Countryside Maintenenace And Management From Farm Business Survey

Defra has released statistics on countryside maintenance and management activities on farms in England sourced from the Farm Business Survey 2008-9 covering the 2008 harvest. The survey showed that almost 90% of over 57,000 farms carried out some kind of countryside maintenance and management activities. The figure included 98% of cereal farms. Total costs for countryside maintenance and management activities came to £72m in 2008-9 that is 3% of total farm business income for that year. A total of 8,614 farms took professional advice.

The farms most likely to carry out management activities are the high-performing general cropping farms. The farms least likely to carry out countryside management on their farms are low performing mixed farms. Over half (51%) of medium performing farms carried out countryside maintenance and management activities. The cereal farms spent the most at £25.3m. Mixed farms were next on spend. The lowest spend was on specialist pig and specialist poultry farms at £0.1m and £0.3m respectively.

Associated costs were recorded on 70% of farms carrying out countryside maintenance and management activities. The most popular activity carried out on these farms was the management of boundary features which involved over 42,000 farms. Activities on boundary features such as hedges, stone walls and ditches cost a total of £45.1m, equivalent to 62% of the total countryside maintenance and management spend. Farms with historic and landscape features came next with £15m equivalent to 21% of total spend on 41% of the farms. Arable land activities accounted for £3.7m on the 28% of farms with that activity that recorded a cost.

There were 42,135 farms on which boundary features activites were carried out. Lowland grassland (24,049) came next with the restoration of moorland, pasture with low inputs, enclosed rough grazing and moorland and rough grazing. Countryside maintenance and management on the 22,528 farms with arable land activities involved field corner management, overwinter stubble, uncropped land, wild bird seed mixtures, beetle banks, skylark plots and headland conservation. Historic and landscape features (18,539) included archaeological features and traditional farm buildings, activities involving trees and woodland (16,839) included the protection of infield trees, broadleaved and mixed woodland and old orchards and buffer strips (16,347).

The available data from the 35,975 farms that recorded a cost shows that mixed farms spent the most with £2,935 on average per farm followed by general cropping and the lowest spend was on specialist pig farms with £575. On a per hectare basis the spend was highest on specialist poultry farms with £92 per hectare per farm and the lowest were the general cropping farms at £11 per hectare. The highest costs are recorded by the very large farm businesses on £18.9m but small farms follow closely on £18.4m. The highest average spend per farm was on boundary activities at £1,071, £809 for activities relating to historic and landscape features and the lowest was £24 for LFA grassland activities.

The individual countryside maintenance and management activities can be compared and show that the average costs per farm were highest for historic and landscape feature activities at £2,012 per farm and lowest for ditches at £837.