Are we abandoning the countryside?

By Ralph Crathorne, head of Strutt and Parker’s Land Research Group

No one living in the countryside can have failed to notice the creeping abandonment of farmland.
Research done by Strutt and Parker is leading to the awesome reality that more than one million hectares of the nation’s land are no longer being farmed.

That means the equivalent of an area five times the size of Warwickshire being lost from the practice of farming since 1990.

Economic indicators show the decline in farming over the last five years has been dire. Total income from farming per head in the UK has dropped from over £21,000 per annum to just £2,500.

So it seems that an acceleration of the demise of the well tended, patchwork-quilted landscape that farmers have been responsible for, seems inevitable.

Where has the farmland gone?

A staggering 5000,000 hectares is now lying fallow as EU funded set-aside. This may be a boon for insects and small mammals, but it is seen as an eyesore by many, particularly in its rotational form.

A further 200,000 hectares were irrevocably lost from farming in the ten years from 1990 (of these only about 80,000 hectares went under built development).

The area lost to housing – about 27,000 hectares – probably matches the area acquired by conservation bodies for permanent nature reserve type purposes.

In fact, more land has been abandoned to bracken encroachment than residential development in the last ten years. The total area under this carcinogenic weed now stands at 273,000 hectares. In addition, 26,000 hectares of farmland has been approved for the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme since 1992.

11% of the nation’s sheep and 7% of its cattle have been slaughtered over the last eight months. Our papers have been filled with stories of farmers who will never farm again. Their livestock will have occupied an area of about 900,000 hectares. Much of that is being re-stocked but a significant area is in limbo as farmers ponder the future. As a result, vast tracts of neglected pasture covered in ragwort will become commonplace unless action is taken now.

In the ten years prior to foot and mouth outbreak, the dairy herd in England and Wales had already declined by 20% and the sheep flock by 500,000. The area of England under production in the arable, horticultural and livestock sectors had shrunk significantly.

Amazingly, in 1998 no claims were submitted by farmers on the 1.5 million hectares of the 5.3 million hectares estimated by DEFRA to have been originally eligible for Arable Aid payments. Much of this land is now neglected.

PICTURE -An example of legislative burn-out?

Yet this abandoned land is not just in the remote areas. If you take a short drive from the M40 to the Dartford Tunnel you will pass 3,000 hectares of it on the London side of the M25.

What will the impact be?

In the short term the main casualty is the landscape. Scrub, bracken and obnoxious weed encroachment give a ‘bomb site’ feel to the countryside. It happens surprisingly quickly and is very expensive to reverse. The simple truth is that the abandonment is disastrous for the diversity of flora and fauna.

In a recent report on the side effects of foot and mouth disease, English Nature concluded that farming would be needed in the future, because appropriate grazing was essential for retaining certain plants and wildlife in both upland and lowland areas.

Their species advisor for butterfly conservation has been quoted as saying

“ abandoning rough grasslands will have a severe impact upon butterflies and their habitat”.

The National Trust has already purchased roaming flocks of sheep. These move around pastures once let to farmers no longer interested in occupying their land. One silver lining in this for landowners is that the dwindling supply of farmland underpins its capital value. The 35,000 hectares bought last year by the RSPB alone will never come back to the market.

What should be done?

History shows that landscape management is a product of a combination of national farming policy and market economics.

Some of the great rapes of the landscape in the last century were a direct result of the Government policy. Pasture was ‘dug’ for Britain and converted to arable in the Second World War. Farmers were given substantial grant aid to take out hedgerows and drain wetlands.

In the Yorkshire Dales the remains of dry-stone walls can be seen running like watermarks along the valley sides. The higher the line of the wall, the greater the farming prosperity of that period. In times of adversity the higher pastures were abandoned.

We are now facing a period of land abandonment, driven by the harsh reality that in 2001 the average UK farmer will earn one third of the minimum wage.

With little adjustment, one Government scheme could have a resounding impact on this decline – the Countryside Stewardship Scheme. Our research shows that this scheme is only being taken up by farmers where significant additional income is generated or where the farmer has a high level of personal commitment to conservation.

However for this scheme to have a serious impact on the abandoned land, rates of payment in the various sectors need to be radically overhauled. Otherwise, landscape management will become the preserve of the wealthy few.

The current system delivers only a partial reimbursement of the cost of one-off works such as hedgerow planting.

Over a ten year period the estimated average annual cost of other landscape or environmental enhancement practises is paid as a flat rate to those farmers prepared to abide by the rules. The trouble is that in many of the scheme categories these flat rate payments do not cover the losses incurred by a farmer entering the scheme. Worse still, the rates of payment are re-set every three years in line with farming profitability. So, at a time when farmers need to be encouraged to manage the land they have abandoned, the payment rates are due to be slashed at the next review in 2002.

The cost of improving the Countryside Stewardship Scheme payments could be met to a great extent from the entitlement to Family Income Support and other welfare benefits which struggling farmers so resolutely refuse to claim.

The nation needs to wake up to the fact that its landscape is at risk to abandonment. Countryside Stewardship can make a difference. But the rules for entry need relaxing and the rates of payment need to offer a real incentive to farmers if they are to continue to be custodians of the landscape.

Ralph Crathorne