https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/transcript-farming-in-protected-landscapes-in-the-lake-district/
Transcript: Farming in protected landscapes in the Lake District
Transcript
Jasmine Holliday, Farming Officer, Lake District National Park
I'm Jasmine Holliday. I'm a Farming Officer working closely with farmers to help them deliver projects in the Lake District National Park. I live on a dairy farm. My family's been farming there for 100 years. It's a huge part of my life and it's brilliant to support my community.Farming in Protect Landscapes (FiPL) is for farmers across England in National Parks or AONBs (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty). It started in 2021 and it is running for 3 years. We want to help as many farmers as possible create new and exciting projects on their farm. There are 4 themes: nature, climate, people and place. There's real breadth in what you can do, flexibility to see, okay, which of those themes works for my business?Nature and climate are all about doing even more for nature, improving the landscape for climate resilience, as well as improving habitats for species.The people theme is all about creating opportunities for visitors and local communities on the farm so people can enjoy the beautiful landscapes that farmers work in. Place is all about World Heritage and preserving cultural aspects, traditional buildings and dry stone walls, but also hefting, native breeds, farming communities.We've had 27 projects in the first year. We've worked with over 50 farmers. Everyone's seeing this as such an opportunity, really taking on this challenge, coming to us with all sorts of exciting ideas. We've had farmers working in groups together in their valleys, putting in ponds and planting trees and hedgerows. On the diversification business side, farmers thinking about what they can do with their own products, repurposing wool to sell, direct selling meat, we've got people thinking about tourism and how they can create opportunities for visitors on their farm, which at the same time will help support their business.The main strength of FiPL is having local trusted support and advisers through the whole process. So my team work with the farmers from the initial idea. We go out and visit them, and help them work up their projects and we're there at the end of the phone are willing to come and visit at any stage, helping to draft the applications, take them to panel, helping deliver the project and the claims.So each farmer has one key person who they can contact at any point who is there to talk them through the process and make sure that everything is going well, and I think that's why farmers have found FiPL is really working for them.It's looking at what works on that farm. If you're looking for something that is more of a diversification opportunity, what can you do with your end products? Can you directly market those, market a local product that's based on the World Heritage attributes of the Lake District, tying it to our local farming heritage, the Lake District valleys. It's always about looking at your farm as a farm business, seeing opportunities whilst also doing what we do best: farming the land and producing food.
