Nature-Friendly Farming: Sustainable Agriculture for the Planet
Nature-friendly farming is gaining traction as farmers across the globe recognise its vital role in sustainable agriculture.
This approach not only enriches the environment but also fosters community resilience and supports farmers’ livelihoods. For farmers looking to enhance their practices, joining a nature-friendly farming network can be a transformative step.
If you’re a farmer, you can find lots of tips and help at the farming tag. Also consider joining the Nature Friendly Farming Network.
Over 70% of our land is agricultural, so farmers are so important to food security and environment, so let’s support farmers not given good treatment by supermarkets.
Some of us are vegan, but most people aren’t, and there is no point pitching one against the other. We need to ringfence all organic and free-range small-scale farmers, so the food is as ethical as it can be.
And it’s not dominated by big supermarkets and big government (often influenced by sponsors and lobbyists) and we get back to producing local food for local people. The organisation was founded by an arable farmer in Cambridgeshire with a special interest in conservation management.
The network is growing with many members and the site has a huge amount of free downloads and information on the website to enable farmers to be more resilient to changing weather patterns etc.
Such advice also helps to reduce carbon emissions and protect habitats for native wildlife. And also grow better food, which means more profits for small farmers.
You don’t have to be a certified organic farmer to become a member, you will be supported at whichever step of the journey you are. The aim is to create a nation of sustainable agriculture and long-term food security. This also contributes to cleaner air and water, and less floods & droughts.
Grazers is a good company from Yorkshire, which offers lots of nontoxic products to deter rabbits, pigeons, deer, slugs/snails and aphids, all using nature-led methods.
Farm Wildlife has detailed information for farmers, to protect wildlife habitats. Mostly by creating natural habitats for feeding and shelter, and leaving undisturbed cover. Read more on nature-friendly farming.
The Hare Preservation Trust suggests:
- Providing more grass on arable farms, for summer grazing. Run wide strips of grass across open fields, or have patches of pasture.
- When making silage, cut the field from centre outwards (not outside in) to let hares escape machinery, to neighbouring fields.
- Have ploughed or rough-cultivated areas left for spring crops, for hares to sleep.
- Leave 6 metre uncultivated margins around arable fields. And leave cereal stubbles over winter.
The Hare’s Corner (making space for nature)
The Hare’s Corner is an Irish book, a powerful celebration of a quiet and hopeful revolution taking place across Ireland where people are making space, for nature to thrive once again. Great reading for any country interested in nature-friendly farming!
This beautifully illustrated book brings together ten inspiring profiles of participants in a national project, where farmers, families and community groups are restoring habitats and reviving species, across both rural and urban landscapes.
Woven throughout the book are poems by Jane Clark, along with lovely art and photography. Each page invites readers to reconnect with wild corners of the world, and perhaps to create their own.
Named after the traditional practice in farming of ‘leaving a field edge for wildlife’, this is a testament to resilience, renewal and the deep wellbeing that can blossom, when we let nature in.
Jane Clarke is an acclaimed Irish poet on nature who lives in Co. Wicklow (Ireland). This is like our Kent (known as ‘the garden of Ireland’) and known for its stunning mountain scenery and ancient monastic sites. It also boasts Ireland’s highest waterfall, the largest national park and Glendalough (the 6th century ‘city of two lakes’.
The history of the term ‘the hare’s corner’
‘The hare’s corner’ is an old term used in farming to let often inaccessible corners of fields that cannot be farmed, intentionally left to nature. It then becomes vital wild refuges for native wildlife, pollinators and hares. In Ireland, this idea has grown into an environmental movement called the Burrenbeo Trust. Which instead of viewing uncultivated strips as wasted space, encourages farmers to actively enhance these areas, to boost diversity.
Key areas of a ‘hare’s corner’ include:
- Wildlife ponds to support amphibians, insects and birds
- Mini-woodlands (planting native trees to act as carbon sinks and windbreaks)
- Heritage orchards (establishing small plots of traditional or rare fruit trees)
- Wildlife hedges (preserving field boundaries and leaving buffer zones during hat cutting, so flora and fauna can thrive).
Why yellowhammers need farmers to help them survive
Yellowhammers are endangered birds in England, due to habitat loss and reduced winter food. Known for their bright plumage (females are more brown than yellow), they are a Red listed species.
Related to pine buntings, they have a distinctive song ‘see-see-see-see-bzuuuu’. They mainly eat seeds and insects (which they feed to chicks during the first weeks). In winter, they gather in mixed flocks with other finches, to feed on stubble fields (remaining stalks of wheat, barley and rye after the harvest).
Farmland is yellowhammer natural habitat, so it’s over to you farmers, to help!
- Avoid trimming hedges before September to protect nests (also avoid trimmers, use garden shears). It’s best to maintain thick hedgerows with field margins, to give birds natural food and shelter. Especially yellowhammers, as they nest on or near the ground.
- Farmers can help by creating wide grass margins around arable fields. This helps to seed weeds, and encourage insects as natural food.
- Leave the stubble on the fields, for birds and good soil. Don’t burn it to clear the fields, and never hire it out for stubble-track riding or motocross.
If yellowhammers visit your garden
Read our posts on creating safe havens for garden birds and how to stop birds flying into windows (both posts have lots of tips from what not to feed, how to safely clean feeders and how to safely site birdhouses – to avoid building up speed near glass).
If birds do need artificial feeding (only in brand-name feeders), choose quality millet and oil-rich sunflower hearts from proper companies that know what they are doing.
Goldfinches are also yellow birds often found on farmland (and woods). They have bright red faces, that travel together in a noisy flock. They use their slender beaks to eat thistle and niger seeds, and commonly visit English gardens. They also like dandelion and lavender seeds. Their ancient name was ‘thistle-tweaker!’
Found all over the UK (apart from northern Scotland), you’ll also spot them in the woods and farmland. Some (not all) migrate to Spain for winter. They nest in cup-shaped nests.
