If our landscape is to be preserved, farmers must be given more respect

It is truly beautiful here on our small dairy farm on the edge of the Peak District National Park. The sun is shining and the cows are grazing peacefully.

Perhaps it might surprise you, therefore, to hear that living in or alongside a National Park (our village crosses the boundary) is not always the bliss it might appear. On the one hand, the park authorities help to preserve the best of the landscape. On the other, their rigid and authoritarian enforcement of rules can irritate locals beyond measure. Perhaps the park authorities just serve as a useful whipping boy for many of the frustrations of country life, but it is a love-hate relationship nonetheless.

So the decision of James Rebanks, a shepherd, to step down from his role in the review of policy on National Parks doesn’t surprise me one bit. His resignation – over the barrage of criticism he faced from conservationists who objected to a sheep farmer being included in the review – typifies the tensions that are becoming more apparent in the debate over the future of the countryside: between farming and rewilding; between leisure and work; between beauty and life.

Not many meetings in our village avoid a mention of the Peak park authorities. One of the main bones of contention concerns planning applications: the prevailing view here is that the authorities will approve planning applications which relate to tourism while turning down a local resident’s bid to renovate his cottage which has fallen into disrepair. Sons and daughters of farmers live in caravans, while pleading to turn a farm building into a dwelling. If the parents want to convert a barn into a holiday cottage, on the other hand, they seem to have a much easier time getting permission.

But the deeper underlying conflict is between farming and conservation, and the balance between preserving the landscape while also working it.

The type of farming that goes on in an area is dictated by the type of land: whether it lends itself to arable, or, as in our area, to dairy and, in our more rugged parts, to sheep. The type of farming that occurs also dictates the landscape. If you farm in a smaller and more sustainable way, the upkeep of hedges and stone walls is part of your job. The land looks the way it does – particularly in areas of outstanding natural beauty like ours – largely because of the work of the farmers who live there.

While anyone in our village (even the person who is currently most annoyed with them) would not contest the role the park authorities play in preserving the landscape, the truth is that setting and enforcing rules is not enough to maintain our National Parks. They also need to include vibrant, dynamic communities. It’s no good if we’re all simply looking out of the window at the view. For that view to be more than just a pretty postcard, it has to live; and it’s beyond irony if the body charged with preserving the landscape is also strangling the life out of it by failing to respect the views of those who work it.

If you want to farm in a way that really is about the landscape, the odds are already stacked against you. Now it seems the conservationists are joining the ranks of those who pay scant regard to the traditional farming way of life. They should be wary of criticising us too much – or there will be nothing left to conserve.