2024

In this blog, Joe Stanley, Head of Sustainable Farming at the GWCT Allerton Project, explores why cutting agri-environment schemes like the Countryside Stewardship Capital Grant is a shortsighted move. He highlights how these cuts erode farmers’ trust, delay critical environmental progress, and risk pushing agriculture toward unsustainable intensification. Joe argues that investing in nature-friendly farming is essential for achieving climate, biodiversity, and food security goals, warning that failing to do so now will lead to far greater costs in the future.

Starting in 1970, the GWCT’s ongoing Sussex Study is the world’s longest running scientific study on invertebrates in the cereal ecosystem, providing a robust indication of the national picture.

The Scottish Lowlands team had a busy start to the autumn, with the past couple weeks filled with fieldwork, travel and more fieldwork.

While it may seem like wildlife is winding down for the year, there are still things we can do for our countryside neighbours. Now is the time to plant wildflower seeds! Planting them before the first frost gives them time to settle in, and germination can be triggered by the cold so that they are ready to flower next spring.

1 May marked the start of 2024’s No Mow May. This campaign, initiated by the conservation organisation Plantlife, encourages us not to mow our lawns during May as a way of supporting not only our country’s flora, but the wildlife that relies on it – particularly pollinators such as bees.

Over the last few weeks, the Scottish Lowlands team has been busy completing the tenth year of spring grey partridge pair surveys on Balgonie farm.

Historically, Scottish agri-environmental schemes have found it difficult to find a balance between establishing measures for biodiversity and ensuring that the system itself works for farmers.

It’s been a busy start to the new year for the Scottish Lowlands research team. We’ve spent the last few weeks setting up gamebird feeders to carry out research into supplementary winter feeding for farmland birds.

Many parts of the English rolling landscape are criss-crossed by hedgerows, which if one stops and looks provide an interesting perspective on the history of the landscape being observed.

Throughout August and September of last year the Scottish Lowlands Research team undertook pitfall trapping on the six farms in the PepsiCo FAB project. We sampled at some beautiful locations, surrounded by the flowers of cover crops and pollinator mixes, and made sure to sample contrasting habitats at each farm.