Farming has never stood still, but few of its sectors have changed as much as dairying over the last few decades. Dairy farmers have been declining as fast as some of our farmland wildlife: in the past ten years alone, the number of dairy farmers has halved in England and Wales, and fallen by a third in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Those remaining in the industry have needed to find efficiencies wherever they can to keep their costs lower than what they get paid for their milk (currently around 26p per litre). Increasing scale has been one obvious place to do this: average herd size in the UK has increased from 67 cows in 1990 to 113 in 2009, with a quarter of milk production now coming from farms with more than 250 cows. The mantra has been to get bigger or get out.
What are the implications of this for wildlife? Well, bigger farms are not necessarily any worse for wildlife than smaller farms: in my experience, it is the attitude of those managing the farm that matters most; how much are they prepared to farm ’with nature in mind’. What is of more concern for wildlife is that all farms, big or small, need to farm their grass and crop land as productively and efficiently as possible to keep costs down. This almost invariably means leaving less behind for wildlife. Luckily, agri-environment payments are available to compensate farmers for deliberately taking their ‘foot off the pedal’ on some areas of the farm to help wildlife. Used in the right way, these schemes can make an enormous difference.
There are many dairy farmers around the country doing just this: people like Robert Kynaston, a dairy farmer from Shropshire whose efforts have been recognised with reaching the final four of this years Nature of Farming Award. Recently, I helped judge a competition amongst the farmers that supply Waitrose with milk. Waitrose have been encouraging their suppliers to help wildlife through their wildcare scheme. I was hugely impressed with the efforts being made by the finalists we visited. As well as work on hedges, woodland, ponds and field margins, we saw farmers that had integrated a specific package of agri-environment options to really benefit farmland birds. This was real commitment to making space for nature.
How do we get many more dairy farmers around the UK to follow the example of these farmers? To achieve landscapes richer in wildlife, we need a sufficient scale of action. This raises some challenging questions. In England, the best work for wildlife is being achieved through Higher Level stewardship, but this scheme is very targeted and only around 10-15% of farmers can hope to access its funds. Entry level stewardship is open to all farmers, but this is currently not delivering enough key in-field habitats. Proposed changes to the scheme, such as new grassland options would make a big difference. And around 40% of English dairy farmers are not in any scheme at all. There’s plenty of work to be done, but it’s at events such as this that we can work with all involved in the dairy industry to find ways of ensuring that there is space for nature alongside producing milk.
Suggest that if 40% of English dairy farmers are in no scheme at all then the rewards in money terms are not as rosy as many conservationists think otherwise seeing as dairy farmers under economic pressure at that price per litre and indeed many getting less than that they would be in any scheme that helped them profit wise.