was made by speaker after speaker at the recent Northern Farming Conference at Hexham Mart. I suspect part of this arose from trying to be welcoming to the extremely smartly turned-out contingent of students from Askham Bryan, because it wasn’t clear how this was going to happen.

The good news from the conference was that there are plenty of agricultural sectors where enterprising farmers have good prospects despite the impending decline in subsidies.

The two arable farmers who spoke stressed how investing in technology was key to their operations. Of course, scale was essential as well. One speaker is currently farming 3,300ha, largely through share farming in, I think he said, 19 different businesses, employing a workforce of nine. He doesn’t get a share of the SFP in these joint ventures and he is still able to make it pay.

He outlined all sorts of impressive technical stuff to do with soil testing, GPS, using enormous kit and generating his own electricity. But I couldn’t get over those initial figures – what presumably used to be 19 different units are now farmed with nine employees.

That’s the thing. You don’t have to be Mystic Meg to predict that the future of the industry is in larger units operated by fewer people requiring higher investment. This all results in greater barriers to entry and it does beg the question: where do the new entrants come in, other than in a driving the tractor or in a consultant capacity?

Share-farming has been identified as a possible way in for new blood. But imagine you are a landowner and you decide to enter a share-farming arrangement. Who are you going to partner with – the guy with the record, the experience and the kit, or someone just trying to get started on their own?

Actually, the consolidation in the industry seems set to continue across all sectors. Even on our upland estate, the most recent farm to become vacant ended up split between two existing tenants rather than being offered to someone new.

Back at the conference, the one sector that did not appear to have much going for it was, unfortunately, my own – hill farming. There was some hint from the minister, George Eustice, that the subsidy was being “pushed uphill”, plus a comment that the uplands would probably end up with a bigger share of a smaller pot – so not any better off. Another speaker, an agricultural economist, made it clear that if we want hill farming to continue for social and environmental reasons, subsidy was needed and justifiable on those grounds. Without access to subsidy, hill farming would be finished.

Not many of the great ideas from the speakers applied to us. I did ask about putting in some red clover, but we can’t because of stewardship restrictions. Diversification opportunities are also limited for us by our landlord’s requirement to have military firing most of the time. Realistically, the most remunerative point in our profit improvement plan is likely to be “wife to earn more”.

So, while lack of opportunity is a problem for new entrants throughout farming, the poor quality of prospects in the uplands can’t be great for attracting young people into the sector either.

Read more from all our columinsts

 

See more