£100,000 lottery grant for Peakland Farmers Group
Farmers in the Derbyshire Peak District are set to benefit from a £100,000 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, to help them deliver environmental improvements alongside their farming activities.
The money has actually been granted to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) to support the development of the Peakland Environmental Farmers group.
See also: How upland farmers are pooling resources to plug funding gap
This group was unveiled in 2023 and currently comprises 77 farmers and land managers covering 40,000ha in the Dark Peak and South West Peak areas.
With direct payments to farmers on the way out, this new co-operative aims to secure both public and private money to support its members with nature recovery, peatland restoration, clean water delivery and achieving “net zero” carbon emissions by 2040.
Specifically, the lottery money will enable Peakland Environmental Farmers to attain a formal, legal standing, carry out baseline environmental surveys from which future gains can be measured, and develop landscape-scale conservation plans.
For example, it hopes to access money from Defra’s various Environmental Land Management schemes to fund large-scale dry stone wall building, peatland restoration and the planting of new networks of hedges.
Some farmers within the group have already embarked on a major hedge-planting project, with 31,000 plants recently distributed to members as part of a project to create 24km of new hedges in four years.
“These new hedges will capture carbon, help prevent sediment run-off polluting river systems, and benefit a wide range of wildlife including threatened farmland birds,” said project co-ordinator Chloe Palmer.
“Further ahead, we are looking forward to engaging the wider Peak District community in initiatives to restore stone walls and moorland.”