Farming

Update on Hope Farm Technical Webinar Series

2023-02-10T09:21:00Z

A summary of the first Webinar in Hope Farm’s Technical Webinar Series 2022/2023, by Helen Mason, RSPB’s Investigations Intelligence Manager (on sabbatical at Hope Farm). Hope Farm Webinar 1 series 2022/2023 - Farming for resilience and a...(read more)

Wader friendly-farming – developing a wider network in Scotland

2023-02-09T14:42:00Z

Chris Bailey, Advisory Manager for RSPB Scotland, provides an overview of the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation project focused on increasing the number of farmers who undertake wader friendly management in Scotland

RSPB Scotland proactively supports initiatives at both national and local level aimed at reversing the declines in waders, many of them working in partnership. At the national level, we are a partner in the Working For Waders Initiative (WfW). This initiative, started in 2017, aims to tackle the decline of wading birds across Scotland with funding support from NatureScot and Scottish Government. The project is open to anyone with an interest in waders and is currently supported by a wide range of organisations and individuals, from farmers and conservationists to gamekeepers and birdwatchers. Partner organisations include Scottish Natural Heritage, British Trust for Ornithology, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Scottish Rural College, Scottish Land and Estates, Scottish Moorland Group, James Hutton Institute, The Heather Trust and Scottish Association for Field Sports.

WfW aims to do three things:

Raise awareness of wader declines
Show that declines can be reverse
Demonstrate the importance of working in partnership

Working together we are currently delivering a Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund project aiming to build a stronger community of wader friendly farmers by running a series of events across Scotland. Over the first three months of 2023 we will have organised events in Oban, Clyde Valley, Strathspey, Glenlivet, Angus Glens, Shetland, Caithness and Dumfries and Galloway. Five of these events have been aimed at farmers allowing discussions about wader friendly farming management on farm, providing an opportunity to discuss the latest research and trials. At our events at Strathspey and Glenlivet there was a particular focus on soil health and how with careful management of their soils they could improve grass yields whilst reducing inputs. This creates a win: win situation for farmers and biodiversity. Earthworms, a core part of the wader diet, are one such group have been shown to increase in response to farmers considering their soil management more carefully. We learnt about how sustainable rush management over several years could be targeted to help individual species as well as increasing the area that was available to be grazed and there was also chance to discuss the toppers and aerators owned and managed by RSPB and Cairngorms National Park. The event in Angus Glens sought to showcase the beneficial relationship between sensitively managed livestock production and wader conservation. Working with the RSPB and Working for Waders the farmer had created and improved habitat for the birds, including wader scrape creation and tree removal, predator control and nest monitoring, alongside its 105 strong beef suckler herd. Clyde Valley Farmers at one of the KTIF events

Our events in Oban, Caithness and Dumfries and Galloway brought together Agricultural Advisors and Consultants who work with farmers and crofters across Scotland. These agents play an important role in developing wader focused agri-environment applications on behalf of their farmer clients. Discussions focused how to make the most of the existing Agri-environment and Climate scheme, which will be open for applications in 2023, 2024 and 2025 and how to target options to maximise their effectiveness for the individual wader species as well as other priority species such as Corncrake. We highlighted the various products produced by Working for Waders, including information on how to monitor wader numbers and create wader scrapes. We also collated their views on how wader options should be incorporated into the replacement schemes which will start in 2027.

Over the next month we will be developing a series of case studies that demonstrate best practice. These will be available on the Working for Waders and RSPB website once complete. We are also planning 3 webinars to share knowledge and best practice and will be organising some events for farmers so we can teach them survey methods allowing them to record birds on their farms using an Working for Waders APP.

Hope Farm Technical Webinar Series 2022/2023

2022-11-30T13:42:00Z

Join us for the 2022/2023 series of webinars, hearing from experts in the fields of research, conservation and the farming sector. From hedgerows through to beetles and then wider research projects on how nature-friendly farming techniques may help ...(read more)

A look back on 2022 – including our oilseed rape insecticide-free trial

2022-11-10T12:13:00Z

An opportunity to reflect on the last year at RSPB Hope Farm, by Georgie Bray, Hope Farm Manager.

Winter is well settled in now on the farm, although it has been a long time coming. The scorching 40-degree heat of the summer seems a long time ago with everything looking damp, brown and muddy. As soon as our Autumn-sown crops were drilled it was a relief to see some decent rain to fill the water table. With a bit more time in the office and less daylight hours, we can reflect on last year both in terms of how trials on the ground have progressed, and performance of the last harvest’s crops.

Hare in Oilseed rape field 2022. Image (c) Kevin Pigney

Weather – what a season for it! How unusual was 2022?

It is always good to maintain a long-term view in farming, planning our business and nature resilience many years into the future. We are at the inevitable mercy of so many things outside of our control but planning for the long term helps us to look beyond what the weather and markets either gift or curse us with today. Over the last five years we have developed our farm management, by adopting more regenerative practices and trying to keep that long term view on improving soil health to improve resilience to adverse weather conditions and traffic.

To help with the long-term weather view, and to see if we really have been cursed in Cambridgeshire with such an unusually hot drought, I found it useful to look at the readings from our local weather station at NIAB. I remember looking at struggling crops in 2018 when I first came to the farm thinking that we were hit with a never-ending drought then. This year however, rather than over 250mm of rain before harvest in 2018, we only just scraped 180mm between January and July. That was in the top four lowest rainfall years for those months since monitoring started in 1960. I then looked at how temperatures have varied through the years, and the average highest temperatures for April to July combined, were the highest ever this year since monitoring started. No wonder the crops were cooking and the newly established trees in our agroforestry trial were finding life a bit tough!

We are trying increasingly to improve the natural biological processes on the farm that help us grow crops and protect them from pests and disease. More of our trials are focussing on this too, and I will give an update on one of our most recent pilot trials later in this article.

Harvest 2022 – looking back with optimistic realism

Given the unprecedented weather conditions that we have experienced, our crops are projected to make a healthy profit overall. Not everything has left the barn, but we already have a good idea of how crops performed. As expected, the spring crops that saw less than 2cm of rain from drilling right through to harvest, and some of the hottest weather seen here in the last half century, struggled. Our winter crops did at least as well as they ever have despite this weather.

Starting with what I feel was a considerable success, our oilseed rape made a healthy profit to split between us and contractor, after input costs of over £900/ha (more on that later). Winter wheat yields are not confirmed with some still in the shed but is estimated to make more than the OSR. Spring barley was variable with good fields yielding over 6t/ha and the poor ones not even half that. If a measure of soil health were plotted against yield on those fields though, I am fairly sure we would see a strong correlation between the two variables! Where spring barley yielded 6t/ha we made over £700/t. Across our whole spring barley acreage we only made a small profit to share with our contractor. Winter beans were about average at an approximate 4.5t/ha, projected to make a healthy profit of over £700/ha to split with our contractor thanks to a high price, whilst the less said about the spring beans the better! Last year, we vowed never to grow them again as they are a crop that relies on good spring rainfall, something lacking in recent years. We were hoping to try a bean/oat mix where the two are grown and harvested together but sadly, we were unable to drill the oats, and we ended up instead with spring beans in another drought. However, thanks to low input costs, the spring beans as our only loss-making crop, lost us little in the grand scheme of things.

Moving our contract farming agreement with the times

When all the crops are sold, we will be able to confirm these figures to share. It is worth also saying that our contract farming agreement has changed too, whilst we are moving to a more flexible system less reliant on the BPS (Basic Payment Scheme) payments to make the books balance. This means making some tough decisions on whether crops are worth investing less in during a particularly tough year when weather dictates that we won’t make bumper yields, or whether larger investments should be made to reduce risk of ongoing soil issues having a longer-term effect. With this approach, a standard per hectare payment isn’t appropriate. The old agreement didn’t appreciate a changing direction of government subsidies with ELMs (Environmental Land Management Scheme) either.

Now, we have a different financial set up, including the income from the farm both from environmental and cropping operations. The contractor’s charge is now based on the cost of operations on the ground, whilst we have also altered the split of profits to try and keep it as fair as we can between both parties too. Time will tell if this works for both sides in ensuring financial stability for both businesses. We will review this in three years’ time to see if any further tweaks need to be made.

Spring oat harvest, Agroforestry field. Image (c) G Bray

Oilseed Rape tribulations

Back in 2021 summer, we were looking at trying to grow oilseed rape for a third year running, having struggled to get this crop off the ground since 2020. The details are explained in our blog only a few months ago here. Now though, it’s good to look back on one of our best cropping years for oilseed rape despite the drought, with hope of a system that may work better with nature to combat a serious pest issue.

The crop was established in particularly good growing conditions – after winter barley gave us a long window, with a wet august to get the crop growing well. We opted for a low input system overall, investing in a companion crop and trap crop in the field, with some compost as added soil conditioner, which would benefit the field even if the oilseed rape failed.

Findings so far, beyond the impact on cabbage stem flea beetle larval distribution between trap crops and oilseed rape (at a ratio of 4:1, trap crop/oilseed rape), are that this system can work. Even with all the drought and heat throughout the summer. A lack of effective insecticides is often held as the only issue facing oilseed rape economic viability. However, there is a lot more at play here.

Good soil health is key
Drilling conditions with good moisture in the ground for the crop to get away is needed
Adding components like companion cropping, organic matter pre-drilling, and trap crops have the potential to combat other pest and disease issues with further benefits beyond growing the oilseed rape crop alone.

From a biodiversity side, the crop was amazing. Walking it last winter to see yellowhammers, grey partridge, reed bunting, snipe, meadow pipit and skylark using the field was wicked. The summer also brought pollinator and insect resources, and attracted a lot subsequent bird use. A local photographer, Kevin Pigney, got some amazing shots of birds and hares on the crop.

Here are some figures for the crop last year:

OSR finances for 2022 harvest

OSR as part of the trial, with strips of trap crop running through the middle of the field. Image (c) G Bray

After one year we cannot be sure that this system helped our oilseed rape, but with most of these inputs benefitting the field regardless of whether the oilseed rape runs to harvest or not, there is potential here. Establishment conditions this autumn were significantly worse in South Cambridgeshire to the previous year with the lack of rain, so the crop has not had as great a start as we had hoped for. One field for 2023 harvest is poor quality, and the other has now moved to a winter wheat crop following the catch crop of what would have been OSR companions. This hampered plans to develop the pilot trial, planned with ADAS (Agricultural Development and Advisory Service) and Rothamsted, but has confirmed our original thoughts about the need for the right environmental conditions.

Drilled up with more things to look forward to for 2023 harvest

I am happy to say we were all drilled up for autumn by mid-November. We held off the drilling of autumn crops a few weeks later than we would normally. This was critical to ensure we had enough rain to get the blackgrass and other weeds to germinate before drilling. Although it was hard waiting until November to drill some of our wheat, that wait has made such a difference to our effectiveness of the herbicides we do use. Herbicides are not what we want to use as a first port of call. If we do use them though, we need to give them every opportunity to work. Although a later drill may slightly reduce yield potential, this once again comes back to the long-term view of keeping a balance between good long-term sustainable farm management and short-term gain.

Winter Barley drilled very late (16th October) but growing well on 17th November. Image (c) G Bray

We are trying a few different things this year, including blending varieties of wheat with different disease resistances to see if that is effective as a means of reducing disease in the crop. It’s a blend of Crusoe and Illustrious Group 1 wheats that should be marketable together. Next harvest we may regret it if ripening across the field isn’t even – but we will see what happens and we have heard senescence tends to align when a crop is mixed. On a small trial we are also seeing how YQ Wheat fairs, under an ultra-low input system (organic bar use of herbicides). I am quietly hoping that with a taller variety in the mix, it may make for a decent corn bunting habitat too.

For more information contact Georgie Bray: Georgina.Bray@RSPB.ORG.UK

Counting bumblebees for the ‘Volunteer Monitoring of Farm Wildlife’ project

2022-11-10T12:03:00Z

This year, the RSPB is piloting the Volunteer Monitoring of Farm Wildlife (VMFW) project. Below is a diary account from one of our volunteer surveyors, Lynne Roberts. We are told that our farmland ecosystems are in crisis and that farms these d...(read more)

A recipe for success: Ensuring the Sustainable Farming Incentive restores biodiversity on farmland

2022-08-10T13:44:00Z

Richard Winspear, Agricultural Advice Manager, sets out the key requirements of the SFI's role in supporting farmers to build sustainable farming systems in England that support nature, and proposes an SFI Farmland Biodiversity Standard based on ...(read more)

The proposed Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) in Wales is published

2022-08-09T16:01:00Z

Hannah Woodall, Land Use Policy Officer for RSPB Cymru, summarises the key goals and ambitions for the new Sustainable Farming Scheme in Wales. RSPB Cymru very much welcomes Welsh Government’s proposals for its new Sustainable Farming Scheme (S...(read more)

Hope Farm Agroforestry Progress

2022-08-08T16:06:00Z

To date over 1,000 trees have been planted in the agroforestry field at Hope Farm with the help of staff and volunteers. Sophie Mott, RPSB Carbon Farming Project Manager, tells us more. Over the winter we planted up one of our 11ha arable fields into...(read more)

The Woodland Wildlife Toolkit - A tool to help with woodland management

2022-08-04T13:56:00Z

Ecologist, Dr Jacqueline Weir, explains how The Woodland Wildlife Toolkit website has been developed in partnership with other organisations and experts to provide location specific advice and guidance to woodland owners, managers and advisers. In th...(read more)

On the lookout for Waders in the Dark Peak

2022-07-27T13:53:00Z

This year, the RSPB has been working with farmers and volunteers across the Dark Peak to map the locations of wading species on enclosed farmland ahead of the introduction of new payments for biodiversity through the ELM scheme.

Conservation Officer, Tom Aspinall writes about how the project came about and what it hopes to achieve in partnership with farmers in the Dark Peak.

There’s something extra special about walking off-piste through the Dark Peak as the sun begins its daily journey up over the horizon, while searching for some of our country's most iconic wading birds, the curlew, lapwing, snipe and oystercatcher.    

The Dark Peak is an amazing place, a patchwork, dotted with farms, heathland, peat bogs and woodland and is an important place for many wading birds, however, across much of the UK many of these waders are facing challenging times.

To help us understand the status of these birds on Dark Peak farmland, with the help of a dedicated team of volunteers and farmers, we undertook an exciting survey to understand breeding wading populations on farms in the Dark Peak.

Working with the Curlew Recovery Partnership

Following an excellent talk at the Curlew Recovery Partnership’s launch event by Chloe Palmer who facilitates several Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund (CSFF) groups in the Peak District, we made contact with Chloe as it was clear that the conservation objectives of her farmer groups and those of the local RSPB team in the Dark Peak were well aligned. From this the Dark Peak Wader Survey was born! Working in close partnership with Chloe and her CSFF group members, the survey, which covered 22 farms located mainly in the Hope and Bradfield valleys, aimed to provide a snapshot of where curlew, lapwing, snipe and oystercatcher breed on enclosed farmland.

With the help of over 30 excellent volunteers, from beginner surveyors to experienced ornithologists, we conducted over 80 visits to our partner farms. Each farm was surveyed three times between late spring and early summer this year, with volunteers undertaking early morning trips to record any sightings of waders.

The data collected through the surveys will help us build a picture of the distributions of breeding waders, information which is critical to supporting farmers and birds alike.  

With the introduction of new payments to farmers for the public goods their land provides through the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, it is crucial that they have the evidence of what species their land supports and this survey aims to do exactly that, ensuring that where they’re present, farmers can keep managing the land in a way that benefits these precious birds.

The benefits of surveys

Knowing where birds are breeding is also essential to ensuring that we can support these populations further in the future. By methodically surveying for breeding birds, we can understand their distribution and work together with farmers to protect those populations and hopefully help them to grow.

While this year’s survey has provided us with some useful data on wader populations on the participating farms, we hope to extend the coverage of the survey into the future, working in partnership with more farms, landowners and land managers across the Dark Peak to better understand how breeding populations are distributed across the whole farming landscape.  

We’re now in the process of analysing the data from this season’s surveys, which will be used to inform a short report for each farm outlining what was found there, and through continued collaboration with the farms within the CSFF groups we can continue to provide updated reports each survey year.

We want to say a huge thank you to the farmers for providing us with access to the land they own or manage and to our volunteers for their willingness to get up at the crack of dawn on so many occasions!  

Hearing the sounds of the curlew and lapwing over a wet field in the first light of day is a truly heart-warming thing, and it’s something we all hope to ensure can be enjoyed by many generations to come.

Image (c) Tom Aspinall

If you live in or near to the Dark Peak and would like to get involved in the survey in any way at all, please get in touch with us at tom.aspinall@rspb.org.uk

Regenerative agriculture on show

2022-07-08T08:43:00Z

To give us an insight into this year's inspirational Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Show and Conference Shelley Abbott, Fair to Nature Technical Facilitator, summarises our presence at the recent event, and explains why it is so popular amo...(read more)

The opportunity to market produce as 'Fair to Nature'

2022-05-25T14:35:00Z

Mark Varney, Head of Fair to Nature on the importance of restoring nature as part of a productive farming system, and the benefits of joining Fair to Nature. As a nation, over recent years, we’ve seen policy-driven changes in agriculture cause ...(read more)

Farming and nature in Wales

2022-05-23T09:53:00Z

Hannah Woodall, Land Use Policy Office for RSPB Cymru outlines the effective ways that farmers in Wales are using nature friendly farming techniques to improve farm resilience and provide environmental benefits. Farming in Wales is at its...(read more)

The Good Food Nation Bill – can it fix Scotland’s food system?

2022-05-19T15:06:00Z

Andrew Stark, Land Use Policy Officer RSPB Scotland, provides a summary of how the Good Food Nation Bill should be making Scotland’s food system better for nature by putting nature at the heart of agricultural practices. Food is vitally im...(read more)

RSPB’s attendance at Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Show & Conference 2022

2022-05-18T15:23:00Z

Bridget Gaskill, Agricultural Advice Project Manager outlines the key themes and highlights anticipated during our presence at Groundswell, 22nd and 23rd June 2022. Following our inaugural presence at Groundswell last year, RSPB and the Farm Wildlife...(read more)