Farmers' unpaid work is the cost of conservation

There seems to be a commonly-held belief among the farming community that they are all "guardians of the countryside" and that everyone is committed to conservation.

Mark Sampson, who runs an 840-acre arable and beef business at Well, near Bedale, believes there may well be mutual concerns over the protection of wildlife, flora and fauna, but it would be wrong to say that everyone has embraced conservation.

"It is pretty apparent that nine out of 10 farmers aren't terribly interested in the bits around the outside of their fields," says Mark, chairman of the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) in Yorkshire. "I was quite interested in them and I have spent quite a bit of time looking at them, as well as quite a bit of money improving them."

Mark says money, or rather the lack of it, is constraining his fellow farmers from spending greater time in their fields performing tasks that do not have a financial benefit. Schemes whereby farmers receive payments for tending their land are available but he reckons they are not the incentive they could have been.

"We didn't jump in straight away at the various countryside stewardship schemes as each has come up, because they require a great deal of financial commitment, as well as physical commitment.

"They are not a free ride by any means. We are involved now, but the money they give you is a contribution. It isn't the whole story. We had to get to the point where we felt that we could afford to do it and afford the time, too."

Last year, Mark coppiced 1,200 metres of hedge, planted 300 metres and laid a further 500 metres. "That doesn't all get done in a weekend. We're at the sharp end, the people who do it and make it happen, therefore we ought to be better rewarded for that.

"These days people who work with their hands, on the whole, are not terribly well rewarded. If organisations such as Natural England were really interested in conservation, they would make it financially worthwhile and that would get more farmers interested."

Mark's wife Louise says: "There's seldom a weekend passes when Mark doesn't devote a day or more to scruffling about in the bottom of hedges taking off tree spirals, weeding and clearing things away. If you're the one who is also in charge of the farm, your labour is costed at zero. What you never factor in – and what I suppose Natural England rely upon – is that you are supplying your labour for nothing. If you were to pay someone for the work, nobody would do it."

Mark has been involved with FWAG for many years. He says: "I think the bit of money that has been available over the past 20 years has enabled those who were that way inclined to pursue their dream. But there is still only quite a small fraction of the farming community that is interested in conservation I'm afraid."

Mark's farm encompasses two main tracts of land. One is around the village of Well and the other at Aiskew, running alongside the A1 at Leeming Bar. Over the years he has added a number of permissive footpaths to the land at Aiskew.

"We now have one of the best used permissive accesses in the county. We made some nice circular walks of perhaps half an hour or an hour and our parish councils were very grateful.

"We wanted to renew the permissive access walks but English Nature has not agreed. They either don't think it's worth doing or they think we will just get on and do it anyway without any payment."

Mark isn't doing it for the money. But somewhere along the way he feels that there needs to be more coming farming's way if the countryside is to be kept in the manner others seem to expect.

CW 10/7/10