Counting the cost of hill farming; farming.

A TRAINEE surveyor from a North-East farming family was chosen to give a paper at the prestigious International Farm Management Association (IFMA) congress in Ireland.

Jonathan Wallis, from Youngs Chartered Surveyors, gave his paper on the financial contribution to upland farm income of the Entry Level Stewardship scheme in England.

The IFMA, which has members in more than 50 countries, is a society of people involved directly or indirectly in agriculture.

The congress in Cork was themed A Vibrant Rural Economy - A Challenge for Balance.

Speakers included Peter Kendall, president of the NFU, Lord Christopher Haskins, former policy adviser to the UK government and former chairman of Northern Foods, Professor Robert Thompson, University of Illinois, who is active in the national debate on future farm policy and Ms Zheng Xueli, director of the Education and Science Department of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.

Mr Wallis, whose family farms in Teesdale, said: "The EU agri-environment scheme payments are only intended to cover costs and income lost from participation in the schemes. However, the study concluded that when setting the payments, Defra had overestimated the actual costs involved.

"ELS offers farmers an excellent way of clawing back some of the money lost to modulation whilst making few changes to farm management. Now is an ideal time to be joining ELS; it is inevitable that there will be future reviews of agri-environment policy, particularly as the budget becomes even more stretched due to EU member accession."

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SPEAKER: Trainee surveyor Jonathan Wallis, who addressed an international conference.