People say that the world is speeding up, but some things take quite a while. I remember work starting on this paper, whilst I was still working at the RSPB in 2010: Twenty years of local farmland bird conservation: the effects of management on avian abundance at two UK demonstration sites, by Nicholas Aebischer, Chris…
Category: FARMING
Farmland birds still bumping along the bottom
In 2014 the numbers of farmland birds (as measured by overall trends in 19 species – see below) were at the second lowest level of the last 45 years (since, almost, records began). Guess what? The lowest level was in 2013! This is not a record of which any politician can be proud. The farmland…
Lord Krebs on Badgers
My old boss, Prof Lord Krebs, was on Farming Today (8 mins in) being interviewed by Anna Hill on Wednesday morning. Lord Krebs provided a masterclass in sticking to the facts, despite some niggling questions from Ms Hill, and getting the message across very clearly. The message was that the ‘too-early-to-tell-really-but-the-figures-are-out-there’ results from the Badger…
Why hate vegans?
I had a lovely Sunday – I’ll tell you about it some time – but I was a bit irritated at around 0950 on Radio 4. I don’t think I could be a vegetarian, although I do go meat-free for four days each week, and have done for about seven years now, and I certainly…
Defra – a shameful department (2)
George Monbiot’s article in today’s Guardian reinforces the view that Defra has sunk to about as low as it can get. He points out that Defra announced the impacts of NOx pollution on human mortality and a consultation on how to fix it on the Saturday just before the media were swamped with the news…
Farming fit for the Future?
This is the vision document for farming launched at the Wildlife and Countryside Link event yesterday lunch time. It’s certainly worth a read. The Wildlife Link organisations which signed up to this document (including the National Trust, RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, WWF, FoE and many others) would like to see farming which is: Better…
Guest blog – A change in farming by Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper is a 21 year old naturalist, writer, zoology student and avid badger watcher. He has written both whimsical nature writing and ‘proper’ environmental journalism on his personal blog and for The Independent. Peter is currently going into his third year at the University of Exeter Cornwall Campus, where he is the editor in…
That hedge again
Last year I wrote a few blogs about a puzzling hedge (see here, here, here). The resolution to the puzzle was that a farmer had driven down the road with his spray still on and had, accidentally, sprayed over a mile of roadside hedge. I had a look at the hedge a couple of days…
Grocer Gold and Green?
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Very glad to see that my local Leaf farmer, Duncan Farrington (as featured in Chapter 8 of A Message from Martha) has been short-listed in the Grocer Gold Awards 2015. Duncan is a modern farmer – entrepreneurial, green and hard-working. It will soon be time for me to see whether he still has perhaps the…
Guest blog – Food security by Roderick Leslie
Although I worked as a forester I actually studied Agricultural & Forest Science under the great agricultural educationalist Mike Soper. Even back in the 70s I remember the question ‘where does it all end?’ was being asked – the risks of flash-over resistance to antibiotics from pigs to humans as a result of them being…