FARMING SLUMP SPELLS DISASTER FOR WILD FLOWERS

Incomes from farming have plummeted by over 90 percent in the last five 
years, according to a well-publicised survey by accountants Deloitte and Touche. Devastating for farmers and agricultural workers, Britain’s farming crisis might also spell disaster for wildlife and the Wiltshire landscape.

Conservationists at the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, which manages over 2,000 acres of nature reserves across the county, point out that the increasing unprofitability of livestock farming will make it more difficult to find animals for grazing. And grazing – at the right time of year, in the right place and by the right type of animal – is absolutely vital for the continued existence of the fragile wild flower species that are being encouraged on the reserves.

The Trust, acknowledged as an authority on grassland management, 
maintains nature reserves on two characteristic features of the Wiltshire 
landscape: the internationally-rare chalk downland to be found in the south of the county, and, to the north, some outstanding examples of unimproved hay meadow, a type of habitat that the government has targeted as being of special importance.

Some 97 percent of Britain’s wildflower-rich meadowland wasdestroyed in the last half of the 20th century, making all the more urgent the task of preserving what is left. 

Chalk downland, which is internationally important for its wildlife as well as a dramatic feature of the Wiltshire scenery, has to be grazed carefully or it gradually reverts to scrubland. 

Georgina Terry, a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust project officer who works with farmers all over the county, summed up the problem: “The strong pound means the price that farmers can get for their cattle is low, and export near impossible. Basically, market forces are driving farmers out of business. British farmers raise, care for and fatten livestock ready for slaughter and then at market they get less than it costs to do all of this.”

“A knock-on effect of the terrible condition of the farming economy and an increasing number of people going out of livestock farming, is that there are less stock available to graze nature reserves and Wildlife Sites. In the long term it could be very bleak: No stock means no grazing. No grazing could eventually see the wildlife habitats degrade and the number of wildflowers decrease. “

Alarming as the current figures are, with the average 500-acre farm (which brought in £80,000 in the mid-1990s) now earning just £8,000, all the signs are that next year will be even worse, with the same farm averaging a £4,000 loss. 

Farm incomes have suffered this spectacular slump for a number of 
reasons, and it is tempting to see the crisis as irreversibly bleak. But this is an area where the power of the consumer can make a difference. Buying beef, lamb, cheese and vegetables from farmers’ markets means that a higher share of the profits goes back to the farm, making sheep and dairy farming more viable as well as reducing “food miles” and transport pollution.

Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is attempting to address all these issues through 
Local Agenda 21 and in its wider activities. LA21’s Communications Officer, Becky Hayward, points out that buying local produce can help support the local economy and preserve the farming heritage that is so essential for the future of Wiltshire’s wildlife.

“Every time we cook a meal we are affecting wildlife habitats and species. But by re-establishing links with the local producers who farm the very landscape we inhabit, we can both strengthen rural communities and help protect the environment and wildlife we cherish.”

FOR GENERAL PRESS ENQUIRIES, CONTACT SHARON CHARITY, PRESS OFFICER.