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.
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.