Peak District Farming and Land Management

The Peak District National Park Authority offers a wide range of services to support farmers.  The authority has over 30 years of experience in helping land managers and farmers across the park and works closely with a number of different organisations.  This ensures that advice given to both farmers and landowners is both useful and up to date.

The first way in which the park authority helps landowners is through the provision of grants for land management.  Most of the grants for farming and land management are provided by central government and the Peak District Park authority helps farmers access such schemes.  Although at the same time the park itself provides a series of grants for smaller schemes, farmers and landowners can benefit more by applying for larger grants handed out by central government.

The first type of national grant that can be applied for is the environmental stewardship scheme which is for farmers and landowners who effectively manage their land in an environmentally friendly way.  The scheme sets out to conserve wildlife, maintain the landscapes in regards to character, as well as to protect natural resources and historical environments.  The scheme also actively looks for farmers and landowners who promote public access on their land.  The Peak District park authority provides advice to both farmers and landowners who are interested in receiving grants, and helps with the completion of applications for grants.

The department for the environment, food and rural affairs also runs a scheme called the rural development programme for England, which is aimed at businesses who use the land.  A range of businesses may be liable for this type of grant from those providing rural tourism services to farms.  An off shoot of this scheme is the farming and forestry improvement scheme which aims to aid farming, horticultural and forestry businesses in becoming more efficient in regards to their usage of resources.  The final grant on offer from central government is the catchment sensitive farming project which aims to find practical solutions for farmers to reduce water pollution from their land usage.  This is to ensure that water entering the water table is of the highest quality.