At 1pm today the RSPB is having a live debate with the very clever Prof Allan Buckwell from the CLA and the NFU's President Peter Kendall on whether UK farming is an environmental hero or villain. For details - click here.
You can watch the debate online and even join in. No doubt I'll be blogging about it tomorrow if not before. That is - if I survive.
I wonder whether the NFU President will accept that farmland bird numbers are much lower than they were in the 1970s and 1980s? I wonder whether he will accept that this is mainly due to the way that we farm the countryside? I wonder whether he will agree that it matters? I wonder whether he will praise the work that the RSPB has done at Hope Farm where productivity has increased and wildlife too?
Perhaps the NFU will welcome our Stepping up for Nature campaign.
Mark ---however well the RSPB has done I disagree with your general remark that farmland birds have decreased mainly because of the way we farm,it may be partly true but you are off again taking the debate away from the whole picture which is that almost without exception all birds are in decline mostly nothing to do with the way we farm,I personally think it a deliberate ploy on the RSPBs part.There are dozens of reasons of which the way we farm is only one,think farmers would like the RSPB to acknowledge that fact and may then take more notice of what the RSPB would like them to do.