...some time in the future, when the RSPB announces that it is embarking on an ambitious campaign to make the world richer in nature, the NFU will respond as follows:
'We welcome this campaign. As stewards of the countryside, farmers are alarmed at the big declines in farmland birds that indicate wider declines in wildlife as a whole. We are pleased that the RSPB works so closely with farmers carrying out free surveys for thousands of NFU members at the RSPB's expense, providing a network of advisors delivering free advice for farmers, working very closely with those farmers lucky enough to have the rarer farmland birds such as cirl buntings and stone curlews on their land and we often walk, almost hand in hand, into meetings with government ministers to ask for better designed and more effective agri-environment schemes so that millions of pounds of taxpayers' money can deliver more wildlife. We will always be grateful to the RSPB and other wildlife NGOs for campaigning during the Comprehensive Spending Review to protect the funding for agri-environment schemes when the NFU was silent on the matter. We recognise that the RSPB doesn't just talk about these issues, it puts its money where its mouth is and its Hope Farm project has shown beyond doubt that modern arable farming can deliver increasing farmland bird numbers if farmers do the right things. Thats why NFU office holders are all implementing such proven measures on their own land and we are all hoping to win the prestigious Nature of Farming Award. We are going to step up for nature with the RSPB.'.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
It is not too surprising the NFU reponded the way they did rather than by issuing a press release such as this. They argue that farmland bird declines are not all due to farming practice and that many farmers are already doing good things. There is some truth in both of these. Yes, other factors - such as problems in wintering areas and on migratory routes potentially contributing to declines of species such as cuckoos and turtle doves - are involved but anyone who has observed te countryside over the past few decades (I am a 52 year old farmer's son myself) knows there has been an inexorable sterilisation of vast swathes of land over much of the country.
Equally there has been an evolution of attitudes and there are many farmers who now try to incorporate wildlifie friendly measures into their practice. However, as in may things, there are a few enlightened farmers who do a lot, a small number of unscrupulous or malicious ones who deliberately flout wildlife protection laws and in between a substantial number who simply give little thought to wildlife and consequently leave little available habitat for birds and other species.
Realistically the NFU is bound to accentuate the positives but the fact is that if we are not careful we will preside over the loss of not just birds but many plant and invertebrate species as well. Ensuring that tax-payer funded payments to farmers are effectively linked to implementing wildlife friendly measures is undoubtedly the key to bringing about change amongst the indifferent middle group of farmers (they don't need to be RSPB members, Sooty - if it is in their financial interests to protect wildlife they will do). At that point the NFU might be expected to advise its members to pay more attention to wildlife protection than at present though whether it will ever issue a press release such as your fantasy one above has to be doubted!
Jonathan Wallace