13 JOHN COUSINS LINKING LANDSCAPES – THE FARMER’S ROLE

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 48 (2012)

LINKING LANDSCAPES – THE FARMER’S ROLE JOHN COUSINS

It is amazing how farming has changed just during my own lifetime, in the last 50 years. If we go back far enough, we had a farming management system that was actually perfect for nature. 18th century paintings show a landscape that was totally geared towards farming which also produced perfect conditions for wildlife to flourish – a totally natural environment. Now we have livestock on farms and the land is managed intensively with monocultures of grass to produce food for that livestock. Going back far enough, we had a system where the livestock actually complemented the management just as we introduce grazing on our wildlife reserves across the country. Grazing was actually sympathetic to management and helped create the conditions that allowed wildlife to flourish.

I can remember horses on the farm. We had horses until 1965, so we are only talking about 46 years ago. Fast forward to the present and we have a system inside a tractor that uses GPS which links to the steering column that steers the tractor in a straight line. The operator can just sit and watch television or look through his binoculars. It is a stunning transformation, and now when you look at fields it is not that the people who drill our fields are brilliant at keeping a straight line, which was always the challenge with the horse which always had his own ideas, it is because of the GPS. Then with the computer linked in showing the yield map it can be linked with the sprayer, so that when you’re spraying the field appropriate levels of fertiliser are sprayed in proportion to expected yield. Even harvesting with a combine is in absolutely perfect strips. Altogether, a stunning change. So where does it go from here? I just don’t know. I think we will see tractors that are operating without a person. The only reason why that can’t be done now is because of pylons in fields and other obstacles. We are going to see mammoth changes. Are they going to be good for wildlife? What do we really want farmers to do in the landscape? What can they do and what changes can they make? Well, top of the list would be to improve conditions for wildlife. It is an important role for farmers yet so often we forget this role; the important tasks that farmers have got to do in the countryside.

Figure 1. Use of GPS for automated tractor steering and crop yield maps linked to fertiliser sprayers have transformed modern farming.

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We need to improve conditions for wildlife. We need to protect our historic environment. We need to improve water quality – an ongoing challenge probably never fully achievable because our rivers are full of organic as well as inorganic nitrates. But we do need to improve water quality. We need to improve access to the countryside – a demand that the public expect and a demand that farmers should meet. We need to help alleviate flooding. This can be so easily implemented yet we are struggling to make the agenda high enough to make a difference. We need to maintain and enhance landscape, absolutely vital and it is one of my great passions. I have gone through a long list but I have left one thing out. What else do farmers have to do? Produce food! That is where the big challenges are in the next 30 to 40 years. We have taken food production for granted in the last three to four decades – it is always there, it is ever plenty and we source food from all around the world which is totally unsustainable. We don’t eat seasonally any more which is just not right. So it is absolutely essential to get back to basics with food.

What have been the changes in farming since end of the war? There has been a 65% decline in the number of farms, fairly obvious because farms have got much larger and more intensive. There has been a 77% decline in farm labour! Going back to farm in Flowton, there were ten people on the farm in the old days and it was just great. It was a sociable job and it was fun. Now no-one is employed on the farm. The contractor comes in and he can plant my farm in four to five days which would have taken three to four weeks before. But we must not forget that on average we have increased the yield on farms from about 1∙2 tons an acre to well over 4 tons per acre. It has also meant we have lost huge amounts of species-rich grassland in East Anglia. The number and extent of chemical applications has increased with subsequent declines in our bird populations. However, the persistence of chemicals has decreased which means that we can now apply a chemical and within two hours it is inert and it is safe (we hope). In 1900, one hectare of land supported one person. By 2050 one hectare of land will be able to support eight people. In the UK, a farmer receives about 16 pence out of the loaf of bread that you buy in the stores. If this could be 18 pence then the extra 2 pence could be used to actually enhance wildlife management on that farm. This would be a fantastic step forward.

UN statistics: 923 million undernourished people in the world, of which 75 million go hungry because of the high food costs.

Urban/rural populations: In 1950 there were nearly three times as many people living in rural situations as that are living in urban. The lines crossed in about 2010, 2011. So we’ve now got more people living in towns for the first time in the world, than we obviously have people living in the countryside. Those people in the countryside are not country people as such. Year 2000 – 6 billion, 2050 – 9 billion. – Alarming.

US strategy. Target to double the amount of food produced by 2030. Double it, focus on aid to small farms in the developing world and extra money, and also looking at bio-fuels. Can we really have bio-fuels? Firstly when people are going to be very short of food, and secondly with the environmental pressures that there will be from producing that food. Now of

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course one of the factors that you need to double, the amount of food produced, for only a 50% rise in population, is of course that people do eat too much. With China now beginning to want western diets, the whole thing is beginning to creep like mad because we’re eating too much in the world or eating too much of the wrong food.

Reasons for wildlife decline. We mentioned before loss of habitat, loss of grassland, loss of winter stubbles. Again, technology has taken away something that was naturally there which benefited wildlife. Farmers with horses would plough for as long as they could before it got difficult and they couldn’t plough any more. Then they stopped, then they started ploughing again in February/March. Those stubbles would be left for all that winter period. Now, you see a stubble, it is ploughed, ripped up within 24 hours. It has been estimated that in 1970 1∙1 million seeds were shed out of a combine on every acre. 1∙1 million! Now with nearly four times the amount of yield, we are shedding a quarter of a million seeds. But just imagine 1∙1 million seeds in an acre, inefficient efficiency hasn’t helped wildlife.

We really need to address some of these issues: Loss of work force We haven’t got the people to cut 20 yards of hedge in a sympathetic way any more. We’ve lost much of the workforce on farms to do those sort of jobs.

Increased use of insecticides One thing that happens on my farm that I am very, very uncomfortable about; insecticides. We have failed to use friendly insecticides. We can use insecticides that are benign to bees for example, and other important insects. But the cost is almost prohibitive to do that. So the natural thing for a farm to do is to use insecticide that takes everything out. We need some rapid changes to the way we use insecticides. The blanket use of insecticides in our countryside is I believe, harmful; obviously extremely harmful. We have increased the use of slug pellets. I hate slug pellets, slug pellets are used in gardens. So people who garden are no different to us as farmers trying to make a living. But we have used slug pellets in the past. I don’t like them, I try and avoid them; I haven’t used slug pellets on my farm for about seven years. I don’t get any crops! – The slugs eat all the crops, but I haven’t used slug pellets.

Poor habitat management

Of course that’s very systematic of the problems.

Agricultural depression Why is that a reason for wildlife decline? Farmers would say that in the last 10 to 20 years it has been a very depressed industry; it’s not obvious to anybody outside the industry, but it has been very depressed. Farmers would argue there hasn’t been the money to put back into conservation.

Common agricultural policy I think that we know without a shadow of a doubt that CAP has failed miserably, to actually use the funds that are available to benefit, not just farming, but wildlife as well.

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Reasons for wildlife improvement Farmers’ attitudes have changed in the last 20 years. There has been a lot of habitat creation. Better management, understanding of how farms should be managed sympathetically. The common agricultural policy (yes, it also is in both sides) has helped, because it has created the Entry Level Scheme (ELS), and the Higher Level Scheme (HLS) and that is doing a lot of work. Steve Aylward has shown just how habitats have been linked up through SWT’s work with farmers and HLS.

Technology and science I think that technology has helped, lower use of chemicals, obviously more sympathetic use of chemicals, changes in attitude within the farmed area.

Legislation Farmers hate legislation but it’s there, we are a business like any business, we are subject to legislation. There has been environmental legislation that helps. What factors influence farmers’ decisions? The list below shows the results of a survey looking at drivers on farmers to make the decisions they do. I don’t think they are unexpected:

1. Satisfactory level of income. 2. Maximising free time and minimising risk. 3. Simplicity, fewer crops. 4. Helping biodiversity with simple agri-environment schemes. 5. Farmers who stated a high preference for maximising income use more

chemicals and fertilizer. 6. Farmers who stated high preference for biodiversity do not usually use

lower than average levels of inputs.

Top of the list, satisfactory level of income. Maximising financial return. Farms are businesses so farms obviously take that attitude. It’s very difficult to get any farmer to really move away from that. It’s one of those things and if we look at environmental organisations and charities, they still have to as best they can maximise output from land, or wherever their charitable holdings are. And I think it’s obvious that would be top of the list. Amazing second on the list, maximising free time and minimising risk. I suppose again that if a farmer can plant his farm in four days instead of four weeks, that is maximising his free time, he’s on top of the job, yes he wants to do that. Third – Simplicity. Farmers do like simplicity, but fourth on the list sadly, helping biodiversity with simple agri-environment schemes. Simple, that’s what the survey suggested. It’s a pity it couldn’t go up the list a bit, and how can we get it up the list a bit. Fifth – Farmers who stated a high preference for maximising income use more chemicals and fertiliser but Sixth –farmers who stated a high preference for biodiversity still use surprisingly high levels of chemicals and fertiliser, it doesn’t make that much difference.

One good sign is that fertiliser usage has decreased as we have used it more efficiently. People imagine that if you keep shovelling more and more fertiliser on you get more and more wheat – you don’t. You shovel more on, too much on; the yield starts to go down, because the crop falls over. Since my first days in farming, we have also developed shorter and shorter straw

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and we spray it to make it shorter still. So this year [2011] in drought, some straw was literally just about a foot high.

What’s been the result of all this? Mammal decline There are all sorts of reasons for declines and we know that. For hedgehogs, the estimate from the Hedgehog Society is that 29 million have gone in 50 years; one million are left with 30 thousand decreasing every year.

Birds We all know the statistics on birds. Farmland birds have actually stayed amazingly static. I have sat on a committee in London looking at farmland bird targets, and the 19 species that had been picked out are pilloried by farmers as being unrepresentative. But they are across the board and monitored closely. One of those species is the top line (Fig. 2) which is the wood pigeon – a species used as an indicator for farmland birds’ success. The number of wood pigeons has over doubled in the period of that graph. And it’s amazing, you just have to drive round the countryside and you’ll see thousands upon thousands of woodpigeons these days.

Figure 2. Indices for Rook R, Jackdaw J, Wood pigeon W and Kestrel K: England. Source BTO: RSPB.

W

J

R

K

Seed eaters are bottom of the list, for example tree sparrow which we know is now bumbling along at the very, very bottom and struggling like mad to hold its presence.

What can we do to help wildlife and to actually build up the living landscape? Just how big does a nature reserve have to be to be effective? SWT are talking about linking up – absolutely fantastic. But can we ever make it big enough? And how big will it have to be? Without farming and changes in farming, whatever size the reserves are, they are still going to be islands in a sea of intensively managed wildlife hostile countryside. Are there on-farm options to create the pastoral, organic, wildlife-benign farming as in the first half of the 20th century? All sorts of options and I am sure they are very familiar to you.

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Linking and buffering habitats Wild bird cover, planting seed for birds for winter to replace those stubbles that shed corn that was so prevalent on our farms in the 1970s. Wildlife corridors, very interesting to see Buglife are talking about beelines. We called them green veins way back in 1993. But, whatever one farmer does, it has got to be duplicated. To be really effective, those corridors, reverted areas, plots and strips along woodlands and hedgerows have got to be linked. Farmers are being encouraged to plant nectar mix, and wild bird seed again and develop grass buffers.

Winter stubbles HLS actually pays farmers to introduce winter stubbles and not to plough their land until 15 February, so those stubbles are back in some areas. We also have to reduce grazing pressure.

Skylark plots Farmers don’t particularly like them but they are extremely effective.

Low input farming and organic These don’t get much mention because sadly they are not hitting the right buttons for farmers. But the amount of organic is never going to be sufficient to meet some of the demands that we’ve got in the countryside.

Conservation and low input headlands These are really a nice option. I have got them on my farm where I don’t put any fertiliser on the outer 10 to 20 metres of the corn. I don’t use herbicides after the first herbicide and the results are amazing. It’s amazing how diverse the crop becomes.

Figure 3. Wild bird cover mix.

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So what of the future? There will be changes to environmental stewardship which needs sharpening. It is still, in my view, not delivering enough. Farmers have got to play a role in all that affects our countryside.

The CAP reforms coming along in 2012 are being discussed at the moment for implementation in 2013. The proposal is that a farmer will have to farm 7 % of his farm in an ecologically focused manner. At last the penny has dropped; it’s only taken 20 years since the first payments were made to farmers. £2 billion pounds comes to UK farmers to support farming. As yet the detail is not known whether it will be for grass margins, field corners, wild birdseed etc. 30% of the payments a farmer could receive will only be paid if he takes out 7%. It’s like set-aside but it’s not. It’s environmental set-aside which is about making environment as friendly as possible. The maximum any farmer can be paid would be €400,000. Also, monoculture will not be allowed, a minimum of three crops per farm with one crop not more than 90% of the farm. This environmental payment will be called income support for farmers.

To conclude, I will try and pull all the threads together. How can we make the countryside work better to produce food and encourage wildlife? We have to accept that it has got to do both. I think we do have to embrace every technology and scientific advance available - it’s the only option open us. I hate the thought of GMs, hate the thought that they were introduced, couldn’t dream of them being introduced until they were absolutely safe, and wouldn’t dream of them being introduced until they were shown to be environmentally beneficial. Not just status quo, but they have got to be environmentally beneficial. They cannot, and should not, just be introduced for farmer’s benefits or to increase the farmer’s bottom line. I know people

Figure 4. Conservation and low input headlands

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have a huge dislike of GMs and I do too, but I have come round to thinking that it is an option. My father used to say, years before anyone talked about GMs, ‘I can’t wait for the day when wheat will fix its own nitrogen’, and I think it is going to be possible. He obviously never lived to see that, but I hope I live to see it – it would be amazing. But as I have said, it has got to be totally safe. More research and development, expand bio fields only if it doesn’t harm other objectives in the countryside.

We’ve got a reform of CAP. Reward farmers only for environmental management. We must encourage farmers to use environmentally friendly inputs like Aphox which is totally benign to a vast number of insects. Aphox costs a lot more, but to me it should be part of the CAP package. You get 30% of your funding from environmental measures if you use Aphox and don’t kill bees. If you go into an environmental scheme you should be compensated for how much it is costing the business, otherwise farmers won’t do it. Dramatically increase the agri-environment budget and provide the best possible advice. Suffolk Wildlife Trust, FWAG and other advisors out there encouraging and giving advice on HLS, making the whole thing work are absolutely vital to this whole programme. Continue to influence hearts and minds. Everyone is thinking so much about how to make it better. Build trust and partnerships between farmers and conservationists. There is still is a lack of trust. If you go to an NFU meeting, one detects hostility towards the environment and the environmental NGOs because they are seen as a threat to a farmer’s business.

I don’t think we will ever see the wildlife populations of the 1970s again, but we are doing things that are stabilising populations. Success can’t be grasped by mere graphs and outputs; we have to make a far more dramatic and meaningful action in the farm landscape. If we’re going to get living landscapes, if we’re going to join up our nature reserves, if we’re going to make reserves work, we have got to change what is happening around those reserves. I think that is pivotal to the whole thing. We have to attempt to reconnect food production and wildlife, otherwise we’re going to have a very depressing wildlife future.

John Cousins The Granary Flowtonbrook Ipswich Suffolk IP8 4LJ

John Cousins is a farmer and land agent. He farms at Hintlesham on a mixed farm heavily focussed on conservation. Until recently he worked as Head of Agricultural Policy for the Wildlife Trusts. He is Chair of Tastes of Anglia, the group promoting local and sustainable food production. He is ex-chairman of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust and Suffolk Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group.