Back in 2000, the RSPB was looking to purchase a farm, to demonstrate and research wildlife-friendly farming methods that would still turn a profit. A pin was put in the map between Elsworth and Knapwell in Cambridgeshire, and Grange Farm (now named Hope Farm) was purchased from the Sandercock family.
Our aspiration was to halt the ongoing decline of red-listed and endangered species that had relied on farming practices to survive for many years. Looking back, the outcomes we’ve seen certainly tick that box, and it is a privilege to manage the farm now, knowing all that has been achieved here. While I normally write about what is happening on the fields, with drilling underway, cultivations nearly complete, and winter bird seed mixes full of colour, this seems like a good opportunity to celebrate our 20th birthday, and look back on all that has happened in the last two decades.
A remarkably unremarkable farm
In the 1990s the BTO realised that their long-running data on common birds showed a cataclysmic decline in birds dependent upon farmland – more so than birds of any other habitat. In response, the RSPB instigated a number of studies of individual species to work out why. Mark Avery, our Conservation Director at the time, decided we should buy a farm to allow us to demonstrate how you can help farmland birds to recover on a productive, profitable arable farm.
So we bought Hope Farm, and by all accounts it was a remarkably unremarkable farm. But that was the point. We wanted a typical family-sized arable farm in the wheat belt of East Anglia, with challenging heavy clay soils to show that whatever we could do here could be done on any arable farm in the country.
More memorable than the farm itself was the amazing response of RSPB supporters to our request to help buy Hope Farm. It was the second largest appeal in RSPB history, beaten only, I believe, by the purchase of Abernethy. This was so uplifting to those working on farming for the RSPB: proof that the mission we had set ourselves was so important to our supporters.
Bird and butterfly numbers soar
We had permission to start baseline bird monitoring in the autumn of 1999 and spent the first full year making no changes to management in order to assess what the typical winter and breeding bird populations were like. There were no grey partridges, lapwings, tree sparrows, corn buntings, or even linnets in the first winter, and the maximum count of yellowhammers was two and reed buntings was three.
As a result of the changes we made, the breeding bird population at the farm increased dramatically over the first ten years and has subsequently remained stable at between two-and-half and three times the baseline figure. On average, the number of territories of red-listed farmland birds is more than three times higher than in the baseline year.
On average, counts of red-listed farmland birds over the last decade have been 22 times higher than during that first winter. Highlights include tree sparrows returning as winter visitors in 2014, with corn buntings following as regular winter visitors and breeding birds in 2016. Our highest count of yellowhammers, in 2016, was over 700!
Perhaps even more impressive than the increase in birds has been the response of butterflies, which have increased over four-fold and show no signs of levelling off. Having gone insecticide-free just last year, who knows what levels we might reach?
Results that exceeded expectations
Back in 2000, we had a few management solutions for farmland birds, but we had no idea what impact these would have if they were all applied to a single farm. Taking management control of Hope Farm enabled us to do this and monitor the impacts much more effectively than we could have done anywhere else. We were confident that we could halt the declines of farmland birds and most of us thought that we could achieve some level of increase in populations. The most optimistic among us believed we might be able to double populations, but nobody expected that we might be able to quadruple skylark and linnet numbers, more than double yellowhammer numbers and bring back grey partridges, lapwings, yellow wagtails and corn buntings.
A question for the change-makers
What is brilliant about the farm, is that although I like to think of this place as extraordinary, we certainly aren’t a standalone beacon for wildlife in farming. Especially in current times, it’s important to note that although the idea of a conservation organisation running a high productivity arable farm seemed pretty pioneering at the time, we certainly aren’t the only organisation to have done so, and we aren’t the only farmers to be providing a plentiful home for wildlife either. Other farmers are planting wildflower margins, providing seed mixes, and nurturing hedgerows to benefit insects, birds and mammals.
Having seen the amazing success of Hope Farm and other farms like it, there is one question that we can all put to the change-makers today: if making these simple changes on a farm increase breeding farmland birds by around 130%, overwintering farmland birds by 1,500%, and butterflies by 400%, can you imagine what a difference we could make if this happened across the landscape, as a connected network of wildlife friendly farms?
Thriving wildlife on a productive farm
While looking back at how habitat provision and mid-tier stewardship has made such an incredible difference for wildlife, it’s important to note that the world is changing – and so are we. For the last five years we have been focusing on large scale changes that you can make to in-field practices: cover crops, reducing cultivations, introducing organic matter, and perhaps the reintroduction of livestock into the rotation to help with cover crop management. We have already started to demonstrate the benefits some of these measures can have for biodiversity, and soil health, but I still feel we are very much at the beginning of this journey. Although Hope Farm is now 20 years old, we are still realising the potential of farmland for growing crops, supporting wildlife, maintaining healthy soils, storing carbon, and restoring water quality.
At the farm, we are always looking back at the year just gone, and forward to what difficulties we may face in growing profitable crops to harvest. That remains the same as 20 years ago, even with the changed practices now in place. Profits are variable, but relatively consistent with the RSPB’s profit in 2000. The thing that really has changed though is the wildlife. Other farms across the country have taken similar steps to Hope Farm, perhaps without the same monitoring, and it is amazing to see that wildlife can thrive on a productive farm.
Get involved in our online webinars
I’ll finish there, but don’t forget that we’ll be continuing to celebrating our work at Hope Farm throughout this autumn and winter. Please have a look on our webpage for our annual review, which includes more highlights from the last 20 years. If you are looking for nature-based solutions in farming, then you might be interested in our 20th anniversary webinar series. The first webinar on 28 October was a storming success, and we are looking forward to welcoming a further suite of speakers in November, December, January and February. Plug over, and cheers to another 20 years on the farm!