Tag Archives: farming

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Green farming budget freeze ‘will hit nature work’

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The BBC reports environmental groups have warned that work to boost biodiversity across the UK countryside will be put at risk by the government’s decision to freeze the level of payments to farms in England.

Farmers – already angry at changes to inheritance tax rules announced in the Budget – have been told payments from the public purse will be frozen next year.

The Wildlife Trusts say the decision leaves a “monumental gap” between current environmental land management scheme (Elms) funding and what is needed to help farmers protect and boost wildlife and its habitats, while still producing food.

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‘Nature’s church’: living cowpats and rainforests transform Exmoor national park

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The Guardian reports in the picturesque area in south-west England, farmers and conservationists are turning around the long decline.

Exmoor national park, like all of England’s national parks, has failed to protect nature since they were set up 75 years ago. Only 15% of Exmoor’s sites of special scientific interest are in favourable condition.

One reason is that most national park land is privately owned by farmers, who embraced fertiliser and pesticide-fuelled intensification in past decades, decimating wildlife. The parks own a tiny proportion of the land and have few powers outside planning controls.

But Holly Purdey is trying to reconcile farming and fauna. She took on the 81-hectare (200-acre) Horner farm in Exmoor national park in 2018, challenging herself to produce beef and lamb while restoring nature to land she says had been “trashed” by intensive farming.

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UK farmers urged to set aside 1% of land for wildlife havens

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The Guardian reports farmers are being called upon to dedicate 1% of their land to nature and carbon sequestration in an unexpected way – by farming in straight lines.

The call to make a commitment to nature and the climate in the run-up to the crucial COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow comes from WildEast, the farmer-led rewilding movement that is encouraging landowners large and small to create wildlife-rich places across East Anglia. Since its launch a year ago, the WildEast campaign has gathered pledges from more than 80 farmers in the region to devote 20% of their land to nature. 

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‘I’m seen as the fool’: the farmers putting trees back into the UK’s fields

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The Guardian reports the trial, involving seven farms in Devon and scientists from Rothamsted Research and the Organic Research Centre, is the brainchild of Luke Dale-Harris of the charity Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group. It is being co-funded by the Woodland Trust and Innovative Farmers, a Soil Association programme helping farmers participate in agricultural research.

Lowland Britain’s prevailing livestock tradition of fields stocked with a high number of animals grazing near-monocultures of grass only works in the landscape and economy of the past 50 years that provided predictable weather and artificial fertilisers, argues Dale-Harris.

The climate crisis, and a series of recent spring and summer droughts – including this year – have driven farmers to look for alternatives. Plenty of Devon farmers were keen to join the trial. The climate emergency, he says, is a catalyst for change that “involves working more closely with natural processes, which can only be a good thing”. 

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Countryside improvements fund ‘could be raided’

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BBC News reports a budget designed to fund improvements to Britain’s countryside is set to be raided, the BBC has learned. Cash will be diverted away from ambitious conservation projects and towards protecting farm businesses. The government previously promised that the £3bn currently paid to farms under EU agriculture policy would be wholly used to support the environment. Ministers had said that, after Brexit, farmers would have to earn their subsidies. Farmers would secure the case by undertaking actions such as large-scale forestry or catching flood waters. But many farmers complained that they’d go bust unless the environmental actions were made easier to achieve. 

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Let sheep farmers grow trees and sell carbon offsets to businesses, urge researchers

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The Telegraph reports most sheep farms are unprofitable without subsidies, with farmers losing an estimated £4,400 to £6,000 per hectare in a 25 year period when labour costs are considered. Researchers at the University of Sheffield have found that farmers could make a profit if they left their land to allow native trees to return and then sell carbon offsets to businesses and individuals. 

Sheep at feeder photo by Jeheme under creative commons.

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British countryside is ‘becoming less fertile’ with nearly 40 per cent of arable soils in England and Wales ‘degraded’ due to loss of carbon, study shows

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The Daily Mail reports arable soils in England and Wales are becoming less fertile, according to a new study.  Almost 40 per cent of arable soils are being ‘degraded’, meaning they have too much clay and not enough carbon or organic matter.

The findings are based on a new ‘soil health index’ that classifies soils by the proportion of organic matter they contain compared with clay, which is too dense and compact to generally be suited to plant growth. Researchers say the index is a good predictor of how much carbon soils can take up and store and a general indicator of how well they are functioning. It could help farmers or policymakers improve the natural services soils provide, such as food production, flood protection and carbon storage.

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Convert half of UK farmland to nature, urges top scientist

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THE GUARDIAN reports half of the nation’s farmland needs to be transformed into woodlands and natural habitat to fight the climate crisis and restore wildlife, according to a former chief scientific adviser to the UK government.

Prof Sir Ian Boyd said such a change could mean the amount of cattle and sheep would fall by 90%, with farmers instead being paid for storing carbon dioxide, helping prevent floods and providing beautiful landscapes where people could boost their health and wellbeing. Boyd said the public were subsidising the livestock industry to produce huge environmental damage. 

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Farmland birds see decline of 55 per cent in the last 50 years, Defra reveals due to lack of hedgerows and use of pesticides

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The Telegraph reports farmland birds have seen a decline of 55 per cent in the last 50 years, Defra has revealed, as a lack of hedgerows and overuse of pesticides are given the blame.

For some birds, farming has been particularly devastating; corn buntings, grey partridges and tree sparrows, all of which are highly dependent on farmland, have experienced declines of more than 90 per cent since 1970.

Turtle doves have seen their numbers halve in the five year period of 2012 to 2017, with long term declines of 98 per cent.

Defra has been monitoring 19 species of farmland birds, and has found that over the shorter term the fall has been less drastic – bird numbers overall fell by 6 per cent between 2012-17.