Fight to save set-aside schemes

[Guest guest]

By Sarah Mukherjee

BBC Environment Correspondent

 

 

 

Set aside has become an important environmental tool

The UK government has to make a decision very soon on the future of

an arcane farming subsidy called set-aside.

 

Although it sounds of little interest to the non-farming public,

conservationists say it has, accidentally, become a powerful

environmental tool - and stopping it could be devastating to some of

our rarest wildlife.

 

On a blustery, misty Leicestershire day, Dr Alistair Leake, from the

Game Conservancy Trust, shows me a strip of tussocky grass in a

field, and explains this beetle bank is a natural insecticide system -

and a benefit of set-aside.

 

Every winter, the beetles take cover; every summer they leave their

home to go to eat greenfly in the fields. Dr Leake manages the

Trust's 323-hectare (800 acre) estate in Loddington.

 

It's quite clear that in some cases we're going to have to accept

there will be some environmental hits which we will have to accept

because of the benefits

 

Dave Turley, Central Science Laboratory

The farm is used to research new techniques that enhance food

production and conservation.

 

But as pressure to use land, particularly for biofuels, increases, Dr

Leake worries that the benefits of what farmers know as set-aside

will be lost.

 

" Over the years we've been working with set aside, we've learned to

manage it very well for the environment. But how do we keep those

benefits if set-aside disappears? " he asks.

 

At this point, you may be scratching your head and asking yourself

what on earth " set aside " is.

 

If you have spent time - despite the weather - in the countryside

this year, you may have been struck by strips of scarlet poppies, and

other wild flowers, alive with bees and butterflies. It's a big

change from the fields of single crops that were so much a feature of

the 1970s.

 

Farming pressures

 

Conservationists say that, in no small part, this environmental

success has come about because of payments farmers received from the

1990s to " set aside " their land, and take it out of production.

 

As the post-war reforms of farming and increased yields from

intensive production found their way onto grocery shelves, much of

the agricultural debate about farming was couched in terms of excess -

too much food, too much land in production.

 

 

The system has been a boon for wildlife

This year, poor harvests worldwide have sent the price of grain

rocketing - anecdotal industry figures suggest wheat's gone up by as

much as 50% in the last couple of months - and now farmers are

itching to get that land back in production. The European Commission

has signalled it, too, is keen to scrap the payment.

 

People in the industry are now asking how are we going to do all the

things we want to do - conservation, energy crops, food - with a

finite amount of land.

 

Dave Turley, head of alternative crops at the Central Sceince

Laboratory, says we need to think long-term about prioritising our

needs - inevitably, wildlife could suffer to produce low-carbon crops

that will help with the nation's energy goals.

 

" It's quite clear that in some cases we're going to have to accept

there will be some environmental hits which we will have to accept

because of the benefits, " he says.

 

But organisations like the RSPB say the set-aside system has been a

boon for wildlife. Highly endangered birds such as the stone curlew

have prospered on set-aside land, which has also provided food for

skylarks and cirl buntings. They ask what happens to the birds when

the set-aside goes?

 

Crunch time

 

Paul Temple is an east Yorkshire farmer and vice-president of the

National Farmers' Union. He says he never tires of the view from his

farm on the Yorkshire Wolds.

 

On the day I went to see him, with a pale yellow sun seeping through

the clouds, you could see the Humber Bridge on one side, the North

Sea on the other.

 

 

Fields of single crops were much more common before set aside

As he walked his fields he showed me the stubble he'll leave over the

winter to provide food and shelter for wildlife. It's not part of a

set-aside scheme, but there will be an environmental benefit.

 

As he points out, recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy

mean farmers are now paid to look after the environment, reducing the

need for the incidental set-aside benefits:

 

" Farmers care passionately about this environment - this wonderful

landscape looks like it is because of farmers, and we've become much

more sophisticated about the way we manage farmland for the

environment. " he says.

 

" Half of farm land is in some sort of environmental scheme. We're

managing it specifically for wildlife, and not incidentally as part

of set-aside. "

 

There are some who say with good land management, conservation and

crop production are not mutually exclusive.

 

But if the government - and the main opposition parties - agree that

a good environment can be a justification in itself for farming,

conservationists argue that politicians need to find a way to carry

on the accidental good work that set-aside has achieved.