Hill farming, sometimes termed fell farming, is extensive farming in upland areas, primarily rearing sheep, although historically cattle was often reared more intensively.
Cattle farming is usually restricted by a scarcity of winter fodder, and sheep stocks, grazing at about 2 hectares per head, are often taken to lowland areas for fattening.
Modern hill farming is often heavily dependent on state subsidy, for example via support from the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. Improved, sown pasture and drained moorland can be stocked more heavily, at approximately 1 sheep per 0.25 hectares.
Read more about Hill Farming: Hill Farming Location and Organization, Hill Farming Throughout History, Hill Farming and Uplands Ecosystems, Government Support and Subsidies, Recent Strain On Hill Farming
Famous quotes containing the words hill and/or farming:
“The hill farmer ... always seems to make out somehow with his corn patch, his few vegetables, his rifle, and fishing rod. This self-contained economy creates in the hillman a comparative disinterest in the world’s affairs, along with a disdain of lowland ways. “I don’t go to question the good Lord in his wisdom,” runs the phrasing attributed to a typical mountaineer, “but I jest cain’t see why He put valleys in between the hills.””
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)