Regeneration game

Under pressure to make ends meet, many farmers drive their land hard, which can take its toll on the health of the soil. But on their Lakeland hill farm, Sam and Claire Beaumont use less intensive, wildlife-friendly methods to raise livestock - and their earnings, writes Karen Lloyd

It's a warm summer's day in the Lake District. I'm looking across Ullswater's blue surface at the traditionally sheep-grazed eastern fells and walking through fields at Gowbarrow Hall farm with Anne Lloyd and daughter Claire Beaumont. As we walk, swallows and martins hawk overhead and peacock butterflies flit between flowerheads on patches of thistles. On this Lakeland farm, though, there is not a single sheep in sight.

"We are turning hill farming on its head," Claire says. "It's traditional to put the animals on higher ground in summer and bring them down to the in-bye land [near the farm buildings] in winter. But we're putting the cattle and native fell ponies up on the higher land - we call it the Winter Block - to over-winter," she says, pointing uphill.

"They graze in the rough or shelter in the woods and browse vegetation from the trees. The test comes when we see how they have fared come spring. What we are seeing is, the animals are not losing condition."

Hill farmers are a hardworking lot, many of whom favour continuing the traditional way of farming sheep in the uplands. Others - including some farmers and environmentalists - are concerned that the lack of diversity of grazing animals, together with heavily compacted soils, means that the ground is unable to absorb heavy rainfall. Longer grasses and improved soils help the land to cope with extreme weather and to slow down heavy rainfall. Reducing sheep numbers is one way to reverse the pattern.

REFRAMING FARMING

Conservationists, the Government and others say that the end of hill farming subsidies in 2027, an outcome of Brexit, presents an opportunity to deliver greater public goods in the shape of habitats for pollinators, retention of by Gainsborough, albeit with added electric fence.