5 June 2008

Award-winning Essex farmer


An arable farmer at Burnham-on-Crouch has been chosen as the first Eastern England winner of the RSPB’s new Nature of Farming Award.
Martin Smith, from Burnham Wick Farm, is combining profitable farming with wildlife-friendly management.
Birds that are benefiting on his 220 hectare farm include corn buntings, grey partridges, lapwings and yellow wagtails.

Corn Bunting - RSPB

With funding help from Environmental Stewardship, Martin has created a wetland habitat. The lagoon or ‘scrape’ takes advantage of the farm’s location near the Crouch estuary. It uses a solar-powered pump to retain water levels throughout the year. It attracts lapwing, snipe and teals in winter and yellow wagtails in summer.
The farm has planted special mixes of crops to provide food for wild birds and pollen for insects. These, combined with beetle banks, uncultivated stubbles left over the winter and a fallow plot, have boosted corn buntings, a declining farmland bird which has one of its biggest concentrations in the UK on the Essex coast.
Martin Smith will receive a plaque, a cheque for £200 and RSPB management guides for farmland birds and their habitats.
Martin commented: “It is fantastic to see my efforts are appreciated and the Nature of Farming Award has provided a pat on the back for efforts being taken here at Burnham Wick Farm to enhance farm wildlife.”
Simon Tonkin, the RSPB’s farmland conservation officer in Eastern England added: “Burnham Wick Farm and its array of wildlife is a credit to Martin’s hard work. With our advice, he has put in ‘sacrificial’ crops where wild birds can feed, and incorporated fallow plots in arable fields. The reward is seeing lapwings with their tumbling display flights and hearing corn buntings singing like bunches of jangling keys.”
From the regional winners throughout the UK, four farmers – but not including Eastern England winner Martin Smith – have been shortlisted for the first public poll to reveal the farmer doing most to help Britain’s farmland wildlife.
The quartet, chosen from an entry of more than 300, has been selected by the RSPB and BBC Countryfile magazine as finalists in the RSPB Nature of Farming Award, a competition backed by Butterfly Conservation and Plantlife.
The four shortlisted farmers are Henry Edmunds, who owns a mixed organic farm in Wiltshire; Michael Poland, who farms livestock on the Isle of Wight; Patrick Bowden-Smith, who has a mixed farm in Fife, and Peter Davies, whose mixed organic farm is in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The next stage, voting, is down to the public, which can be done online at www.rspb.org.uk/farmvote and by post, with every voter being entered into a draw for prizes, including a free subscription to BBC Countryfile magazine.
The winning farmer will receive a cheque for £1,000 to be presented at a gala event in January.
Dr Darren Moorcroft, Head of Conservation Advice at the RSPB, said: “This award is showcasing the very best farms and championing the vital conservation role farming can play.
“Farmers are at the frontline of conservation and voters will be looking at how they are adapting their land, not only to produce food but to show it is possible to make their farms wildlife havens too.”
Victoria Chester, Chief Executive of Plantlife, said: “Plants are the very foundation of farmland diversity. This award celebrates farmers working in harmony with native plants, and encourages a greater understanding of their importance.”
 
Dr Martin Warren, Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation, said: “Farmland is the main habitat for over three-quarters of British butterflies. We are hugely impressed with the efforts of the contestants and their commitment to encouraging butterflies and other wildlife on their farms.”
Cavan Scott, Editor of BBC Countryfile, said: “The Nature of Farming Award is a fantastic way for BBC Countryfile readers to acknowledge the contribution farming makes to maintaining our countryside’s landscape and wildlife.”