Call for targeted approach to boost bird-friendly farming

Research led by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Conservation Centre and published in the Journal of Applied Ecology suggests that in order to increase avian populations, farms need to devote upwards of 10% of their land to nature-friendly measures.

And the authors state that up to a third of lowland agricultural landscapes need to commit to this level in order to boost depleted species by a tenth within a decade

Research joint lead Dr Rob Hawkes stated: “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?

Agri-environment schemes can only recover farmland birds if sufficient bird-friendly habitat is provided at both the farm and landscape scales.” 

Government recently introduced a legally binding target to halt declines in England by 2030. So-called higher and lesser tier schemes provide for an average of 11% and below 4% of wildlife-friendly farmland.

The RSPB study points out that while the lower target can help maintain bird populations at existing levels, it does not tend to increase them, hence the need to extend the higher tier system to more farmland.

This would represent a sizeable commitment by farmers, given that to recover farmland birds in the suggested timescale, more than a quarter (26%) of land in the pastoral farms of the West Midlands and almost a third (31%) in arable East Anglia would need to be committed. 

However, if higher-tier agreements are targeted to farms that already hold higher numbers of priority species, this requirement can be substantially reduced –  to 17% and 21% respectively, producing a substantial cost saving.

The report, supported by the British Trust for Ornithology and funding from Natural England, adds that declines in once-common species such as Starlings and Skylarks makes it essential to harness initiatives such as the pilot Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes within England. 

And in some cases, such as the Turtle Dove, even the higher tier measures failed to remedy declines and more tailored approaches were required.

Hawkes added: “There needs to be better, more strategic, thinking when agreeing these nature-friendly packages.” 

RSPB Senior Policy Officer Alice Groom pointed out that the study coincided with Governments from the four UK countries developing successors to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

“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.  

Groom said that while the Welsh Government has proposed making the 10% farm scale provision a universal element of its Sustainable Farming Scheme, no similar response has been framed for England.

“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,” emphasised Groom.

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.14338