Country diary: I love farming this land, but money worries are on my mind | Andrea Meanwell

Tebay, Cumbria: We're a small farm, and our margins are so tight that the recent mess with government grants left us close to selling some of our livestockI turn my back to the wind and watch the cows grazing. Despite the cold, they look happy and healthy, without a care in the world. Elsewhere on the farm it has been a stressful time. For better or worse, farms our size depend a lot on government grants to get by, but we've had compounding problems on this front recently. There was the announcement that the basic payment scheme wasn't just being cut, but being phased out far quicker than expected.Another grant, our Environmental Stewardship agreement, ended at the end of 2024, and is mainly replaced by the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme. I submitted an SFI application on 4 September, well ahead of the start of the agreement on 1 January, but it wasn't confirmed until mid-February (and even then it was half the expected amount). Added to that, our final ES payment - paid annually, but usually in December - didn't come through until February. Continue reading...