UPL1Moderate livestock grazing on moorland

What it actually is

The gentlest of the three moorland grazing actions, and the place to understand the family. SFI26 offers moorland grazing at three densities: this action holds the livestock density across the entered land at no more than 0.16 grazing livestock units per hectare at any time; UPL2, low grazing, holds it at 0.08; UPL3, limited grazing, at 0.04. The rates rise as the stocking falls, because the payment is buying restraint. On top of any of the three can ride one of the supplements UPL5, UPL6 or SPM5, with SPM5 allowed alongside whichever of UPL5 or UPL6 you take, and one of the shepherding actions UPL8 or UPL10.

The requirements here beyond the density cap: no supplementary feeding except mineral licks, with hay or haylage allowed only in extreme weather, deep snow or hard frost standing two days or more, for animal welfare, and never on historic features, steep slopes or footpaths, and no troughs or ring feeders. At the start of each year you produce a written stocking calendar for each parcel: the parcel reference and hectarage, the planned grazing dates by calendar month, and the monthly livestock numbers, types and age brackets. GOV.UK's stated aim is a moderate density of stock keeping the moorland's habitat maintained or enhanced alongside the farming.

The GLU sums use GOV.UK's conversion values: cattle over 2 years 1.0, cattle over 6 months to 2 years 0.6, both judged by age at the start of the agreement year, a lowland ewe and lamb or a ram 0.12, a store lamb or a hill ewe and lamb or a hogg or teg 0.08, a goat 0.12, a pony or donkey 0.8, a horse 1.0. Lambs at foot have no separate allocation of their own; they are already inside the ewe and lamb figures. Cattle under 6 months are on no row at all.

Source: GOV.UK, UPL1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page, and moorland arithmetic runs on big hectarages:

Source: arithmetic on the payment rate shown at the top of this page, which comes from Tilth's copy of the GOV.UK action catalogue and carries its own last-checked date. The 200 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: what the cap costs. Work your current summer stocking into GLU per hectare with the conversion table. If the moor already runs at or under 0.16 at its peak, the action pays for the shape the farm already has, and the stocking calendar is the only new work. If the moor carries more, the difference is stock that must summer somewhere else, and that is the real price.

Step two: the feeding rule's reach. No feeders and no routine feeding on the entered land moves winter feeding onto the inbye, which changes where stock stand in the hungry months. On many hill farms that was the pattern anyway; where it was not, the inbye takes the pressure this action lifts off the hill.

Step three: the family choice. The three tiers price restraint progressively, and the right tier is the one just below what the moor truly carries. Entering UPL1 when the stock could bear UPL2's cap leaves money on the table; entering UPL3 with a flock that needs the grazing makes the cap a constant fight. The stocking calendar you must write anyway is the document that answers which tier is yours.

Source: the payment rates on this page and the sibling pages; requirements from GOV.UK, UPL1 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The judgements are Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

Does it work, and what makes it work better

This section is what we have found in published sources about the practice this action pays for. It is not scheme guidance, it is not Defra's or the RPA's view, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out. We have named every source and given the date we checked it. What it means for your ground is your decision.

The nearest graded assessment covers the whole practice family: maintaining upland heath and moorland through appropriate management, grazing regimes included. Conservation Evidence grade it Likely to be beneficial on 17 studies, scored 90 per cent for effectiveness and 50 per cent for certainty, strong reported effects on moderate proof. The detail cuts in more than one direction, and all of it is worth having. Of 15 individual UK studies, eight found appropriate management maintained the conservation value of heath or moorland: four of those tested excluding or reducing grazing and reported more heather cover, more broadleaved plants including Scottish primrose, more true bugs and moths, more of the arthropod biomass upland birds eat, and benefits to black grouse; reviews of the old Environmentally Sensitive Area schemes found broadly positive effects on moorland birds, with reduced grazing benefiting most bird species and increasing heath vegetation. Three studies reported mixed results, with some species helped and others not, depending on vegetation type. And four studies found the opposite edge: reducing livestock grazing intensity reduced the abundance of soil organisms, invertebrates, bacteria and fungi.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 647, Maintain upland heath/moorland, Farmland Conservation synopsis, checked 23/08/2026. Cite as Dicks et al. (2020), Farmland Conservation, pages 283 to 321, in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers.

Conservation Evidence say themselves that studies are not directly comparable or of equal value, and that relevance to your own situation matters more than counting studies. None of this measured the UPL actions or their particular density caps, and the studies mostly compared reduced or excluded grazing against heavier regimes rather than testing 0.16 against 0.08 against 0.04. What the record supports is the family's broad direction, lighter grazing tends to help moorland vegetation and birds, with honest footnotes about soil life and mixed species responses.

Source: the note under key messages, Conservation Evidence, action 647, checked 23/08/2026. The reading is Tilth's own.

What you actually have to do

Keep the livestock density across the entered land at or below 0.16 GLU per hectare at all times, using the conversion values above. Do not feed except mineral licks, sited away from historic features, steep slopes and footpaths, with the extreme weather exception for hay and haylage only. Produce the written stocking calendar for each parcel at the start of each year, and keep it, on paper or electronically, as the action's required evidence. Static: the same land each year.

Source: GOV.UK, UPL1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go

Above the moorland line, on permanent grassland or non-agricultural covers, scrub, scree, bracken, bog, with compatible codes, excluding farmyards and turf or peat production areas. SSSIs, which cover a great deal of English moorland, need Natural England's consent before the action starts. Historic and archaeological features need an SFI HEFER first. One of the supplements UPL5, UPL6 or SPM5 can go on the same land, and SPM5 can also go alongside whichever of UPL5 or UPL6 you take. One of the shepherding actions UPL8 or UPL10 can go on the same land as well, as can the organic rough grazing action OFM3.

Source: GOV.UK, UPL1, UPL8 and UPL10 action pages, checked 23/08/2026.

Things worth watching

This section is Tilth's own reading of where this action is easy to get wrong. It is not scheme guidance, it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA, and none of it adds a requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

At any time means the peak, not the average. The cap binds at the summer's fullest day, not across the year. A calendar that averages under 0.16 but peaks over it fails; do the arithmetic on the biggest month.

Commons need the whole picture. On common land the density across the entered land includes every grazier's stock. Your calendar can be perfect and the moor still over the cap; the commoners' association is part of this application in all but name.

The calendar is a plan you then live with. It is written at the year's start, and the year then happens. Keep it honest and keep the actual dates alongside it, because the record of what really grazed is what squares the plan with the hill.

The feeding rule bites hardest in a hard March. Two days of snow or hard frost is the gate for hay, and a merely cold, wet, late spring does not open it. The feed plan for the tail of winter belongs on the inbye, not the moor.

SSSI consent is the long pole. Where the moor is designated, Natural England's consent comes before everything and takes the time it takes. Start that conversation before the application, not after.

Keeping the evidence

Also Tilth's own reading. GOV.UK sets the requirements; what follows is a practical suggestion about record keeping.

The stocking calendar is the required evidence, so build it once per year and let the monthly numbers, types and age brackets fall out of your flock and herd records. The companion worth keeping is the actual: dates on and off per parcel as they happen. Together they are the whole compliance story, and the GLU arithmetic becomes a report rather than a reconstruction.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, UPL1 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

What the moor really carries at its peak, in units rather than memory, is the number the whole family of actions turns on, and it lives in your stocking records. Tilth keeps the stock movements and the monthly numbers the calendar wants, parcel by parcel, which makes the tier choice a lookup instead of a guess. Request an invite.