Identifying and supporting High Nature Value (HNV) farming in the UK

Identifying, supporting and monitoring HNV farming has been a priority for EU rural development policy since 2005. But as with other countries, when they began in 2007, the four RDPs for the UK – one each in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - did not have a fully developed approach for making this priority operational.

EFNCP has therefore joined up with a range of local partners in three areas of England and Wales to explore further how policies for HNV farming should work. This analysis has lead to an overall report with policy recommendations.
The three projects, in the Wye Valley, in Devon and Carmarthenshire deal with the characterisation, identification and monitoring of HNV farmland and farming systems and with the design and implementation of policy measures to address their needs and the delivery of public good ecosystem services on them, but the balance between these varied between the areas.

(MAP of project areas) Ordnance Survey Crown Copyright 1999.
(a = east Carmarthenshire; b = lower Wye valley; c = Blackdown Hills; d = Culm grasslands; e = Dartmoor; f = south Devon)

In Scotland the Government has made some progress on HNV indicators in recent years and our work thus far has concentrated on common grazings.

In Northern Ireland, we have not yet embarked on any major projects. However in 2011 we collaborated with a local charity – the Vaughan Trust – to run a hay meadow competition in County Fermanagh, an area with the highest density of species-rich meadow communities in the whole of Britain and Ireland. Click here for further reports: Report 1, Report 2.

Also, P. McGurn (EFNCPs project officer for Ireland), summarises the situation of permanent pastures and meadows in Northern Ireland in a case study, which is part of EFNCPs publication: “Permanent Pastures and Meadows under the CAP: the situation in 6 countries”