Shadow of cuts hanging over farm livelihoods

Two years ago, his wife Emma took on a part-time job as a doctor's receptionist. Now she has moved to an administration job at Whitby Community College, working about 25 hours a week. It isn't hugely well paid, at about 8 an hour, but according to Chris that money is vital to the farm.

"We tried for years to sell meat at farmers' markets and make a go of doing that. Over the years we've invested quite a bit in the farm to get it up and running.

"But really the last few years of the recession – even though our meat isn't more expensive than anyone else's – the perception is that organic meat is a luxury item and that has hit my sales a bit."

The Padmores at Bank House Farm are typical of many small farmers in the kind of areas which, according to research published this week, could be hard hit by the cuts hanging over the public sector.

Ivan Annibal, who has carried out the research for a Lincoln-based organisation Rose Regeneration, says: "The biggest areas that are going to be affected are North Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire."

His figures, based on Government statistics, reveal a quarter of people in North Yorkshire – 60,000 – rely on the public sector for work. In the East Riding that number rises to more than a third. "Very often people rely on a second income to make a farm work, and quite often the best employment available to people in terms of wages and pensions is in the public sector," says Ivan Annibal.

Chris Padmore confirms that picture. "The farm is making very little at the moment and Emma's job is vital. We borrowed a little money over the years and really most of Emma's money goes into servicing that loan."

Council jobs in adult social care (accounting for about a third of local authority expenditure) are expected to feel the knife most severely. "The key point is that the economies of rural areas are far less diverse than the economies of urban areas," adds Ivan Annibal. "If you take out the local council and the local hospital and the police and the schools – often there are very few private employers of any size."

This is particularly true of isolated areas like the Esk Valley. Large towns with private sector jobs are some distance away, public transport links are negligible and roads can be difficult.

For the time being, Chris Padmore is keeping his fingers crossed. "We've got another diversification scheme on the way that we think might mean that Emma could give up work at a later date. But if she lost the job in the next couple of years, we'd be struggling."

The first rural body to feel the axe was the Commission for Rural Communities this week. Headed by Dr Stuart Burgess, the Rural Advocate, he began a national inquiry last year into the future for England's upland communities at Quarry Farm in Westerdale on the North York Moors.

Abolishing the CRC will save almost 6m per year. That's a drop in the ocean considering that the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs will probably have to cut 3bn out of its budget by 2015. Defra won't confirm the exact figure until October, but its annual budget is approximately 3bn, and over four years this is what a 25 per cent saving would add up to.

The National Farmers Union shed no tears about the CRC's demise. The union also wants to see an end to the Agricultural Wages Board.

There are some things which cannot be cut. Until 2013 farmers will continue to receive public money under the Single Farm Payment. Those rates are set by the European Union and will remain as they are. Also safe from cuts, at the moment, are most parts of other statutory schemes where farmers receive money for farming in a more eco-friendly way such as the Entry Level Environment scheme and the Higher Level scheme. However, discretionary parts of those schemes – such as capital works programmes where farmers receive grants for things like wildlife habitat improvements – have been suspended for the moment.

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) is asking visitors to its stand at the Great Yorkshire Show to complete a questionnaire asking what they think should be cut. "The straw poll will be a unique opportunity for Yorkshire farmers and land managers to have their say," says the CLA's regional director Dorothy Fairburn.

"You could cut research in the short term, but it has long term impacts. If there is no public funding going into research and development then there are no improvements in productivity." The NFU also opposes cuts in this area.

Another possible economy is in the area of animal health by cutting back on the State Veterinary Service.

The Government is reviewing the idea of getting farmers to pay a share of the cost of work incurred.

Dorothy Fairburn takes a wary view. "It's meant to be cost and responsibility sharing – and we want some real involvement in making the decisions on what happens, not just token consultation."

Mike Powey, a beef farmer from Green Hammerton, near York, is also waiting cautiously for the outcome

of this review.

"We do need a national veterinary organisation such as the State Vets at the moment," he said. "So things like that I would not like to see cut."

Then there's Natural England. It manages the environment schemes

on which many farmers depend heavily for

their income.

But it has few friends among hill farmers, who need the money more than most but dislike being told how to farm.

Cuts could also be made to the Flood and Coastal defence budget.

Farming's biggest recent headache was the rolling up of subsidies into the Single Farm Payment, and ructions with the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). Tasked with paying farmers in England their due, the RPA was initially found to be seriously wanting. Time to wield the axe here?

George Dunn, chief executive of the Tenant Farmers Association, says, "We would be very concerned if funding to the RPA was cut, particularly in its manpower."

He fears that cuts will actually go deeper within Defra than anything that has been announced – or even hinted at so far.

"Given that Defra has to find 25 per cent at least, it's going to have to be staff. I think we will see portfolios get bigger and bigger.

"We've seen this in the past where there used to be a department for pigs and a department for poultry, and a department for milk.

"Now it's milk, eggs, poultry and pigs all together.

"And the main worry from our perspective is that we will have a civil service which is not as connected with the industry as it could have been."