FORMER Pendle councillor Lord Tony Greaves has called for government cash payments to attract young people into farming.

Speaking at the Liberal Democrat Party conference in Bournemouth, Lord Greaves said the industry was dying, especially in upland areas such as the Lake District and East Lancashire.

Lord Greaves said that the foot and mouth outbreak which has affected 53 famers in Lancashire, including many in Chorley, the Ribble Valley and Pendle, had shown that tourism was now more important than agriculture in most rural areas.

However, he said: "It is the farmers who shape the landscape that people want to go and visit.

"We must decide what sort of upland countryside we want and what role farmers have to play in it."

Lord Greaves said that decisions had to be taken on whether it was just farmers or the wider community which fashioned the landscape.

But he said farming was vital to creating a countryside, especially in the uplands, that tourists wanted to go to.

He went on: "If you look at studies of upland farmers, most are nearing retirement age. Young people just don't want to go into the industry."

And, he said, something had to be done to make farming more attractive, adding: "Farming will need subsidies in the future. Payments will have to be made. What we need to ask is what sort of payments are they.

"Are they land management payments? Are they payments for farming? These are questions we need to answer if we are to keep our countryside and its tourist industry."