The home of Britain's Working Conservationists
The production and application of non-nitrogen fertilisers adds a further 10% to our average farm’s GHG footprint. From this we can see that optimisation and reduction of the use of fertilisers holds the key to reducing the climate impact of arable production.
On Tuesday 6 September GWCT Chief Executive Teresa Dent was invited to give the organisation’s verdict on the government’s progress with its Environmental Land Management Scheme to the EFRA Select Committee in the Palace of Westminster.
It was a real pleasure to be involved in LEAF’s (Linking the Environment & Farming’s) Open Farm Sunday this year on 12th June.
As the food producers and the rewilders battle it out over their polarised vision of what our future landscapes should look like, it’s good to see the Chairman of Natural England, Tony Juniper, talking sense about how we need to build multifunctional landscapes which deliver different layers of outcomes.
Once again, growers have been struggling in recent weeks with what has been for most yet another prolonged period of dry weather. A look at the Met Office data for 2022 shows that the spectre of climate change hangs over us on a now constant basis.
It is encouraging to see the results of a long-term study of wildlife on a large commercial arable farm in England, on Tuesday 2nd August.
The EU has announced a temporary derogation from rules on crop rotation and maintenance of non-productive features on arable land for 2023 in response to the impact of the Ukraine crisis on food supplies. At the same time it has announced a new strategy to reduce pesticide use, potentially reducing crop yields.
Alastair Leake, GWCT Head of Policy, explains more about a project to establish a Hedgerow Carbon Code that benefits carbon storage and biodiversity.
The earth we live on is an intricately engineered, delicately balanced life-support system. Be it a worm, a tree, a mole, or a bee; a cloud, a teaspoon of soil, or the sea – almost anything in the environment that you can name (even the common wasp) is part of our life-support machine.
Read our letter to the Evening Standard, highlighting the efforts of a group of farmers and land managers in southern England who are working hard to reverse the decline in turtle dove numbers