Farm4Bio - A new farmland biodiversity project
If the declines in farmland wildlife are to be reversed, it is essential that habitats are improved across the wider agricultural landscape. However, many UK arable farmers, for sound financial reasons, would prefer to achieve this objective by the targeted management of limited areas of uncropped land rather than by modifying the management of crops which could reduce the prospect of economically sustainable crop production.
There is some scientific evidence that this approach could be successful and it is likely that there will be more uncropped land under the new EU support arrangements. Moreover, the difficulty of modifying in-crop management to meet biodiversity objectives has been demonstrated by the low uptake of arable stewardship options that involve such actions.
Of the options available in the Entry Level Stewardship Scheme, those relating to the management of boundary features, buffer strips, field corners and overwintered stubbles were among the most popular. However, the proportion of uncropped land needed to attain satisfactory levels of biodiversity, its arrangement in the landscape and whether this needs to be actively managed by wildlife experts remains unknown. In 2006, we started a new Sustainable Arable LINK project in which the aim is to determine whether management of uncropped land for biodiversity on conventional arable farms can achieve significant and measurable increases in biodiversity, that are at least equivalent to those attained on organic farms with a primarily arable cropping system.
More specifically, a range of habitats have been developed for average conventional arable farms that will allow farmland wildlife to thrive throughout the food chain. These habitats will provide food resources in summer and winter, cover for breeding and overwintering and appropriate conditions for arable plants. These are being implemented at a range of scales and distribution patterns so that their impact and interaction can be investigated. Ultimately, we aim to develop guidelines that will ensure uncropped land is best utilised and managed for wildlife. The majority of these options will be eligible for funding under ES and the findings will provide important scientific evidence to aid their refinement and inform government on how to optimise the biodiversity gains from environmental payments.
Our research partners in this project are:
This project is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), through the Sustainable Arable LINK programme.
The industrial funders are:
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