10 Minutes 17 Seconds, 22mb
The example of the Fell Farming Trainees project illustrates how action led by the reality of people’s needs contributes to pioneering new ways of creating employment opportunities for young people and replenish the hill farming population.
One of the biggest concerns for the hill farming community in and around the English Lake District is "where are the hill farmers of the future going to come from?”. Some young people still want to be hill farmers but it is hard for them to get a foot on the ladder unless they have a farm to take over. Currently there are almost no small hill farms to rent, land and local houses are unaffordable, hill farm incomes are falling as production subsidies are replaced by the Single Farm Payment and the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001 exposed the sector’s vulnerability to outside shocks.
Responding to this concern the Fells and Dales LEADER + programme developed The Fell Farming Trainees Project in 2004. Six clusters of farmers each took a local young person under their wing and trained and mentored them through direct work experience on their farms for eighteen months. In return the farmers benefited from the young peoples’ energy, motivation and hard work. The trainees were also given business training and support to set up as self employed skilled livestock contractors. Two and a half years later all are still successfully trading.
For example, one ex-trainee maintains a portfolio of work with his original farmer group as well as having new customers. He is regarded as an important resource and part of the local farming community and he recently managed to rent a housing association flat in the centre of his area. Life is not perfect though, his rent is steep at £100 per week and he does not have anywhere to keep his sheep dogs and other essential equipment. One of his farmer clients has stepped in to provide him with dog kennels and a small shed, but it would be handier if they were on his doorstep.
The project has worked in ways to encourage initiative, self help and mutual help from local farmers and the trainees. It has fostered action led by the reality of people’s needs and not the needs of those in charge of the resources. The whole process has enabled the trainees and farmers to develop skills and increased confidence that may open up avenues for future collective activity to ensure that hill farming continues into the future.
