High tier schemes 'could halt East's farmland bird declines'

Suffolk's farmers' leaders have broadly welcomed the RSPB research - but suggest government needs to provide the right funding to make its findings a reality.

The 10-year study by the bird charity shows environmental schemes on farms are having an impact on bird populations - and the more intensive schemes are more effective.

The research measured changes in farmland bird populations on land managed under bird-focused lower- and higher-tier agri-environment schemes in the livestock-heavy West Midlands, arable East Anglia and mixed farmland in Oxfordshire, as well as land with no bird-friendly farming initiatives.

It found that 26% of the farmed landscaped in pastoral West Midlands and 31% in East Anglia would need to be placed into higher-tier agreements to recover farmland birds by 10% over 10 years.

But by targeting higher-tier agreements to farms which already had higher numbers of priority farmland birds, the amount of land needed fell to 17% and 21% respectively - a significant cost saving, the report concluded.

The study aimed to shed light on the amount of nature-friendly farming that might be required to recover farmland birds at a landscape scale.

Researchers found that in higher-tier schemes, an average of 11% of the farm was devoted to bird-friendly measures compared to less than 4% in lower-tier schemes.

Higher-tier farms also received bespoke one-to-one management advice prior to the start of their agreements, the report pointed out.

When around a tenth of the farm was devoted to bird-friendly farming practices, this benefited more than half of the farmland bird species in two of the three study regions, said the RSPB.

Although lower-tier provision generally failed to increase bird numbers, it helped to sustain populations of some species, which continued to decline in the absence of agri-environment support elsewhere.

The study follows steep declines in once common farmland birds such as starlings and skylarks.

There was a "pressing need" for conservation work across the farmed landscape - including through the new Environmental Land Management Schemes currently being developed and piloted in England, said the RSPB.

It is calling for a strategic approach to wildlife-friendly farming schemes across England.

Andrew Blenkiron, chairman of the Suffolk branch of the National Farmers' Union (NFU) and director of the Euston Estate near Thetford, said the report contained some "real positives".

"Especially encouraging is that farms who have engaged with higher-level environmental schemes are demonstrating some great results," he said.

"If the government can get their act together and decide on an appropriate level of funding for similar schemes going forwards then I am sure that these results can continue to be replicated across the East.

"I am sure that most would agree that this would be a good spend, but it must be sufficient to encourage farmers to engage. 

"There is a simple solution, allow the main part (90%) of the land to intensify its production and the 10% of, generally less productive arable land - usually around the edges to produce habitat and food for wildlife - a real win win."

Deputy NFU Suffolk chairman Glenn Buckingham, who farms near Debenham, said it was a pity that the talk was of halting decline rather than increasing bird populations.

"These reports are just one of a series that show how our land use over the last 100 years or so has resulted in these losses of biodiversity and natural capital, all in order to provide cheap food," he said.

"It’s a complete mixture of ignoring  the 'externalities' of modern living, not just here but anywhere the capitalist system influences the excessive consumption of the resources in the ecological system that is trying to support our lives."

There needed to be action rather than words to address the problem, he suggested, as he warned that corporate power was "stripping out food security and resilience biscuit by biscuit, egg by egg".

The answers were in clear view, he added. "We have to restore bird and other species populations and biodiversity while moving to net zero targets and providing food security."

The RSPB pointed out that the environmental schemes also benefit soils and provide cleaner water.

The report's lead author, Dr Rob Hawkes, said agri-environment schemes can only recover farmland birds if sufficient bird-friendly habitat is provided at both the farm and landscape scales.

"This is the first study to ask the question - how much nature-friendly farming is needed in the English landscape to recover our depleted farmland bird populations?" he said.

"There needs to be better, more strategic, thinking when agreeing these nature-friendly packages.”

RSPB Senior Policy Officer Alice Groom pointed out that the findings coincide with the four UK countries developing new agricultural policies to replace the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

"This provides a critical opportunity to design future agri-environment schemes that are effective and deployed at a sufficient scale to recover farmland wildlife," she said.

“Welsh Government have proposed making the 10% farm scale provision a universal element of the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

"In England, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has yet to set out how they will ensure the new Environmental Land Management scheme (ELM) contributes to the new legally binding targets to halt the loss of species abundance by 2030 and reverse it by 2042."