D-day approaches for farmland wildlife

In the week that the EU Heads of State meet to agree the amount of money for wildlife friendly farming, a new report published today suggests that we have lost 44 million birds from the UK since 1966. 

In State of UK Birds 2012* we have calculated that the total number of breeding pairs of birds in the UK has fallen from 105 to 83 million – a loss of 22 million pairs. Numbers have remained roughly stable either side of a substantial decline between the mid-1970s and mid 1980s. 27 million pairs of breeding birds were lost from the UK between 1975 and 1987. 

What is really frustrating is that for many years we have had the solutions to do something about this - particularly to address the decline of our farmland birds. 

And, in the last decade, some farmers have achieved some incredible results.

On Friday, I was lucky enough to visit the Duke of Norfolk's Estate near Arundel in Sussex.  I briefly met Peter Knight, the Estate Manager and one of our finalists in this year's Nature of Farming awards.  His story shows what can be achieved with hard work and some well targeted incentive schemes.  In 2003, the Estate with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, embarked on a project to reinstate grey partridge across the 1,240 hectares that they managed.  They entered into a Higher Level agri-environment scheme and 12% of the estate is now managed for wildlife.  The results are staggering: 360 pairs of grey partridge in 2012 compared to 3 pairs in 2003; 300% increase in singing skylark numbers over the first three years of the agreement; 18 different species of raptor recorded, the return of rare arable flowers like cornflower and dramatic increases in butterflies like the Duke of Burgundy whose numbers were up from just 3 in 2009 to 18 in 2012.

The remarkable turn around has been achieved in the decade that we have been running our own commercial, conventional arable farm - Hope Farm.  By using options available to all farmers in the Entry Level Scheme, we have tripled the number of farmland birds while maintaining or increasing wheat yields.

There are many other farmers who are doing the right thing - using these schemes to provide the habitat that wildlife needs to flourish.  These are the farmers that we celebrate in our Nature of Farming Awards.

We know that well funded, properly designed agri-environment schemes, targeted in the right place work.  But the sad truth is governments across the UK are not doing enough to encourage more farmers to do the right things for wildlife.

As the EU Budget proposals released last week demonstrated, the funding for these schemes are vulnerable and that if the schemes dry up then good environmental work may stop.  Last week, the RSPB released the results of a survey wich showed that 96% of farmers think environmental work on their farms would be impacted if payments for wildlife-friendly farming were cut.

So, the decisions that Heads of State make about the EU Budget matter this week.  They matter to farmers and to widllife.  This is why we are asking you to tell Mr Cameron to back funding for wildlife friendly farming.  You can support our campaign here.

We need the Prime Minister to use all his diplomatic powers to get the right deal for the UK and that must include a decent deal for wildlife-friendly farming.

I hope you can support this campaign.

*State of the UK Birds 2012 report is a joint report from the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the statutory nature conservation agencies (Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Northern Ireland Environment Agency, Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural England and Countryside Council for Wales).