She writes:
As a farmer, you will want to know how you can benefit your business at the same time as developing BPS greening Ecological Focus Areas with complementary Campaign for the Farmed Environment voluntary measures.
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Make no mistake, EFAs are here to stay and will be key features to the majority of the country’s arable farms – but let’s make it clear that you can use this as an opportunity to not only benefit the environment, but also boost farm profitability.
Your awkward field corners and margins against hedges would cost money and time to try and cultivate and produce a crop, so it makes sense to include these areas as fallow land under your EFA requirements.
By using the CFE voluntary measures on your EFA this land can be highly productive for the environment but also for your farm business as a whole. Many of the key measures can be implemented on your EFA fallow with great success.
For example, voluntary measures such as the wildflower mixes and pollen nectar mixes can not only be easily implemented in your EFA fallow but they can help support pollinators which directly benefit your crop.
And the wildflower mix could help improve yield and the quality of your adjacent cropping. Through simply implementing these measures you can develop your buffer strip or field corner into a habitat that is perfect for biodiversity but also creates habitats for pollinators. Fundamentally you are providing key ecosystem services without taking further land out of production.
Ecosystem services are benefits delivered by wildlife on farm. More pollinators can mean more natural germination of plants you have on farm, and therefore you have potentially increased efficiently in crop germination and production.
The implementation of such measures is simple, local CFE coordinators can give you advice and we have a range of literature that can guide you through. So next time you think about your grass margins, field corners and other vital EFAs, consider how you could enhance it for our environment and your farm business. The two can go together.
More details on CFE can be found here.