A few quick points about farming and conservation:
1. A lot of conservation measures appear to farmers to be a constraint on production. Most farmers were brought up to produce food (not just quantity but quality as well) so any constraint on this can seem to them to go against the grain (plus most farmers like to be their own boss - often the only reason some stay in it these days). Therefore any conservation involvement in farming should bear these values in mind.
2. It should be remembered that even though a lot of measures for conservation-friendly farming involve the sorts of practices that farmers used to do, this doesn't mean that previous generations of farmers who used to carry out these 'traditional practices' actually wanted to do it that way. Farmers have long been brought up to produce food and so if you say to modern farmers "By using fewer pesticides, you'll be farming just like your ancestors did" then I think a lot of farmers would respond that their ancestors only farmed like that because it wasn't possible to farm more intensively. In other words, farming has changed a lot but the values of farmers aren't necessarily that different to how they have long been.
3. To fit in with these productive values, it has been advocated that farmers be subsidised to 'produce' wildlife and habitats in the same way that they produce livestock and crops. In other words, the government (or whoever) says "We'll pay you x pounds for every pair of Corn Buntings etc." The farmer then uses his knowledge and skills to earn money by producing this wildlife and integrates the production of wildlife habitat into the economics of his farm. The farmer still has a choice over how he uses his land but there is an economic return if he chooses to farm wildlife (as opposed to a constraint on his production of food in order to force him to tolerate wildlife). I'm not sure if this sort of scheme is operating yet in the UK but I think it has been tried elsewhere (with positive results). I'd be interested in knowing more about this and about how farming and wildlife conservation are integrated in other parts of the world.
1. A lot of conservation measures appear to farmers to be a constraint on production. Most farmers were brought up to produce food (not just quantity but quality as well) so any constraint on this can seem to them to go against the grain (plus most farmers like to be their own boss - often the only reason some stay in it these days). Therefore any conservation involvement in farming should bear these values in mind.
2. It should be remembered that even though a lot of measures for conservation-friendly farming involve the sorts of practices that farmers used to do, this doesn't mean that previous generations of farmers who used to carry out these 'traditional practices' actually wanted to do it that way. Farmers have long been brought up to produce food and so if you say to modern farmers "By using fewer pesticides, you'll be farming just like your ancestors did" then I think a lot of farmers would respond that their ancestors only farmed like that because it wasn't possible to farm more intensively. In other words, farming has changed a lot but the values of farmers aren't necessarily that different to how they have long been.
3. To fit in with these productive values, it has been advocated that farmers be subsidised to 'produce' wildlife and habitats in the same way that they produce livestock and crops. In other words, the government (or whoever) says "We'll pay you x pounds for every pair of Corn Buntings etc." The farmer then uses his knowledge and skills to earn money by producing this wildlife and integrates the production of wildlife habitat into the economics of his farm. The farmer still has a choice over how he uses his land but there is an economic return if he chooses to farm wildlife (as opposed to a constraint on his production of food in order to force him to tolerate wildlife). I'm not sure if this sort of scheme is operating yet in the UK but I think it has been tried elsewhere (with positive results). I'd be interested in knowing more about this and about how farming and wildlife conservation are integrated in other parts of the world.