Dales Park wants greener subsidies


13 December 2001



Dales Park wants greener subsidies

By FWi staff

A NATIONAL park authority is asking the government for more farm subsidy money to be directed towards environmentally-friendly practices.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority wants subsidies to support activities such as organic farming, which it says support conservation of the land.

In its submission to Sir Don Currys food and farming policy commission, the authority says production-based subsidies have failed the environment.

They have helped push farmers into more intensive use of grassland and the greater use of fertilisers, it says.

This has done little to protect or improve the environment of the national park, the authority has told the policy commission.

The authority has called for farmers who take a “holistic” approach to their holdings to be rewarded.

It says farmers who invest in woodlands, improve wildlife habitats or provide access to the countryside should receive a greater share of farm subsidies.

“Foot-and-mouth disease has made everyone stop and think about how we farm the countryside,” authority chief executive David Butterworth said.

“If the government adopts this thinking we will see more of the 3.1 billion a year in subsidies going to Dales farmers to deliver conservation improvements.”

“Those who are farming in a less intensive way, and who invest in the landscape of the national park, should be encouraged and rewarded.

“It is the public that pay the subsidies and, more than ever, they want that money used to improve the rural environment rather than destroy it.”

He points out that the economic value of the national parks landscape is far greater than the value of farm produce because of the tourists it attracts.

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