We are committed to enhancing the role of agriculture in today's society for the benefit of future generations and are running a number of campaigns to further this objective.
Life after Set-aside
This campaign looks at the way in which some farmers have managed their set-aside
to create habitats for wildlife on their farms and estimates that around
20,000 hectares of this has become particularly biodiverse.
For the 2008 farming year it looks as though farmers will not be obliged to set-aside
any of their land and much of this habitat could be returned to
arable cropping or to more intensive grassland.
Such a move would not only see the loss of important habitats, but be a
somewhat perverse outcome when farmers are simultaneously being encouraged
to create exactly the same.
We call on Defra and Natural England to vary the existing Entry Level Scheme by allowing farmers to add ex set-aside habitat, over and above the current ceiling for the scheme. We suggest the creation of a new option for arable
land named “Life after Set-Aside”.
Such a scheme would cost relatively little and save precious habitats that are set
amongst productive arable land in the heart of one of the world’s most densely
populated countries.
The following .pdf resources are available: Life after Set-aside
Diffuse development - a sustainable solution to the UK's housing crisis
Diffuse development is the provision of small clusters of very low impact housing in farmyards throughout the country. The houses should be built of local materials, discretely placed and subject to the planning condition that they are made available for letting and cannot be sold outside the farm business.
Diffuse development provides a number of important environmental benefits through
the use of renewable energy at the local level, sustainable water use and improved
flood management.
Diffuse development helps to develop local communities and their businesses by
providing affordable housing close to the place of work and in so doing encourages
social and occupational mobility.
Diffuse development avoids blighting our countryside with homes that are located in large blocks far from the workplace where they destroy the natural environment and
put undue pressure on the existing infrastructure.
Diffuse development is a truly sustainable solution to the UK’s housing crisis conceived by Living Countryside.
The following .pdf resources are available: diffuse development
A strategy for the renewal of hedgerow trees throughout the
UK
Hedgerow trees have always played an important role in the countryside both culturally and environmentally however, between 1950 and 1990 they suffered significant loss. This was a result of a combination of factors, notably changing field patterns, the mechanisation of agriculture and Dutch Elm disease.
Today, managing hedges with hedgerow trees is much more time consuming and expensive than managing those hedges without. This discourages farmers from selecting and encouraging future generations of hedgerow trees.
The introduction of the Entry and Higher Level Schemes in 2005 offered policy makers the opportunity to provide incentives to encourage hedgerow trees throughout the UK. However the opportunity was not taken.
We are calling on DEFRA to amend the Entry and Higher Level Schemes and include a new "hedgerow trees" option. This is designed to encourage farmers to select and nurture young trees that will become the future generation of hedgerow trees, a century or more from now.
The following .pdf resources are available:
Hedgerow
trees a strategy for renewal
Creation of meadow grassland - a strategy
The long-term decline of meadow grassland throughout the UK over the last fifty years has led to a loss of one of the UK's most biodiverse farmland ecosystems. Nowadays, meadows have little economic rationale and have been replaced with more intensive forms of grassland management or by arable production.
In 1993 the introduction of set-aside forced arable land out of production into a number of alternate uses thus providing a real opportunity for the creation of large scale biodiverse habitats across the UK. However, the rules governing set-aside have been restrictive and this has prevented the encouragement of biodiversity on set-aside land.
The Mid Term Review of the CAP in 2003 offered scope for a fresh look at the rules and on 10th July 2003 we published our strategy for the creation of biodiverse meadow grassland.
The strategy was widely circulated and met with considerable support from conservation and farming organisations although various submissions to DEFRA received no acknowledgement. At the time the strategy recommended:
Our Strategy Document has since been updated and we are calling on DEFRA to allow farmers to enter the ELS and HLS schemes to cut hay and graze their set-aside under a "biodiverse meadow" option, subject to restrictions, so that a matrix of biodiverse grassland can be created throughout the UK.
The following .pdf resources are available:
Strategy Document (July
2003)
Reissued Recommendations
(Dec 2005)
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