Cash prizes of up to £500 are on offer for young farmers across Yorkshire as part of a special competition being launched to get them involved with the Campaign for the Farmed Environment (CFE) and other agri-environment schemes.

CFE is a three year voluntary campaign that aims to protect and enhance the countryside, encourage greater biodiversity and provide improved habitats for farmland birds primarily across North, South and East Yorkshire where up to 3,000 arable farms could be involved.

The new competition – the CFE College and Young Farmers Club Challenge – will bring together teams of young farmers to work with individual farms that are not currently involved with the campaign.

The teams will carry out an on-farm audit and prepare an Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) scheme application for the farm, taking into account the three CFE themes; resource protection, farmland birds and farm wildlife.

Says CFE co-ordinator, Alison Clayton, “We hope that both teams and participating farmers will benefit from taking part. By exploring how environmental management options can be incorporated alongside productive farming, we hope to encourage greater farmer participation in ELS, which is crucial to achieving our long term campaign targets.”

Sponsors Masstock Arable are making almost £2,000 of prize money is available with £500 going to the winning team and a further £500 to their club or college.

Anyone interested in entering should email Alison at alison.clayton@cfeonline.org.uk for an entry form.