Conservationists push for more nature reserves on European farms

It looks like the days of set aside are numbered on EU farms. But the system saved some types of wildlife from extinction under intensive cropping systems and nature lovers want a replacement now

European farmers are already committed under European Union (EU) legislation to making sure that at least parts of their land provide a welcoming environment for wildlife.

But the latest pressure from nature conservation organizations in Britain is pushing for at least five per cent of crop-growing areas on most farms to be dedicated to the flowers, birds, mammals and insects of the countryside. First reactions from the European mainland indicate that the same pressure is going to be applied by governments there.

At the moment, the so-called set-aside regulations pay farmers to take cropland out of production for a year in rotation, or the same fields every year. In Britain, for example, this mandatory set-aside area has ranged from five to as high as 15 per cent of tilled fields since the system’s launch back in 1992.

The current set-aside minimum on suitable cropland is eight per cent with compensation of around the equivalent of $230 Cdn an acre, although farmers can increase this area voluntarily up to 30 per cent and still receive the full compensation.

The original aim of set asides was to control overproduction, principally of grain. But it quickly became apparent that there was another effect. The untouched land served as a relief for the pressures that ever more intensive agriculture had put on wildlife. Once-common field birds in Britain, like the curlew, skylark and crested plover, were decimated and in some regions were coming near to extinction through the boom farming years of the 1960s and 1970s, when they literally fell under the wheels of intensive crop production.

After the introduction of set asides, some of the area was allowed for growing non-food crops. Now, in fact, about 20 per cent of set-aside land in Britain is used for growing non-food crops for fibre, pharmaceuticals and bioenergy.

But, for most other countries in Europe, there’s still a lot of land taken out of the crop production treadmill and nature conservancy organizations claim that this measure has had a tremendous effect on the survival chances for wildlife. Set-aside land has to be left untouched and untracked by farm machinery throughout the growing season, apart from a topping of vegetation in mid-July.

Now the EU sees that the times of overproduction of grain, in Europe at any rate, are long gone and the aim this fall is to stop the set-aside scheme altogether. The conservancy folk see this as an immediate threat to farmland wildlife survival after 17 years of recovery. Organizations such as Natural England have already contacted their respective governments and urged a new scheme. In England, this is the above-mentioned five per cent of cropland treated as on-farm nature reserves. This organization fears “major environmental impacts” should set aside be forgotten and wants a replacement immediately.

In Germany, DVL, the national association for care of the countryside, has also taken to the barricades and warned of a repetition of what it sees as the pre-1990 wildlife disaster on intensive farmland. DVL president Wolfram Güthler says that set aside had given extra living space to wildlife amounting to some 9.4 million acres all over Europe.

“It led to other advantages too,” he points out. “In many areas, there developed a close co-operation between farmers, hunters, bee keepers and other interested bodies. The set-aside concept encouraged country-loving people to come together with those who made their living on the land, and this was good for everyone concerned.”

Among the results in Germany is a farmland area of over 13,000 acres sown with native wildflowers, all paid for by EU compensation to farmers for taking land out of commercial crop production and encouraged by increased co-operation between country folk.

If government accepts the British nature conservancy initiative, it could land farmers there with some thorny management problems. For the moment, no one is suggesting that they abandon crop production on the proposed five per cent nature reserve areas. But there is already a proposal that no pesticide spraying should be allowed on such areas and farmers naturally see this as the thin edge of a wedge being driven straight between the requirements of good crop management and wildlife support.

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.