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Supporting Rural Businesses
The Lower Dane Farmer Network (LDFN) was formed in 2018 help farmers to work together at a 'landscape scale' to address environmental issues.
This group of 24 landowners manage over 4,000 hectares of land alongside the Lower Dane valley between Middlewich and Northwich. The river is prone in flooding in places and therefore poses some significant challenges for farmers. The group are working together, supported by The Mersey Forest and ELM Associates as part of the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund, to tackle flood risk, improve water quality, manage soils in the floodplain, and support wildlife habitats, whilst improving their own businesses through exchange visits and group training events. A series of leaky, woody dams were constructed at Greenheyes Farm, Bostock near Middlewich, with the help of Environment Agency volunteers and monitoring is being carried out to assess their value in water quality improvements.
In order to see how trees can benefit farms to diversify and grow their business, the group visited the National Forest. Nine farmers and land management advisors went to three farms who have successfully diversified their businesses into a range of tourism, leisure and forestry enterprises.
LDFN is facilitated by The Mersey Forest team and Elm Associates and is one of 98 Facilitation Groups funded by Natural England.
This project has received European Union funding under the Countryside Stewardship's Scheme Facilitation Fund. The scheme is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and is part of the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE)
