SENIOR Defra officials were urged to provide more support to upland farmers during a meeting at Westmorland County Show.

NFU members highlighted the financial losses of more than £10m in support to upland farmers in the Lake District as a result of changes from the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) to Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs).

Farmers met Defra farming and countryside director Janet Hughes, Paul Caldwell, chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency and Tamara Finkelstein, permanent secretary at Defra at the show in Cumbria, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday last week.

NFU deputy president David Exwood said: “It was alarming to report that our upland farmers here in the Lake District have seen direct payments reduce by more than £10million in income – that’s just in one year, as there are very limited opportunities to access new ELM schemes. This is vital money that is not going back into the local economy and also caring for the environment.

“While NFU campaigning has led to positive increases in the number of options available for upland farmers under Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), there still remains challenges about how hill farming businesses will be profitable through this transition period and what is Defra’s long term vision for Lake District farmers.”

The NFU is calling on a mechanism to allow farmers with existing environmental schemes, such as Higher Level Schemes (HLS) or Higher Tier Countryside agreements, to transfer over into these new schemes so they can work better for their farm. This is why the NFU is asking for an uplift in HLS payments to help close the funding gap and prevent those who have been pro-active in engaging in agri-environmental schemes from being penalised.

Many farmers have existing agreements which come to an end in December 2024. At present there is no opportunity for them to start applying for a new agreement; farmers can only apply for a new scheme when the old one expires.

The meeting came as Environment Secretary Steve Reed declined to say whether farmers will lose out on £130m of funding which the previous government failed to spend in 2023/24.