GWCT News Blog

It is indeed sad that the iconic purring call of the turtle dove in summer is now a rarity, but the efforts of a group of farmers and land managers in southern England is giving real cause for hope.

On Sunday 12^th June, the South Avon and Stour Agricultural Society held their Open Farm Sunday event at Bisterne Estate near Ringwood.

The war in Ukraine has added to the pressures farmers are facing through increasing input costs of the three F’s; fuel, feed and fertiliser. These could be short-term impacts but they come at a time when the industry is facing longer-term upheaval due to reductions in post-Brexit farm support, labour shortages and the impacts of trade and environmental policies.

Watch GWCT advisor Jess Brooks and her family describe their experiences of the Sustainable Farming Incentive on their Isle of Wight farm.

As food consumers we are bombarded by meal deals and multi-buy deals. The focus on the cost of sustaining ourselves is very real given recent food price inflation - and for many a costly monthly outgoing.  

A new ‘Wildlife Plot’ agri-environment option, which promises to be one of the best yet for biodiversity, has been developed as part of the GWCT’s PARTRIDGE Project on the Rotherfield Estate in Hampshire.

The announcement of the Landscape Recovery element of the Environmental Land Management Scheme was greeted with enthusiasm by those who advocate rewilding approaches.  

At our demonstration farm, the Allerton project, we have undertaken research to understand what constitutes a healthy soil and how to measure constituents such as soil moisture as well as research considering the role of soil in crop production “in the round” i.e. from both a sustainable and profitable perspective.

In the wake of COP26, climate change is something many of us are thinking about – and rightly so. Following COP21 in 2015, 195 nations committed to try to keep the global average temperature no more than 2°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, aiming for less than 1.5°C of warming. You might then be asking, why 1.5°C?

Speaking at this year’s Oxford Farming Conference, NFU President Minette Batters hailed the positive impact of Britain’s farmers, describing them as working conservationists and urging politicians to remember the people who lay at the heart of a better future.