In the article 'Is wildlife conservation compatible with arable farming? Evaluating the options for sustainable agriculture' RELU (2010) funded research that:

1. looked at what factors influence farmers’ farm management decisions;
2. what the impacts of these decisions are on wildlife and
3. What the policy implications might be.

A summary follows:

What factors influence farmers’ decision?

The decisions that farmers make depend on a range of factors. These include environmental issues (such as soil type and weather), economic factors (such as cereal and fuel prices), legislation and regulatory frameworks (such as the pesticide controls), technology and their own attitudes and lifestyle preferences (such as interests in shooting and/or conservation). The research identified that:

Satisfactory level of income is the primary objective for most farmers

Lesser objectives include maximising free time and minimising risk.

Simplicity is a major driver: farmers prefer fewer crops or agri-environment measures.

Biodiversity promotion is important, although skylark plots are disliked because of their negative impact on field appearance.

Farmers who stated a high preference for maximising income use more herbicide and nitrogen.

Farmers who stated high preference for birds or biodiversity do not translate this into lower use of herbicides.

How do wildlife respond to changes in the landscape or land management?

The research found that

Farmers’ management decisions drive differences in flora and fauna within and between farms.

Crop type influences bird abundance, but is less important than landscape composition or field boundary structure.

Cropping is, however, more susceptible to change. Winter cereals, oilseed rape and spring crops are the most influential across species.

The scale at which habitat features relate to bird abundance differs between species. For example, grey partridge and skylark respond most to local variation (within 1km sq),

bullfinch and lapwing to the 9km sq scale while chaffinch and corn bunting show the strongest relationship to large scale patterns (25km sq landscapes).

Policy implications

Understanding the decisions that farmers make requires knowledge, not just about profit maximisation and the economic environment, but also about social attitudes and

preferences, such as the importance of free time, risk and simplicity of crop management. This is critical for the appraisal of agri-environment policy options.

It is possible, through modifications to current farming practices, to balance farming and wildlife objectives in ways that can appeal to farmers and to address, for example, the

decline over the past 40 years of farmland birds.

However, background data on key wildlife groups (e.g. economically or ecologically important weeds) is lacking at a national scale. A national mapping scheme would address this.