Opinion: Tap into environmental funding, despite Defra cuts
© Adobe Stock It appears from the outside as though nature and biodiversity on farms could take a bit of a bashing over the coming years.
Announcements are still to be made about the reformed version of the Sustainable Farming Incentive, but cuts to the Defra budget and the annihilation of delinked payments in the Spending Review haven’t done anything to ease farmers’ worries.
As a Co-op supplier, we’ve been encouraged to sign up to The Soil Association Exchange programme.
See also: Opinion – farmers are the climate-change scapegoats
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Datasets for soil health, biodiversity, water quality and animal welfare are collected on farm by an assessor.
It took a couple of visits to collect the information, once for soil sampling and the second to survey the hedges, birds and plants.
The rest of the information was provided by us in a survey and through our annual Co-op inspection.
Data collection
The data collected here has been benchmarked against the other 950 or so different farms in the project.
I wasn’t expecting anything that impressive from the findings, as we’re a pretty intensive, straight dairy business.
Listening to decades of propaganda about the evils of the dairy industry, being vilified as polluters, and told countless times that we need to improve had almost made me believe our farm would be a barren, monocropped wasteland, devoid of any wildlife.
Without much spare time to go off and investigate properly for myself, it was easy to believe we weren’t doing enough.
Pleasant surprise
So when we got the results, I had a very pleasant surprise. The data is really interesting. It’s presented in a way which is easy to understand and has shown me that we are actually doing a decent job.
We are within the top 10 farms on the project for earthworm count. We had identified 20 species of bird, including some with a red or amber conservation status.
Our hedges were noted to have a good, dense structure and were full of life, with biodiversity in bucketloads.
I am especially proud of our earthworm count, and this proves that our careful and timely application of slurry has protected their population and our soil is in good health.
Utopian images aside, there’s plenty to work on, too.
Nature schemes planning and funding
So with that in mind I approached the Lune Rivers Trust, and we are now in the process of planning a large new pond and woodland planting scheme with woodland scrapes.
With their help and funding, we will also plant three new hedgerows which will provide food and shelter for birds in winter and plenty of nectar for bees in summer.
These new additions will store water and prevent run-off, which are both areas identified for improvement.
We should all do our bit to encourage nature and biodiversity on our farms.
Not only is it better for the farm, it’s better for the farmer. It’s something different to focus on and the generational improvement for nature has helped me to see the farm in a different light.
We’re not quite going all-out regen ag yet, but I’m starting to see the benefits.
Government money for nature-friendly farming may not be as easy to access for a while.
If tapping into other funding streams means we can do good for the environment despite a lack of support from Westminster, then let’s get on with it because what have we got to lose?Â