A NEW project which aims to give the young farming community in Craven a chance to expand their entrepreneurial skills will be launched on Monday.

The Cornerstone project, is a unique five-year initiative, which aims to link young people in the countryside with the wealth of experience already available in the community.

It is hoped that this, in turn, will help to encourage long term sustainability in agriculture.

At the launch, Mike Keeble, the Cornerstone project co-ordinator, will be joined by a group of young people who have helped to develop the project over the last four years.

The Cornerstone project will offer young people, aged up to 30, who live in Craven and throughout the Yorkshire Dales, mentoring, the opportunity to develop practical business skills, funding and support.

It is hoped that through the project these young people will develop ideas for improving their agricultural businesses by testing new approaches to agriculture or new agricultural products and activities.

The project is being backed by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

A spokesman for authority said: "Cornerstone will aim to unlock the potential of young people to ensure their own futures in the area by developing new agricultural businesses and employment, and encouraging innovation and new approaches in the traditional agricultural economy.

"It is hoped that Cornerstone will provide a model for other remote rural areas throughout the United Kingdom where agriculture is facing challenges and change."

Key elements of the project will include creating a network of farming mentors across a wide field of experience to support and advise the young entrepreneurs; and the provision of grants and loans to enable young farming entrepreneurs to develop and launch business proposals within the target area.

It is also planned to create a forum for all participants in the scheme to voice their concerns and aspirations - connecting the young entrepreneurs with the wider regional and national rural agenda.

Project co-ordinator Mr Keeble said: "The idea behind the project, is to get young people to use their initiative at a time when agriculture is going through a very hard time."

He added that initiatives put forward by the young people did not need necessarily to be profit-making initiatives, but could be schemes that helped in some way to help or sustain the rural community they lived in.

Cornerstone is supported by private and public sector organisations, including: Yorkshire Forward; The Countryside Agency; the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority; Yorkshire Agricultural Society, National Farmers' Union, National Federation of Young Farmers, National Beef and Sheep Association and the region's livestock marts and local banks.

The project is to be launched at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes on Monday.