FARMERS in the North Pennine SDA have an opportunity to quiz two of Defra's most senior representatives on changes to the Hill Farm Allowance, due to be introduced from January 1, 2007.

Alan Taylor, head of uplands, forestry and soil, and Jane Brown, land use director, will address a meeting organised by the National Beef Association at Hexham Mart on Thursday at 6.30.

The meeting would give those in the SDA a chance to put questions on issues affecting their future straight to the Government officials most directly involved, said Duff Burrell, vice-chairman of the NBA's Northern Council.

"Mr Taylor will speak to the meeting for just 30-40 minutes on Defra's new approach to hill land management and ideas for changes in the hill support system and has agreed to take questions from farmers, with help from Ms Brown, for an hour and a half," he said.

NBA office-holders are taking the Defra officials on a tour of SDA farms across Northumberland earlier in the day and are keen to point out the income problems caused by Mrs Beckett's decision to make the SDA a lower SFP payment region, and other problems caused by CAP reform.

"We will stress that hill farmers, and their livestock, make important contributions to the economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of the uplands," said Mr Burrell, who farms near Alnwick. "However their ability to deliver on all three of these has been undermined by the lower payment on SDA land and we hope better-targeted payments through the successor to the HFA system will help to make up for this.

"We have no doubt that farmers from Weardale, Alston Moor, Allendale, the North Tyne, Redesdale, Coquetdale and Alnwick have their own thoughts on how hill land should be managed and we want them to come to the meeting and find out how these fit in with Defra's.

"Current signs are that Defra is listening hard to environmental thinking and we believe it is important that it listens just as carefully to the people who actively manage the land and appreciates the importance of the continued presence of farmers able to earn a living through keeping hill stock."