Nature and food– how to have it all

Caring for the natural environment and food production are not binary activities, says Jamie Blackett, who presents the findings of his research on a thorny subject, the current ‘rewilding’ zeitgeist

- Jamie Blackett

WHEN the tide is in, I try to spend a few minutes each day birdwatching. In winter, most times, I am rewarded with sightings of a dozen curlews, plus oystercatchers, ringed plover, snipe and, if I am lucky, a flock of 48 lapwings. It gives me great satisfaction because it confirms we are farming in an environmentally sensitive way—the soil would not be healthy enough to support the invertebrates on which the waders are feeding if we weren’t. However, before the Springwatch team descends on us, lamenting the state of modern agriculture, I should make it clear that we have not ‘rewilded’; in fact, as far as the apparatchiks in the Scottish Government are concerned, we have ‘de-wilded’.

That field was in one of its environmental schemes for 20 years and grew nothing but rushes. It occasionally held a fox, but sightings of feathered wildlife were rare. Disillusioned with the derisory payments for not farming it properly and the hassle—the final straw was being made to keep a diary-like a primary-school child—I invested in a 650-cow dairy and went full-tilt into intensive agriculture. Hey presto, our bird numbers went, well, sky-high.

'The biggest obstacle to biodiversity is the predator imbalance, and there needs to be greater honesty'