AN AMBITIOUS project to create 100 dales businesses in five years was launched this week.

Cornerstone is targeting young members of farming families who want to stay and succeed in the Yorkshire Dales and is also seeking "mentors" from the area who would be willing to pass on their business skills and experience to help those businesses develop.

At Monday's launch in the dales countryside museum, Hawes, it was stressed that the proposed businesses need not be agriculture-related.

"I have already had one young lady who has contacted me about an embalming service in the dales," said Mr Mike Keeble, project co-ordinator.

Mrs Alice Owen, head of conservation with the Yorkshire Dales national park, said the landscape of the dales was distinctive and outstanding.

It was nationally and internationally important, but was a completely artificial landscape.

"It is managed by man and the layers of human influence on the basic geology of the area can be seen wherever we look, so people managing the land is what makes the difference in the dales," she said.

Many people thought of the dales as a green and natural area, filled with cute sheep, and a retreat for 8m visitors a year, but the question was how farm businesses could remain viable to stop young people leaving the dales to find more lucrative and less harsh work elsewhere.

"Let us not continue to treat the landscape as something that stops us doing things," said Mrs Owen. "Let us look at how it can be an asset to the agricultural businesses here; see what we have which no-one else has.

"It is our unique landscape which will build competitive advantage for the businesses that are here and which are going to survive."

A dales farmer's life was not glamorous, she said. "It can be exceptionally bleak and isolated in a lot of the weather we get, long hours for precious little reward. It takes most of their energy and time to survive."

If young members of farming families were going to stay in the dales they needed to know they had a future.

"They need the confidence that they will be able to build a life in the dales and not feel like second class citizens all the time," said Mrs Owen.

The future of the Dales lay in farming and farming families.

Mrs Owen was convinced that, if Cornerstone proved a success, it could easily be adopted in other upland areas and national parks.

Mr Keeble saw Cornerstone as a way of unlocking the potential of young people in the dales.

"It gives them the resources to develop new agricultural businesses and employment by encouraging innovation and new approaches in the traditional agricultural economy," he said.

Mr Keeble said the parents of young farmers had lived and worked in the golden era of agriculture when any farmer who had not made money had only themselves to blame. That had now all changed but older farmers were often too proud to change their traditional methods.

It could be difficult for young members of the family to be the first to say they could not go on farming in those ways - but they must not allow pride to stop them.

Cornerstone wants to help those aged up to 35 to develop practical business skills, give support, and possibly grant aid of up to £6,750.

However the project also wants to recruit many of the retired people living in the dales who have years of business skills and expertise to pass on. They would be the "mentors" who would help and keep an eye on the fledgling businesses in the project.

Cornerstone has the full support of Yorkshire Forward, whose executive director of environment, Mrs Heather Hancock, was the former head of the Yorkshire Dales national park.

"This is a key project," she said, "It underlines the integral part agriculture plays in the rural economy and the critical need to support young entrepreneurs if we are to secure a rural renaissance, stimulate the economic activity and increase jobs in rural communities."

The project is also supported by the Countryside Agency, Yorkshire Agricultural Society, NFU, National Federation of YFCs, National Beef and Sheep Associations and the region's livestock marts and local banks.

Anyone interested in either applying for help or in becoming a mentor should contact Mr Keeble on 01677 460306 or Yorkshire Dales national park authority on 01756 752748.

l Mr Keeble also hopes that those helped by the scheme will be able to meet government ministers and officials on a regular basis, similar to the system, in France, where young farmers have the opportunity each month to meet government officers, with their hotel stay and travel paid for.