In the article 'Is wildlife conservation compatible with arable farming? Evaluating the options for sustainable agriculture' RELU (2010) funded research that:
- looked at what factors influence farmers’ farm management decisions;
- what the impacts of these decisions are on wildlife and
- What the policy implications might be.
A summary follows:
What factors influence farmers’ decision?
The decisions that farmers make depend on a range of factors. These include environmental issues (such as soil type and weather), economic factors (such as cereal and fuel prices), legislation and regulatory frameworks (such as the pesticide controls), technology and their
own attitudes and lifestyle preferences (such as interests in shooting
and/or conservation).
The research identified that:
farmers
agri-environment measures.
disliked because of their negative impact on field appearance.
translate this into lower use of herbicides.
How do wildlife respond to changes in the landscape or land management?
The research found that
within and between farms.
landscape composition or field boundary structure.
oilseed rape and spring crops are the most influential across species.
between species. For example, grey partridge and skylark respond most to local variation (within 1km sq),
bunting show the strongest relationship to large scale patterns (25km sq
landscapes).
Policy implications
not just about profit maximisation and the economic environment, but also about social attitudes and
simplicity of crop management. This is critical for the appraisal of
agri-environment policy options.
to balance farming and wildlife objectives in ways that can appeal to
farmers and to address, for example, the
or ecologically important weeds) is lacking at a national scale. A national
mapping scheme would address this.
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