Nature Friendly Farming Network (what is it and how it helps)
Nature-friendly farming is gaining traction as farmers across the globe recognise its vital role in sustainable agriculture.
This approach not only enriches the environment but also fosters community resilience and supports farmers’ livelihoods. For farmers looking to enhance their practices, joining a nature-friendly farming network can be a transformative step.
If you’re a farmer, you can find lots of tips and help at the farming tag. Also consider joining the Nature Friendly Farming Network. Also read The Hare’s Corner (the term given for nature-friendly farming).
Over 70% of our land is agricultural, so farmers are so important to food security and environment, so let’s support farmers not given good treatment by supermarkets.
Some of us are vegan, but most people aren’t, and there is no point pitching one against the other. We need to ringfence all organic and free-range small-scale farmers, so the food is as ethical as it can be.
And it’s not dominated by big supermarkets and big government (often influenced by sponsors and lobbyists) and we get back to producing local food for local people.
The organisation was founded by an arable farmer in Cambridgeshire with a special interest in conservation management.
The network is growing with many members and the site has a huge amount of free downloads and information on the website to enable farmers to be more resilient to changing weather patterns etc.
Such advice also helps to reduce carbon emissions and protect habitats for native wildlife. And also grow better food, which means more profits for small farmers.
You don’t have to be a certified organic farmer to become a member, you will be supported at whichever step of the journey you are. The aim is to create a nation of sustainable agriculture and long-term food security. This also contributes to cleaner air and water, and less floods & droughts.
Grazers is a good company from Yorkshire, which offers lots of nontoxic products to deter rabbits, pigeons, deer, slugs/snails and aphids, all using nature-led methods.
Also visit Farm Wildlife to learn how to protect existing habitats, create field boundaries and wet features, and habitats for seeds and flowers, all of which is better for wildlife. Also find wildlife-friendly farming experts.
The Hare Preservation Trust advises to break up blocks of cereal and provide more grass for grazing on arable farms and run wide strips of grass on open fields (or have pasture patches). It’s important that hares can raise leverets in quiet undisturbed areas, so leave areas uncut and un-grazed for hiding.
If making silage, cut the field from centre outward so hares can escape. And leave ploughed or rough-cultivated areas left so hares can sleep. Leave 6 metre uncultivated margins around arable fields and leave cereal stubbles over winter.
The Hare’s Corner (making space for nature)
The Hare’s Corner is an Irish book, a powerful celebration of a quiet and hopeful revolution taking place across Ireland where people are making space, for nature to thrive once again. Great reading for any country interested in nature-friendly farming!
This beautifully illustrated book brings together ten inspiring profiles of participants in a national project, where farmers, families and community groups are restoring habitats and reviving species, across both rural and urban landscapes.
Woven throughout the book are poems by Jane Clark, along with lovely art and photography. Each page invites readers to reconnect with wild corners of the world, and perhaps to create their own.
Named after the traditional practice in farming of ‘leaving a field edge for wildlife’, this is a testament to resilience, renewal and the deep wellbeing that can blossom, when we let nature in.
The Hare Preservation Trust advises to break up blocks of cereal and provide more grass for grazing on arable farms and run wide strips of grass on open fields (or have pasture patches). It’s important that hares can raise leverets in quiet undisturbed areas, so leave areas uncut and un-grazed for hiding.
If making silage, cut the field from centre outward so hares can escape. And leave ploughed or rough-cultivated areas left so hares can sleep. Leave 6 metre uncultivated margins around arable fields and leave cereal stubbles over winter.
Jane Clarke is an acclaimed Irish poet on nature who lives in Co. Wicklow (Ireland). This is like our Kent (known as ‘the garden of Ireland’) and known for its stunning mountain scenery and ancient monastic sites.
It also boasts Ireland’s highest waterfall, the largest national park and Glendalough (the 6th century ‘city of two lakes’.
