Conservation v Food Production, a dilemma for the 21st century?

Despite working on a Natural England Farmland Bird Project, I am actually employed by an organisation with possibly the longest name ever, the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). My job involves working with farmers to create habitat for farmland birds, largely using targeted funding through Natural England’s Environmental Stewardship Scheme (ES).

In the last 18 months, interest in the scheme has declined substantially, which has a knock on effect for the AONB – the conservation and enhancement of all its special features largely happens through ES, particularly the more targeted part, Higher Level Stewardship (HLS). Many farmers are turning their back on the scheme because of changing economics; payment rates for options taking land out of commercial arable cropping and managing for farmland birds have not kept pace with increasing agricultural commodity prices.



Should a farmer grow food crops for birds at £475/ha or
wheat for human consumption at £1800/ha?



 Following a letter to Natural England (NE) raising these concerns, the AONB hosted a visit from NE Executive Director for People, Landscape and Biodiversity, Jim Smyllie.

Mr Smyllie was keen to meet some of the farmers who had decided not to renew their expiring Stewardship Scheme agreements due to financial reasons. One farmer from Dorset explained that when he joined in 2003, he was making £4-600 per hectare (ha) from his cropped land growing wheat/barley/oilseed rape and managing that land for farmland birds instead, was paying £500 which was acceptable for the farm business. Ten years on, that land is making £900/ha, whereas NE payment rates for creating bird habitat on the same land are around £400/ha, which was not viable for the farm business. Other farmers had similar stories to tell and all had been in past environmental schemes for at least ten years so were committed to improving wildlife habitat on their farms.

Local farmer David Chick (far left) talks to Jim Smyllie (2nd left),
Tracy Adams (centre) and other NE staff about his farm and its wildlife

A visit was also made to a farm which had entered HLS three years ago and had committed 7% of their cropped land for bird habitat to favour species such as lapwing, corn bunting and grey partridge. However when quizzed about the future, the farm manager admitted he would be reluctant to enter future schemes, preferring to do his ‘own thing’ for wildlife without any of the bureaucracy and threats of lengthy inspections through the Rural Payments Agency. His neighbour had recently had a 10-day inspection and suffered considerable financial penalties for discrepancies found between his 60 page agreement and what was present on the farm.  Labour resources have become increasingly stretched in the last 50 years making time-consuming environmental improvements less appealing for farmers, particularly if they come with the threat of a lengthy inspection across the farm by a tape measure-wielding official.

The challenge for NE now as they debate the future of the next tranche of agri-environment schemes is to come up with a flexible scheme with payment rates attractive enough to compete with ever-increasing commodity prices, with ever-decreasing budgets.

And whatever you do, don’t mention the buzzards and badgers, that’s a whole other issue for another day!