The National Park is to host a series of workshops to help advise Defra on changes to farm incomes

Ten workshops, which will be held across the North York Moors National Park, will bring together farmers and land managers in the hope of increasing understanding about how their incomes may change as the Basic Payment Scheme is phased out and new opportunities are cultivated.

Since 2019, the North York Moors National Park Authority has been working with Defra to help inform the design of the Environment Land Management (ELM) scheme and investigate the potential for farmers to tap into other, private sources of finance.

At the heart of this Test and Trials project is the concept that farmers should be paid to manage their land for the delivery of environmental goods, as well as for producing quality food. In addition to receiving payments from government, there are opportunities for private finance to support schemes such as carbon storage, tree planting, natural flood management or water quality improvements.

Rebecca Thompson, Head of Farming and Land Management at the North York Moors National Park Authority, explained: “Farmers and land managers in the North York Moors National Park are in the ideal place to deliver these public goods, but it’s also true that farms in this area are typically only 150-200 acres in size. This means individual businesses are not necessarily able to achieve environmental and biodiversity gains at a scale that will attract private sector funding. To work around this, farmers and land managers are likely to have to pull together to change land use and achieve nature recovery across much bigger areas, in order to see financial returns at a farm level.

“The upcoming workshops will help us model how payments for carbon storage and other public goods will impact individual farm incomes, and we will feed this learning back to Defra to help shape their policies relating to Environmental Land Management.”

The workshops will last for approximately two hours and are limited to 10 farmers at each event. They are set to take place in late May and early June at the following locations:

Wednesday, May, 24 - Helmsley

Thursday, May, 25 - Guisborough

Thursday,May 25, Whitby

Friday, May 26 - Helmsley

Wednesday, May, 31 - Danby

Thursday, June 1– Cloughton

Friday, June 2 – Pickering.

If you are interested in participating or if you have any questions relating to the project, you can contact Rebecca by email on R.Thompson@northyorkmoors.org.uk , or call 01439 772517.