The Farmers Mart Apr/May 2016 - Issue 45 | Page 53

Jonathan Murray

Westerdale farmer with
grave concerns about BPS
Chris Berry talks with Jonathan Murray in the North Yorkshire Moors
»»WHEN JONATHAN MURRAY
came to Brown Hill Farm in
Westerdale on the North
Yorkshire Moors 21 years
ago, it is unlikely that he ever
imagined he would have 200
people from all over the world
dancing, singing and playing
musical instruments on his land
- while he dug a hole so that
they could bury someone…. It
sounds like some kind of sect
type scene from Midsomer
Murders with Jonathan cast as
the suspicious farmer with a
cast of red herrings all around
but, allowing for a little artistic
licence here and there, green
burials are all now part of his
80 acre livestock farm that runs
to 250 acres with Moors rights
and 10 acres rented.
In a subtle irony, Jonathan’s
green burial site was started
with the assistance of grant
funding from Growing Routes.
Tom or John Barnaby, the
fictional TV detectives from the
series, would doubtless see the
humour.
The burial site is not,
however, the dead centre
of Jonathan’s world just at
present. In his roles as treasurer

of the Yorkshire Federation
of Commoners and Moorland
Graziers and as a farmer who
has not yet received the new
Basic Payment Scheme (BPS),
akin to possibly all of his fellow
graziers, he is very concerned,
as he told me.
“Everyone farming in the
hills is very dependent upon
support payments. We all try
to break even but realistically,
it is the subsidies that provide
the living and investment. In
recent times we have lost the
Hill Farming Allowance and
now stewardship schemes
are proving more difficult to
get into. It’s making life nearly
impossible for smaller upland
farms. There was a very
effective National Park scheme
that morphed into a Natural
England scheme but that’s
inaccessible at the moment with
the penalties prohibitive and
payment incentives minimal.
“We’ve still got the BPS
when it arrives but there has
been talk of that not being
paid to those with common
land through communications
from the National Common
Land Stakeholders Group, until

in some cases after 30 June.
The writing has been on the
wall for the delays in the BPS
since last summer with delays
in forms going out, delays in
forms returned and in particular
with those with rights to graze.
There’s now a serious problem
developing as people’s finances
are tailored to what was the
SFP coming in, which over
the past seven or eight years
has arrived in the December/
January window. Cash flow
on farms will become affected
if they haven’t already and it
could lead to depressed prices
if we have to go to market and
sell stock earlier than we would
have anticipated, thereby also
creating a flood of stock, just to
try to make up for a shortfall. It
needs paying now!”
Jonathan has 160 Swaledale
and Cheviot X ewes on the
moorland and 20 pure Texel
ewes. The Texels lamb inside
in mid-March with the hill
sheep lambing a month later.
He also has a herd of around
25 predominantly Shorthorn X
Angus suckler cows that with
followers runs to around 40-50
head of cattle.

“I started with two dozen
primarily Angus X autumn
calving sucklers and selling
stock as 10-12 month stores
at Ruswarp livestock market,
but after numbers diminished
somewhat I replenished with
a few Shorthorns as I was
looking for a quieter and
easier to handle animal about
five years ago. I’ve been
gradually building those up
and using a Shorthorn bull
on the Angus X cows that
has brought about some
interesting suckler cows that
are now potentially Murray
Greys. I may finish them with
a Limousin in years to come.
I’ve been keeping most of the
females for the past three or
four years as I’ve built up and
now have a surplus to sell. I’m
sticking with stirks going at
10-12 months with any heifers
that are to go at no more than
16 months. My aim is to create
a suitable suckler cow with a
combination of beef and milk
characteristics that brings
about low maintenance and
what the market wants.”
The burial site came about
not long after the year of
funeral pyres raged through the
countryside.
“Foot and Mouth Disease
in 2001 was a driver in
making me look at the kind of
alternative enterprise I could
run up here. My green burial
site is as green as you can
get. It’s just a field. It takes
minimal maintenance. I have
no on-going costs. I just dig a
hole and then fill it back in. I’ve
had some really entertaining
burials. The one with 200
people was great. He’d been

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