English Entry Level Stewardship (ELS)

English farmers are now eligible for an entirely new agri-environment scheme funded from a reformed EU Common Agricultural Policy.

The new Entry Level Stewardship is worth £30 per hectare to most farmers and it will pay them to create and maintain habitats for wildlife on their farms.

Some of these habitat options have been developed from Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust research programmes and we are confident that they will improve game and wildlife abundance.

Here we offer a guide to planning an Entry Level Stewardship scheme for game and wildlife. It is not a comprehensive guide - for that you should consult the Defra website and their published handbook. We have selected what we think are the best options for a range of farmers - especially with game in mind.

Like a supermarket shelf, Entry Level Stewardship contains a rather bewildering array of options, so it is important to have a thought-out plan with the right options in the right place. This will provide a lot of habitat for wildlife and do much better than a haphazard approach. Every farm is different, there is no one-size-fits-all, but a plan should be based on the following themes:

• Think about life cycles. Animals need food and shelter year round, so cater for all seasons.
• Integrate the set-aside. This is valuable habitat too, so you should not waste it.
• Enhance existing features. Protect, widen and compliment what you have already got.
• Re-create a patch work quilt. Crops are habitat, but animals do like a choice.
• Create small scale diversity. Cherish variety in everything - especially the planting mixtures.