Sustainability strategies and stakeholder management for upland farming

Upland farming provides important benefits to society. To retain these benefits, measures to encourage farms to adopt practices that balance economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability are required. This study used survey data from a sample of farms located in less-favoured areas in Northern England to identify the trade-offs between the three dimensions of farm-level sustainability and the impacts of farm behaviours on them, including diversification, participation in agri-environmental policies and stakeholder management. Results showed that farm businesses may face a trade-off between improving economic and environmental performance through their decisions about participating in agri-environmental schemes and that strengthening relationships with some stakeholders is critical for achieving sustainability. This suggests that future policy design may simultaneously improve three dimensions of sustainability by promoting environmental conservation activities through non-economic incentives and by encouraging farm businesses to build good working relationships with their stakeholders. •Interrelationships and factors of 3 dimensions of farm-level sustainability of upland farms in Northern England identified.•AESs participation is a factor in economic vs environmental performance trade-off.•Social sustainability improved economic sustainability; opposite not true.•Family decision-making aids social sustainability not environmental sustainability.•Measures to support stakeholder management by farmers may increase sustainability performance.