Farmland birds

Farmland in its many guises is a man-altered landscape and in most
situations it will always support biodiversity that is impoverished
compared to the natural habitats it replaces. This is hardly surprising
since typically the aim of farming is to maximise the yield of one
species, and to minimise competition. Nevertheless farmland does have the
potential to support and benefit some native wildlife by coincidence or
design and indeed it did so until relatively recently.

Arguably the richest period for (unintended) open countryside biodiversity
was during the 1930s when an agricultural depression meant many fields
remained untilled and hedgerows uncut. Then came World War 2 when national
self-sufficiency and land productivity were understandably paramount. Land
that had never been ploughed came into play and maximum yield was all that
mattered. In the aftermath of the War the 1947 Agriculture Act probably
signalled the beginning of the end for farming that was inadvertently
wildlife-friendly. In an era of austerity and an atmosphere of
aspirational growth the government's aim was to ensure the high levels of
agricultural production achieved during the War were maintained. A system
of guaranteed prices were negotiated annually by the Ministry of
Agriculture and the National Farmers Union with shortfalls between market
prices and the income ‘requirements’ of farmers being subsidised.

The introduction of subsidised farming and price stability coincided with
the rise of industrial farming with increased mechanisation (which allowed
more rapid and much deeper ploughing for example) and the widespread use
of chemicals. The hall of infamy remembers the likes of DDT and then
lethally-toxic cyclodiene organo-chlorines, such as aldrin and dieldrin;
the latter literally poisoned the landscape and killed seed-eating birds
outright along with their predators. In a short space of time the English
countryside was change literally and metaphorically, along with a bucolic
way of life. Nowadays the damage continues apace of course but rather than
poison farmland birds outright we simply starve them out of existence
through the use of ever-more ‘efficient’ herbicides and insecticides.