Farming & Wildlife: An ‘and’, not a ‘but’

Insights from the GWCT annual conference highlight how profitable farming and biodiversity can work hand in hand — proving that environmental gain need not come at the expense of commercial success.

Where possible, BTF endeavours to align its charitable work with the interests of many of its clients which is why the GWCT (Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust) has been supported by us consistently since our foundation in 1991. Several members of the BTF team have chaired the Kent branch of the charity and, following a visit to their annual conference, we wanted to take the opportunity to share some of their research and the dominant take-away message from the day.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As any farm manager, landowner or estate trustee will know, different elements of a farm, estate, or rural business cannot be treated as though they do not affect each other. The arable enterprise, the livestock, the shoot, the environmental schemes, the wildlife, the glamping pods, and so on, cannot be treated in isolation if the business, as a whole, is to be as successful as it can be, both in terms of profitability and biodiversity.

The point which was laboured heavily throughout the conference was that farmers and landowners must resist the temptation to assume that the action of creating habitat on their farm automatically has the reaction of restricting or reducing their agricultural or commercial operations. At their 750-acre research farm in Leicestershire, the GWCT operates a mixed system which focuses on maximising yields where the land is most productive, and maximising habitat where the yield is at its lowest. For example, corners of their arable fields which have fallen victim to heavy compaction in recent years have been put into schemes which included winter bird food, wildflowers, and hedgerows. It is important to emphasise that, in many instances, the areas of ground in question constituted a very small proportion of the field. Their research showed that these scraps of ‘spare ground’, previously thought to be virtually useless, had not only improved soil health into the field, but provided refuge for indicator species which included linnets, yellowhammers and even grey partridges. In addition, an improved soil biome around the field edge resulted in better drainage and caused parts of the farm which would previously have been totally impassable at this time of year to become solid enough to carry out winter jobs using an ATV.

At the same research facility, the GWCT have also been able to debunk some of the partisan attitudes towards released pheasant shooting. For context, it has been surmised by many environmental groups that released game shoots (particularly on a commercial scale) can cause more harm than good in terms of biodiversity and habitat. However, the GWCT have conducted research to test this preconception by closely monitoring the songbird population at their farm over the course of 15 years. The findings were rather striking. In the first and last five years of this period, a substantial pheasant shoot was in operation but, during the intervening five years when there was no pheasant shoot, songbird numbers across the holding almost halved. Many of the species monitored were considered good indicator species for the wider biodiversity on the farm. Part of the reason why the biodiversity was so vastly improved by the addition of the shoot was that the cover crops which were drilled for the pheasants were Stewardship or SFI options, rather than monoculture maize which offers far less in terms of habitat and cannot be entered into a scheme which would contribute to the farm’s income. This is another clear instance of increased farm biodiversity without detriment to other commercial and agricultural interests.

In summary, no landowner is being asked to drop everything and rewild their holding. At a time of global instability, political uncertainty, and when government support for farms has yet to return to pre-Brexit levels, the bottom line must come first. What the research of charities such as the GWCT serves to demonstrate, however, is that wildlife conservation can follow on from the previous sentence with an “and”, not a “but”.