Hill farming supports both livestock welfare through extensive outdoor systems and broader biodiversity through landscape management that benefits wild animals.
Hill farming occupies a distinctive position in the welfare landscape: livestock in extensively managed upland systems often enjoy the highest positive welfare indicators available in commercial production — freedom of movement over large areas, natural grazing behaviour, social groups, and access to diverse terrain. At the same time, upland farmers maintain habitats and management practices that benefit wild animal populations: hay meadows support invertebrates and ground-nesting birds; heather moorland provides habitat for curlew, lapwing, and golden plover; rough grazings support diverse plant communities that underpin food webs. The welfare case for supporting financially viable upland farming is therefore both direct — good livestock welfare conditions — and indirect — maintenance of wild animal habitat. The challenge is ensuring that financial pressures do not force welfare compromises or abandonment of the management that creates these benefits.