Lakeland Herdwick Direct is a new direct lamb marketing scheme offering half or whole lambs and shearlings cut ready for the freezer in boxes delivered by mail order.

The scheme aims to link Herdwick sheep producers with consumers who want to help maintain the Lake District landscape and its cultural heritage such as members of Friends of the Lake District (FLD) and the National Trust. The initiative has been developed by the Herdwick Sheep Breeders' Association in conjunction with the FLD, the National Trust and the Lake District National Park. Veronica Waller of the Cumbria Fells and Dales LEADER + Programme has brought together the parties involved to launch the scheme.

There are those who will ask why it is so important that consumers support the scheme. Well, Lakeland Herdwick Direct is in response to the need to reduce stocking to sustainable grazing levels without destroying the hefting (or as it is locally known heafing) system, and ensuring that hill farmers get sufficient income from the reduced numbers of sheep left for them to market. This is particularly important against the background of changes to the Common Agricultural Policy that will be felt from 2005 onwards. Without additional income to hill sheep producers, abandonment is likely to take place and the transfer of traditional skills and knowledge within the hill farming community could be lost. Even without the introduction of decoupling of production from support (which is part of the recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy) there is a need to generate additional income on fell farms and maintain community-led, sustainable grazing activity especially on common land.

The Lake District is loved for its open landscape of dramatic peaks and sweeping valleys dissected by grey stone walls. This is a landscape that has been shaped by generations of farmers and their sheep and is reflected in the status of the area as a potential World Heritage Site. The open nature of the fells requires a sensitive balance of sheep grazing; too few sheep leads to scrub encroachment and eventually afforestation, too many sheep leads to over grazing and potential soil erosion. Farmers and environmental organizations are currently striving to achieve this balance and ensuring that hill sheep farming is economically sustainable is crucial to this.

Lambs and shearlings for the scheme will be sourced from a group of Lake District Herdwick farmers who are members of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders' Association and who are all in environmental schemes. The price paid back to the Herdwick farmers has been set at a premium above that which they would receive from traditional marketing outlets. Local slaughter and cutting facilities will be used to reduce food miles and to support local businesses - another contribution back into the economy of the area.

There is another good reason to support Lakeland Herdwick Direct - quality and taste. Herdwick meat itself has long had a high reputation for eating quality and was the mutton eaten at the Coronation Dinner in 1953. Today, Herdwick lamb and particularly shearling (older lamb over 15 months of age) is prized for its distinctive taste arising from the maturity of the animals. Lamb ready for eating is typically 10 to 12 months of age compared with 6 months for lowland lamb and this is reflected in the more pronounced flavour that comes from its greater maturity and from grazing the wild herbage of the open fells.

For further information, please call 015395 31240
or email herdwick@ktdinternet.com

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