Am looking forward to today. I have a meeting with our Council this morning which is always fun. And tonight I am giving a talk to the South East England Agricultural Society. We are debating whether conservation is compatible with intensive farming.
I am not sure what sort of reception to expect, but I am sure it will be colourful evening. Judging by the state of the farmland bird and farmland butterfly indices, you could conclude that it is not possible to reconcile seemingly competing interests. But it is always worth remembering that it was farming practices that allowed many of the species which we now value to flourish. Many species even owe their vernacular names to their association with agriculture: cornflower and corn bunting to name but two.
But as we became better at producing food from our land - a fourfold increase in yield since 1945 - and as the Common Agriculture Policy exerted its influence, farmland wildlife suffered.
Great efforts have been made by many farmers over the past decade to try and reverse the declines but alas, the two biological indicators still show numbers are bumping along at the bottom of the graph. Some of the solutions are in our grasp - environmental stewardship can be made to work harder, payment rates for these schemes need to provide sufficient incentive for farmers to take up the right options and the new CAP must, of course, be made fit for purpose.
Given that so much of our nation is farmed, it is pretty clear that, if we want to recover farmland wildlife, we have no option other than to find harmonious coexistence between nature and farming. This is why I am so pleased that Defra, in its Natural Environment White Paper, committed to explore the question about how to improve productivity whilst enhancing the envirionment.
With luck, we should get a chance to explore some of the solutions at tonight's debate.
I'll let you know how I get on.
Do you think that it is possible to increase productivity whilst enhancing the environment? If so how? If not, what do we do?
It would be great to hear your views.
Would not like it thought I have it in for corvids and cats but when certain bird species numbers already low them and badgers plus others must have a large impact and without humans in time it would right itself I think but we make everything go to artificial levels and think we have to take a responability to help protect species under threat even though it is really distasteful to have to do so.
Thanks for the comments. All make sense to me.
The event itself was entirely positive. We had a balanced debate and from the feedback I received afterwards, the farmers were either already trying to do their bit or wanted to do more. They did not contest information about the state of nature that I prevented although were probably a little grumpy to be reminded that the south east is at the bottom of the regional league table for wild birds. And my fellow speaker, Andrew Mason, from Sentry Farming, broadly accepted the challenges that I was airing.
Debate after the talks did cover CAP reform, agri-environment scheme design, GM and yes, Sooty, predation - cats and corvids. Given the imminent demise of FWAG, farm advice was also a hot topic. I think that losss of FWAG was universally seen as a bad thing for farmers and for wildlife. I know nature is meant to abhor a vaccum, but I am not convinced that we, or others, are well placed to fill the void. So creative solutions such as wildlife friendly farmers helping to spread the word seem entirely appropriate options to explore.
I have a feeling that we'll get back on this topic soon.
I believe the key is rotations and people eating less meat. Farm subsidies should be entirely decoupled and linked to less intensive farming systems, rotations and mixed farming and focused across Europe on what the Society for Nature Conservation describes as areas of High Natural Value.
Think on larger farms conservationists can easily have 7% as long as they are prepared to pay for it,on smaller farms of say100 acres it would be very unfair but would suggest lots would go for a 2 acre plot of wild bird seed mixture if they can get a reasonable grant.Lets not forget that in these difficult economic times every bit of production from farming we forego has to have the effect of making our balance of payments worse.Conservationists have to recognise as well although they seem to want to bury there head in the sand and deny it that there are definitely other influences that need addressing.Some being the large increase in corvids,badgers who find ground nesting birds so easily and also the fact that the loss of insects has to be shared between farming and vehicles.
What really needs to happen is somehow use those farmers doing relatively small simple things to improve wildlife as a example that the others can see and then they are more likely to respond to other farmers than to say doing what the conservation bodies require.I do think the RSPB does sterling work in this area but farmers always respond better to there own kind so how about another time you meet farmers Martin ask the secretary of group if you could take a wildlife friendly farmer with you.Just a idea but I for one would really like to know if it worked.
Martin - I thought productivity increase was 6 times - but that may be arable only ? (important because that's where the greatest issues are). Either way, we're producing massively more than the architects of the 1947 agriculture act which still underpins our 'more, cheaper food' approach could ever have dreamt of. When the RSPB got into agriculture in the mid 1980s I had a vision of farmland bird declines checking and then reversing - as has happened in forestry. Not a chance - what we've seen is wildlife being srewed down tighter and tigher - and the tragedy is that its probably had a tiny effect on productivity - as the scruffier land, maybe just 3 or 4% on intensive arable farms has been squeezed and squeezed - is it really too much to ask for maybe 5, not even, 7% for birds and the environment in revised CAP regs ?