Yesterday the great and the good of the farming industry packed into a chilly barn on the border of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to get very enthusiastic about saving wildlife.
There was enthusiastic talk of changing the way our countryside is farmed to help protect birds, and admissions from farming leaders that the intensification of farming in recent decades has had negative impacts on the environment. They even invited government minister Hilary Benn along and nodded in agreement to every word he said.
Sound a little far fetched? Well get with the programme because things are changing in our countryside and this could be the beginning of something pretty special. Yesterday saw the launch of the Campaign for the Farmed Environment – and it’s hit the headlines in the farming press as well as the national newspapers.
The venue was the family farm of NFU president Peter Kendall and with guests including decision makers from all the main farming industry organisations, government environmental bodies and countryside conservation groups, this was clearly being taken seriously by all those involved.
But why? Campaigns, environmental schemes and rural projects are being launched all the time and few of them ever get this kind of fanfare and attention. Well a little background will help put things in perspective.
Back in the 70s and 80s grain and butter mountains caused by over production of food were resulting in falling produce prices. In response the Government introduced the policy of set aside. All this land left out of production provided a great habitat for farmland birds which was lost when the markets changed course, food prices rose and set aside was abolished in 2007.
Farmland birds are already suffering – they are now at half the level they were at in 1970 – so loss of this habitat could prove to be disastrous in the long term. In response the Government started looking for a way to replace the set aside policy and protect farmland birds and other wildlife. And after a lot of negotiation, debate and general to-ing and fro-ing, we have now arrived at the Campaign for the Farmed Environment.
It’s a voluntary scheme, so – aptly for the target audience of farmers – it’s more about carrots than sticks. But it’s one we urgently need to be successful, because if we lose skylarks from our skies, yellowhammers from our hedgerows and grey partridges from our wheat fields then our countryside will lose its heart.