"Farming Futures of the Lake District" Biying Wang, Y2
@wing.drawings
Bartlett MAMLA, Studio 4, Frontier Schemata, 22-23
National farming subsidies have, and will, affect the upland farming community in the Lake District. Previously encouraged to industrialize to increase food production, common land on the fells have been overgrazed. In the past decades, policies shifted towards agri-environmental schemes where farmers are incentivized to partake in “re-wilding” schemes, limiting their land use and grazing rights. This is the case for the new ELM scheme post-Brexit which most benefit large estate owners. Even with the fells currently being under grazed, farmers are under pressure to diversify, intensify, or retire.
For remaining small farms to participate in future high-tier nature recovery projects, the design proposal is a tentative prototype that divides portions of the common land into zones with distinct rotational grazing regime, starting in Grasmere, Central Lake District. The project has three key components: the upgang corridor, the woodland summit and the blanket bog conservation area. Between these sites, local material, livestock, visitors and farmers all contribute in agri-environmental farming subsidy.
These novel boundaries and distinct habitats are created and restored with vernacular technique, traditions and native livestock species thus showing that the life of a shepherd, and wool, holds value in today’s world.
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