Farmers follow the green path

9:23pm Friday 15th August 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

This summer, Herefordshire has celebrated 21 years of green farming, which has seen farmers make a huge difference to wildlife and the landscape.

Agri-environment schemes, which will be given nearly £3 billion over the next five years, have seen an increase in access to the countryside, more wildlife and biodiversity and greater maintenance of essential features of the British countryside such as stone walls and hedgerows.

Herefordshire has agreements covering approximately 24 hectares in agri-environment schemes, which work by providing government-funded financial support to farmers to manage and conserve the land with a focus on green farming.

Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for the Environment, said: "Over the last 21 years, farmers in Herefordshire have been managing the land to enhance the beauty of the English landscape and conserve and protect our much-loved native wildlife.

"The English countryside doesn't look the way it does by accident and all of us benefit from the footpaths, bridleways, orchard planting and hedgerow restoring, which farmers carry out on our behalf through agri-environment schemes. Farmers deserve recognition and our thanks for what they have achieved.

"Over the next five years, the government will invest almost £3 billion in these schemes. We are absolutely committed to seeing this great work continue."

Defra and Natural England are celebrating the success of these pioneering green farming schemes to highlight the significant contribution they make to the conservation and protection of some of England's most important landscapes and habitats.

Sir Martin Doughty, who chairs Natural England, said: "Green farming schemes have resulted in some great success stories for wildlife and the health of our countryside over the past 21 years.

"These schemes not only make a major contribution to the UK's commitments on farmland birds but they also help bring Sites of Special Scientific Interest into favourable condition. Natural England will continue its efforts to improve these schemes to find incentives that land managers buy into and farmers find attractive to bring more land into these agreements."

More than 35,000 Environmental Stewardship agreements covering more than five million hectares of land in England, an area roughly twice the size of Wales, are now in place, together with 20,000 remaining classic scheme agreements covering a further one million hectares. The schemes have achieved 30,000km of restored or newly planted hedgerows - that's about the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole and halfway back again - with a further 90,000 km of existing hedgerows being managed in an environmentally friendly way.

There has been work on 2,600km of dry stone walls, increases in the numbers of rare birds such as the grey partridge, stone curlew and cirl bunting, and around 800 farms offering educational visits to more than 100,000 schoolchildren a year, and visits for special interest groups.