A PLEA has gone out for farmers for two new Prince's Farm Resilience Programme Groups around Alston and Kendal.

The Penrith-based The Farmer Network has been asked to facilitate two new Prince’s Farm Resilience Programme groups based around Kendal in South Cumbria and Alston in North East Cumbria.

This is part of the Prince’s Countryside Fund’s national programme which offers free business advice to family farms in 15 locations across the UK each year.

The programme includes one-to-one business support and a series of six evening workshops with national speakers covering topics including business planning, costings and succession, and is open to family beef, sheep and dairy farms with spaces for 20 businesses on each group.

These will take place between October 2020 and March 2021 with the opportunity for further workshops over the summer on topics chosen by group members. Participation is free and the meetings include a hot supper.

Ruth Kendal, Project Manager for The Farmer Network said: “This is a great opportunity for farmers looking to build the resilience of their businesses given the proposed changes to support payments and the impact of COVID-19. Participating farms will benefit from workshops delivered by expert consultants as well as having access to free one to one advice and guidance."

Each year, 15 groups of up to 20 farm businesses are formed across the UK. Participating in The Prince's Farm Resilience Programme, they join a series of seven workshops, focusing on different business skills to maximise profitability and resilience. Topics include business planning, understanding accounts and budgeting, and a new environmental workshop which looks at such ideas as 25 year planning, public money for public goods and ELMs.

Alongside these workshops, every farm completes the Business Health Check Tool to look at their strengths and weaknesses and benchmark costs against similar farms, as well as receiving one-to-one farm business support.The programme brings together like-minded farms in local groups, and gives families the tools to evaluate their viability and long-term sustainability

For more information about the Programme, please call the Farmer Network on 01768 868615, or contact Ruth Kendal on 07397 985324.