RURAL business expert Dorothy Fairburn predicts that cows could all but disappear from the countryside within a matter of years.

Livestock farming - once the lifeblood of the rural economy - is in decline due to lack of profits, and the problems facing those in the countryside do not stop there.

An over-reliance on tourism, low farm incomes and housing and planning wrangles are all draining the sap from the economy in some of the North's most remote areas.

Miss Fairburn, Yorkshire regional director of the Country Land and Business Association, said all the issues need to be tackled together if there is to be a shift in the fortunes of the countryside to put it on a more secure financial footing.

"If you are looking at hill farm incomes, they are dire and have been for a long time," she said.

"They are about £5,000 to £7,000 a year. There are people up there working really hard and they are surviving because it is a way of life.

"It is often what they want to do, and all they can do."

Changes to the structure of grants for the countryside, which will reward good environmental stewardship rather than overstocking, may improve matters from an environmental point of view.

But Miss Fairburn is concerned that a change in stock levels will harm the market for pure-bred Swaledale lambs.

"This is an opportunity, really," she said, "but it is coupled with a lot of uncertainty."

She said there was a view that suckler herds of beef would become less profitable and force farmers to look for niche markets.

But not everyone will be successful, and cows could all but disappear from the landscape.

Miss Fairburn fears for their future. She said: "I see, in ten years time, people being paid to put beef back on the hills, but for nature conservation reasons."

Diversification is the buzzword at the moment, with farms urged to find other sources of income. But, when your only products are sheep, wool and beef, there is a limited number of ways in which the farmer can add value to those products, especially when the isolation of some farms and the travelling distances are taken into consideration.

Many farms decide to offer bed and breakfast as a way to earn extra income, but that market has reached saturation point and, according to Miss Fairburn, if a farm decides to become a B&B, it will almost certainly be operating at the expense of its neighbours.

Away from farming, there is an opportunity to develop a wider range of small businesses that rely on the present infrastructure, such as the postal service.

The companies bring income, create employment and secure the infrastructure by creating a demand.

One of the main issues is the availability of a workforce, which means that people have to be able to live in the countryside, which raises the thorny problem of affordable housing. There have been winners and losers in the housing boom, and the net result is that it is even more difficult for people in lower-paid jobs to afford somewhere to live.

Miss Fairburn said: "You have to have enough people to have a viable community.

"It is lower-paid workers that can't afford to live there and that is why businesses can't progress."

Tourism supports jobs at the low-pay end of the scale, which is why over-reliance on tourism is not an answer to long-term economic problems. The rural economy needs to be broad-based and operating at several levels to make it stronger.

"People need good business support, access to sound financial advice and encouragement," said Miss Fairburn.

"There are good opportunities for them, but it is about helping them make the germ of an idea into a business proposition."