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Hello MyFarmers, we’re at Hope Farm at Knapwell, Cambridgeshire – just up the road from MyFarm
actually and I’m with Ian Dillon who works for the RSPB. You’re the farm manager here
and so tell us a little bit about Hope Farm.
Hope Farm is a 180 hectare arable farm set in the centre of Cambridgeshire. We grow wheat,
oilseed *** and field beans.
In my mind I think RSPB and birds so why are you getting involved in farming?
So lots of birds do rely on farmlands like skylarks, corn buntings, yellow hammers, linnets,
lapwings. They rely on arable farmland but over the last 30 or 40 years numbers of those
birds have declined enormously so RSPB bought this farm to show that it was possible to
farm conventionally to produce lots of food for human and animal consumption while at
the same time managing for wildlife – for birds, butterflies, bees and insects.
Okay – so tell us a bit more about the environmental measures that you have taken on here at Hope
Farm.
On Hope Farm we bear in mind three key things and we call it the Big Three. For birds in
particular they need three key things - they need safe nesting habitat, they need food
during the summer, which tends to be insects and they need food during the winter, which
tends to be seeds. We provide safe nesting habitat in two areas – in fields like the
wheat field behind me here there are small patches left unsown, skylark patches which
you might just be able to see and they provide safe in field nesting areas and feeding areas
for the likes of skylarks, grey partridges and corn buntings. We also manage our hedgerows
with wildlife in mind and that provides safe nesting habitat for yellow hammers and linnets
in the hedgerows. In terms of providing insect food – so the reason why we provide insect
food is that young birds, chicks in the nest for many for many farmland bird species they
require insects. That’s what they eat. We provide areas around the farm which are floristically
enhanced so lots of flowering plants – flowering plants are really good for insects. They attract
lots of bees, lots of butterflies, lots of hover flies and other insects so you get lots
of insects and lots of caterpillars and so on – really good bird food. We also provide
areas of over winter food - areas where birds can go to, to find lots of grains, lots of
wheat grain or oilseed grains which will help those birds to survive the winter. Through
providing all of those three key components we have managed to increase bird numbers on
average at Hope Farm by 211% in the last 11 years.
Okay – so that sounds impressive. Sounds good and you’re talking about a lot of birds
coming here but don’t they eat all your seeds? How’s it affected your yields? What
crop yields do you get?
So our yields in actual fact have increased over that time. We use an agricultural contractor
who is an expert in growing crops, is incredibly efficient through using very modern, up-to-date
machinery and we have increased our wheat yield for example by an average of one tonne
per hectare over the 10 or 11 years that we have been at the farm.
When you’re comparing your yields to what it was previously – you’re saying they’ve
gone up – that sounds great again but how does that compare to farms you’re trying
to appeal, similar farms in this local area – are you bringing in as much crops as they
are? I mean turning over areas of your fields to skylark patches and increasing the margins,
doesn’t that just reduce your area for sowing wheat and *** and things?
Whenever we first came to the farm we farmed approximately 170 of the 180 hectares for
wheat and oilseed ***. Currently we farm or we crop 160 hectares so we have left the
odd 10 hectares or two – it varies between years – but approximately 10 hectares for
wildlife management, but because we have increased the efficiency of how we manage our crops
and because our yields have gone up on average it has more than compensated for taking that
small area out of production.
So isn’t the increasing yield more down to the farming efficiency rather than the
environmental measures?
Yes it is through farming efficiency – choosing the right varieties of wheat or oilseed ***
to grow and the careful crop management and so on, but it’s also key to choose areas
which we manage for wildlife, so generally the areas that we manage for wildlife are
the areas that were least productive in terms of cropping. They were awkward field corners
or poor yielding so that the areas that we have taken out of production weren’t very
good anyway.
And is there any other benefit other than for the wildlife side? Can environmental measures
help farming?
Yes they can. One or two areas of concern to all of us these days but farmers in particular
are greenhouse gases, our warming climate and also pollution. So on a farm like this
there are lots of inputs, lots of fertiliser, lots of chemicals applied to the crops that
help them grow but a proportion of those chemicals – they end up in the water and that polluted
water has to be cleaned before you and I can drink it. With some of the features we have
put in place on the farm such as ponds, they filter or help to filter the water. So the
water that leaves the farm is actually cleaner now than what it was 10 years ago.
Okay. Lastly, why is it important? There’s lots of farmland and there’s lots of woodland
elsewhere around Cambridgeshire – why don’t we just leave the farmers to farm and leave
the woodlands for the birds? Why do we need to have wildlife and environmental measures
on farms?
Lots of the species that we see on a farm like this are really tied to farming. Farmland
birds need farming. You cannot manage woodland for farmland birds, so it is really key to
find ways to successfully manage a normal farm for cropping, because that is really
important, but also to think about wildlife and how you can benefit wildlife on exactly
the same farm.
Great – thanks very much for your time.
That’s okay – my pleasure.