Mr. Morganasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what standards are applied in scheduling land eligible for hill cow subsidy and hill sheep subsidy, respectively; and why there is a disparity between them.
§ Mr. John MackieBroadly, to be eligible for hill sheep subsidy purposes, land must be basically suitable only for the maintenance of hardy hill sheep. Hill cow subsidy can be paid where the land is suitable for rearing other sheep and cattle, though not to any material extent for dairying, fattening or cash cropping.
The land quality test is less stringent in the case of the hill cow subsidy because, in order to maintain regular beef breeding herds, better land is required than for the hardy foundation flocks that the hill sheep subsidy is designed to assist.