Hosted by Prof. Lois Mansfield, Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas, University of Cumbria.

Upland farming is crucial to the farming landscape in the north. This session outlined how the Japanese have addressed the decline of their marginal hill farming businesses and communities. Whilst there are the usual grants and schemes from the government, Japanese farmers have come up with a range of innovations (some which we are familiar with, and others we are not) in order to maintain their farm businesses and their farming communities. Japan is a developed country facing a range of identical and specific challenges to UK uplands. This session included a presentation of the learning from the farming communities of south-west Japan and explored how we can harness their ideas to help our upland economy flourish.The discussion focused on how some of their ideas can be practically realised in northern upland areas.

Speaker/host:

Prof Lois Mansfield has worked in HE for 25 years specialising in upland agriculture, its key role for rural economies and how we can support its continuation. She currently sits on the Cumbria LEP Rural sector panel, the Lake District National Park Partnership Board, the Lake District World Heritage Site Technical Advisory Group and BEIS North West Post-COVID recovery.

You can read a blog post about the session outcomes here.