Derek Gow is a farmer – you can see from the image opposite he is a serious farmer. Here he writes about the future he has chosen for his farm. Winds of change For those who don’t farm it’s difficult to understand the mentality of those that do. While James Reebanks in his excellent book…
Category: Farming
Neonics in Swiss House Sparrows
I saw this study and thought it was pretty interesting. See here for some info on what IP Suisse means – it seems like it is a bit like LEAF farms in UK.
Guest blog – ELS/HLS madness by Andrew Carter
Andrew Carter is a farmer in South Wilts with a pedigree Aberdeen-Angus herd which is making use of both chalk downland and meadows in the Hampshire Avon valley – much within the current Higher Level Stewardship scheme. He practices conventional arable farming, but with a high quantity of environmental balancing. A lifelong interest in natural…
Good news for farmland birds and taxpayers
An RSPB -led study demonstrates that well-designed agri-environment schemes can help farmland birds to recover towards their previous levels. This information is important at a time when the UK may be escaping the constraints of the EU Common Agricultural Policy and will be free to do a better job (or indeed a worse one) in…
Bird Fair books – review – Farming and Birds by Ian Newton
I sometimes wonder how many New Naturalists are read rather than collected as an investment – well this one should be read. Ian Newton has never produced a duff book – his works are characterised by clarity and suffused by a deep knowledge of the biology of the subjects on which he writes. This one…