...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.'.
We are always hearing about the decline of farmland bird numbers from the 60s but we have to recognise that bird numbers in the 60s were in a totally unrealistic state inadvertantly created by farmers. Back then farmers and land managers strictly controlled the foxes, rapters and other predators that are now decimating ground nesting birds. At the same time farming was still quite basic with lots of grain being left in the fields due to weaker cereal varieties and more rudimentary machinery. There were much more weeds providing seeds for birds too.
If we allow for these factors we might argue that bird numbers are closer to their natural state now than they were then. As an example of this, a farm not far from us is always months late in sowing crops and usually only get half of it combined before winter, the remainder lands on the ground. They have one of the highest consentrations of cornbuntings in the country and are beloved by the RSPB. The RSPB also used pictures of a nearby farm where turnips had been allowed to go to seed and were arguing that this was an ideal habitat for birds. Essentially what the RSPB wants is bad farmers.