Agri-Environment schemes

Agri-environment schemes are payments to farmers for environmentally-friendly farming

• these schemes started as a continuation of the common agricultural policy (1962)

• as well as being due to food shortages after WW2 in the 50s

Headage payments:

• payments made for livestock, per animal regardless of the effect on land - there were no quotas which was damaging to conservation interests due to overconsumption

Set-Aside:

• used to reduce arable surpluses

• every farm had to set aside 15% of arable land and a later 10%

• theres paid compensation

• was abolished in 2008

Farmland birds

focus for these schemes were on farmland birds e.g. growing a variety of seed crops in blocks at least 6m wide and left till the following year 1st march - no pesticides

stats: a fifth of agricultural land got involved in these schemes but do they work??

• some evidence to suggest being near protected areas helps the birds but overall the statistics are quite noisy

• cirl buntings were significantly helped by a variety of schemes

• no significant differences in diversity of farmland birds, however specific species in northeast scotland were helped e.g. yellowhammer

stone curlews have been a conservation focus for a while, hence a lot of approaches to help stone curlews specifically have been designed to benefit other species and help biodiversity

• for some species like curlews conservation measures seem to have a postive impact on other species of insects birds plants and mammals. however outwith the plots there is no difference

specific species approaches dont always help in conservation and a more general wide scale approach may be better….

Pollinators may benefit from:

• hedgerow/ woodland edge management

• fallow areas

• field margins

• flower-rich leys

• low input grasslands

only the first two management schemes seem to be having a positive effect on pollinators.