Rational Agriculture

We hear a lot about the negative impact of farming on the environment, so it's refreshing to see some good news reported. The BBC, bless their hearts, put up an interesting piece on the encouragement of wildlife on farms (see Farm pioneers return of wildlife). It features Marek Nowakowski of the Farmed Environment Company, an enthusiast for planting unproductive areas of farmland, field margins etc with seed-bearing plants to attract insects and provide food for birds.

The interesting thing is how successful such interventions can be: given the food, wildlife flourishes. Which goes to show that the countryside hasn't been turned into some sterile desert by agriculture. Wildlife must be there in the first place for it to thrive when more food is available. And it seems to be as simple as that: provide the food and birds and animals find it and build bigger communities.

All this builds on other pioneering work. See, in particular, project Buzz (run by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) and Operation bumblebee (with seed supplied by Syngenta), both under the guidance of the estimable Mr Nowakowski.