A CONSERVATION charity is embarking on a £46,000 project to demonstrate how farming can be more wildlife-friendly with less work.

Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) is conducting its experiment on 20-hectare plot of land near Maidenhead in Berkshire.

The charity will use the three adjoining fields as 'layback land' for winter grazing two dozen Dexter cattle which it uses the rest of the year for conservation grazing at Berkshire nature reserves. Staff will reseed 14ha of arable land with a diverse grassland and herb mix including deeper-rooting and nitrogen-fixing species such as sainfoin and chicory.

The team will also plant 600 metres of hedgerow, trees and shrubs around the site and create three hectares of 'non-intervention woodland' in a corner of the plot that they will leave to its own devices. These habitats will support a host of birds, bats, insects and small mammals.

In time, BBOWT hopes to use the project as a demonstration site when talking to farmers and landowners about the benefits of plant diversity in grassland fields and how they can help nature and low-input farming systems.

Tom Hayward, BBOWT's Berkshire Land Manager, said:
"Essentially, we're trying to make more space for nature: this is going to be layback land, but we are going to make it the best it can be for wildlife at the same time. With an increase in available land to graze, we will be able to move cows around so they're not overgrazing any one bit, and at the same time leave areas unmanaged, encouraging a structural diversity of habitat for invertebrates to use over winter.

"This is a hot topic at the moment: a lot of farmers are thinking more about regenerative agriculture and how you can work with the land to get more out of it for both wildlife and farming.”

BBOWT has worked with farmers and landowners for decades, giving advice on how they can make more space for nature and wildlife, and in recent years the subject of sustainable agriculture has become more popular.

In January, the UK Government published further details of its new Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMS), under which farmers and landowners will be paid for works that help the natural environment.

The fields that BBOWT are planning to work on are part of a much larger holding around its Woolley Firs Environmental Education Centre which has been farmland for 300 years, but the charity has never carried out an experiment quite like this before.

The project has been made possible thanks to a £46,739 grant from The Veolia Environmental Trust which redirects money from the Landfill Communities Fund - a tax on landfill site operators.

Andrew Brown, Executive Director at Veolia Environmental Trust, said:
"We were pleased to be able to offer a Landfill Communities Fund grant to BBOWT for this exciting and innovative project. We want our funding to help communities improve local biodiversity, and this initiative is a great example of how human activity can be thoughtfully and sustainably changed for the benefit of the environment."

With just over 20 cows grazing a 20 hectare plot, the ratio of one cow per hectare in BBOWT’s project will be much lower than many commercial farming operations. This will leave more space for wildlife like the skylarks that already nest on the site and overwintering birds such as yellowhammers and linnets.

More space for small mammals such as mice and voles will also be a benefit to the barn owls which use the nest box on site.

The healthy bat population in the area also stand to benefit, as will a huge range of insects and other invertebrates that can live in the long grass, hedgerows and trees.

Tom added:“What we’re going to do here are all things that many farmers would want to do anyway: creating low-input grassland, planting trees and hedges and leaving unproductive areas of land for wildlife  – we’re just going to be doing more of it and we’ll be able to show how you can do these things in the best way for wildlife, because that’s at the heart of everything we do.

“With sustainable farming being such a huge topic at the moment, it’s a really exciting time for us to be working with farmers and landowners, and different approaches are already becoming more popular, but with this project, it will help BBOWT demonstrate practical land management techniques and put us in the best possible position to help farmers across our region to help wildlife.”

Find out more about BBOWT’s Land Advice Service at bbowt.org.uk/what-we-do/land-advice-service