By Henrietta Appleton, GWCT Policy Officer (England)
Members and regular readers of our messages about the success of bottom-up approaches to nature conservation will be aware that we call those private land managers, working conservationists. But in truth we probably should also be emphasising the value of farming conservationists.
Given the ambitions that all the political parties have for combining food production with wildlife recovery and environmental improvements, this land use will be under the microscope in terms of its contributions to these goals for many years to come. But either term emphasises the importance of engaging with land managers and facilitating their motivations and expertise in meeting policy objectives.
Below we outline our hopes for policy direction post the general election. These are ambitions based on evidence, experience of working with land managers and running our own farm and supported by practical delivery measures, something that is sadly missing in many of the policy asks of key stakeholders in the debate over the countryside. We look forward to hearing your views on them.
1. Productive farming - the farmer’s role is to produce food
- Future policy must balance the environment with sustainable food production.
- Sustainability should not be an excuse for extensification of farming systems but a strategic objective that balances the reduction in inorganic inputs with the development of agri-tech options and nature-based systems that support yields at similar levels. This includes focussing on soil health, improving nitrogen use efficiency, addressing GHG emissions across the farming rotation and optimising land usage with hard to farm areas devoted to nature.
- Our food supply is in greater peril than at any other time since the Second World War. Extremes of weather are testing agricultural systems globally, including our own, and now is entirely the wrong time to be complacent about this. Government needs to provide leadership in combatting climate change impacts by helping to foster resilience into the food supply chain to withstand shocks and encourage technological developments, like precision plant breeding.
2. Environmental sustainability – farming and land management must be part of the solution
- Farming occupies 72% of our landscape and so to address our climate and nature challenges, we need our farmers and land managers to adopt environmentally friendly farming practices.
- Policy detail must view farming and the environment in a proper context. Too often policy aspects are viewed in isolation and based on ill-informed commentary. Simple messages such as reducing methane emissions through reduced livestock production fail to consider the biodiversity and carbon storage benefits of our low input grasslands that exist due to climate and topography restraints. Some of these landscapes have been identified as being suitable to re-purpose into tree planting schemes to help meet our Net Zero ambitions, yet by definition low output farming tends to lead to higher levels of biodiversity, which would be lost under blanket tree cover. So we need evidenced policies that view land management and farming holistically.
- The GWCT’s Allerton project is a blueprint for ways to deliver multiple benefits - food, nature, clean water, carbon storage etc - from the same hectare of land; the practical outcomes of scientific research. These (and other) measures are being adopted at scale by the Environmental Farmers Group which is a bottom-up, farmer-led initiative, advised by the GWCT. But even our own farm blueprint has been tested in the last 12 months with persistent and heavy rainfall compromising our ability to establish crops. This is important as one of the best ways of reducing the environmental impact of food production is to grow optimal yields.
3. A long-term view - farmers need stability if they are to deliver policy outcomes
- ELMS is the post-Brexit support framework, and each party has committed to it, although both Labour and the LibDems feel that changes are needed. Our view is that farmers now need a period of stability and certainty as recent developments in ELMS have created a scheme that is starting to deliver for farmers.
- Commitments to continue the progress that has been made in ELMS, particularly the flexibility in the SFI would be welcomed. Clarity on SFI and Countryside Stewardship funding would be helpful – although a simple split as originally proposed would fail to account for the relative importance of each delivery tier.
- We believe that ELMS has missed a real opportunity to reward farmers for the land that they do not crop, as a base payment. This is often the land which by default fosters wildlife, and those who have much of it should be encouraged to maintain it.
4. The conservation toolbox - game management can deliver for biodiversity
- The conservation toolkit must be inclusive not restrictive. This includes making difficult decisions about the need to control one abundant species to protect another declining and threatened species.
- We would like to see best practice game management being considered part of the conservation delivery framework rather than the villain. The shooting industry is often criticised for its negative impacts on the environment. But as with all industries, there are good and bad operators.
- GWCT research has demonstrated that best practice application of game management principles - habitat provision, food and protection from predation - can support a range of red-listed species such as the curlew which breed more successfully on land managed for grouse shooting, whilst management for released game at the Allerton project has seen a doubling of songbird numbers including the red-listed spotted flycatcher and yellowhammer. In addition, woodland and hedgerow plantings for game are sequestering carbon and helping achieve net zero as well as supporting a range of wildlife.
- Applying game management principles delivers effective conservation from two perspectives. Firstly, it is private money delivering public benefits at no cost to the public. In a land where we have competing priorities for limited funds it simply makes no sense to curtail such delivery and the benefits lost to all. Secondly, it is proven to deliver species recovery as opposed to the failure of the c£9bn invested in habitat based agri-environment schemes over the last 25 years in supporting nature recovery.
- The recent think piece on conservation effectiveness sought to encourage consideration of ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs) within policy delivery mechanisms as these are based on governance and management, not legal protection. These measures encourage bottom-up approaches to conservation and do not involve restrictions on management practices that have been proven to work.
5. The rural economy - farming and game management are key employers
- It is important not to forget the role that farming and game management play in the rural economy. Both are key rural employers, and their viability underpins a range of supporting services such as village shops, schools and local businesses, particularly in remote rural areas.
- Whilst farming’s role is perhaps more visible to many through farm suppliers, livestock markets, farm shops, holiday homes etc, the 2024 Value of Shooting report finds that the shooting industry generates £9.3bn of economic activity annually, supports the equivalent of 173,000 full time jobs and is a driver for nature conservation on 7.6m hectares.
Whilst we expect that future policy will initially follow in the same plane as currently – a focus on the environment over food and habitat as the basis for nature recovery – we hope that the next Government is prepared to listen to our evidenced approaches to reversing biodiversity declines and sustainable farming systems before it is too late. It is time to adopt GWCT practices and Give Farming Conservationists a try!