Moorland Line to be in ES scheme

Apr 3 2008 by Tom Patterson, The Journal

THE announcement that the Moorland Line will be introduced into Environmental Stewardship from yesterday is good news for both the environment and farmers, the National Farmers Union said.

The decision comes after a long campaign by the NFU and means many farmers in Less Favoured Areas will now be able to choose from an increased range of Environmental Stewardship options. This will lead to increased payments, and more land will be brought under the protection of the scheme. NFU vice president Paul Temple said: “We have been trying to get the Moorland Line included in Environmental Stewardship for some time and are delighted with this news.

“With the loss of the Hill Farm Allowance for farmers with land in the Disadvantaged Area in January, the introduction of the new Moorland Line should enable many of these farmers to access a greater range of options and a greater level of financial reward under Environmental Stewardship to compensate.”

The move follows complaints about a discrepancy between the Moorland Line as the payment boundary for the Single Payment Scheme, and the Less Favoured Area (LFA) boundary used for threshold calculations for Environ- mental Stewardship (ES).

Bringing the Moorland Line into ES means many farmers who had been unable to access the wider range of ES lowland options available to farmers outside the LFA will now have an opportunity for a greater level of reward under ES.

The previous situation had been made worse by an arbitrary definition of moorland relying on field parcels in Less Favoured Areas being of 15 hectares or more, whether these fields were moorland or not.