Is your appetite wildlife-friendly?

We’ve all heard of putting our money where our mouths are. Well, now a fast-growing new movement is urging us to put our mouths where our principles are.

[gfimage id="149"]You can't eat them – but you can help them thrive[/gfimage] Do you want to see a flourishing countryside with well-managed farms rich with wildlife, characteristic rural landscapes preserved thanks to beneficial farming practices? If so, then what better way to bring that about than to buy meat and other produce that comes from just that kind of farming system?
One of the most encouraging trends in the turn-of-the-century countryside is the growth of such schemes. The success of the organic movement has already played a tremendous role in increasing the amount of land managed in a more sustainable fashion [see GF 26] And now the country’s massive conservation groups are catching on to the possibilities of fulfilling their aims through – rather than in spite of – farming.
So you can buy Devon Wildlife Trust beef, from Ruby Red cattle that graze on the county’s Culm grasslands – ancient wet meadows, rich in wild flowers. By buying the well-flavoured meat at a premium price in local butchers, consumers are supporting the traditional management of the grasslands by local farmers.
In Nottinghamshire, the local Wildlife Trust is selling its “Woodland Pork”: the product of happy pigs that have roamed in Treswell Woods, delving out deep roots of bramble and other plants that have been choking the natural regrowth of trees, and leaving behind them a ready-tilled seedbed in which a new generation of native broadleaves can take root.
According to the Wildlife Trusts’ farming advisor, John Cousins, there is “huge scope” to move into new areas of eco-friendly food production. He is also working on a WT-backed ‘wildlife friendly’ label that would reward land management by farmers specifically tuned to achieving wildlife benefits, while not necessarily being organic. First in line will be a scheme for milk, to be followed by one for cereals.These will be based on plans created individually for each farm, designed to rebuild their wildlife quality over a period of up to five years.
“The big challenge is to come up with something that is watertight and delivers real benefits,” says Cousins. “We have to maintain credibility, but also deliver a premium – and if it puts a few pence on a loaf of bread, that is not crippling to the consumer, but could double the return to the farmers. It all comes down to using the marketplace to reward good behaviour – if the market will pay, farmers will deliver.”
Similar initiatives are coming from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. With over a million members, the RSPB is the UK’s biggest and best funded environmental organisation, and it is now using its considerable muscle to build a new business in bird-friendly farming. It plans to market organic beef from its reserves in Scotland, where much of the habitat quality depends on extensive, low-intensity cattle grazing. Also in the offing is RSPB “skylark-friendly” bread...
The National Trust – Britain’s largest private landowner with some half a million acres of farmland – is also seeking to develop this market-driven approach. It’s planning to reward best practice on its 2,000 farms by allowing its oak leaf logo to be used to endorse products from land managed under agreed ‘whole farm’ plans, delivering good environmental management including the enhancement of wildlife habitats.
If there is any problem amid this plethora of good ideas and praiseworthy initiatives, it is, precisely, that very plethora. All the more so if we add to established schemes such as organic and free range labels, along with the more mainstream ‘Red Tractor’ logo of the NFU and the RSPCA’s ‘Freedom Foods’. The danger is that their sheer abundance will confuse the public. So no surprise that both David Riddle and John Cousins are calling for environmental groups to co-operate on a single ‘wildlife friendly’ certification system that will define key principles and set minimum performance levels.
The Countryside Agency has a major role in this ‘sustainable produce’ movement under its newly launched ‘Eat the View’ initiative [see GF25, p29]. This backs foods produced in a way that “protect an area’s landscape, wildlife and historic features and which help to conserve soil and water resources”.
Eat the View may now help to provide the inclusive framework for all the many and varied related initiatives. Together with other countryside bodies, research will begin this summer into the feasibility of a verifiable ‘countryside conservation’ assurance scheme for all producers involved – providing some welcome clarity for consumers.

29 July 2001

Martin Wright and Oliver Tickell