The farming year at the Allerton Project


In the last two decades we have seen monumental changes in farming methods. © Amelia Woolford/GWCT


BACKGROUND


The Allerton Project is based around an 333-hectare (800 acres) estate in Leicestershire. The estate was left to the GWCT by the late Lord and Lady Allerton in 1992 and the Project’s objectives are to research ways in which highly productive agriculture and protection of the environment can be reconciled. The Project also has an educational and demonstration remit.


Many farmers would have been dismayed reading the latest State of Nature Report, which continues to cast responsibility for the declines of many species on ‘intensive’ agriculture and farmers. Instead of being the solution to many of these problems, farmers are labelled as being the cause. Yet in at least the last two decades we have seen monumental changes in farming methods. As the Allerton Project farm reaches its landmark 25th year it is worth reflect- ing on the changes that have taken place in farming over this period. Our benefactor, Lord Allerton, passed away in 1992 and the Loddington Estate became the Allerton Research and Educational Trust, the lowland research and demonstration farm for The Game Conservancy Trust. Around this time the European Commission ceased to incentivise agricultural production and introduced mandatory set-aside. LEAF was born and Integrated Farm Management, which embraces cultural, biological and mechanical pest control techniques ahead of chemical solutions, became the chosen approach for all progressive farmers. Our politicians signed the first Convention on Biological Diversity and Habitat and Species Action Plans (HAPs & SAPs) were rolled out; intensive plough/power harrow tillage gave way to minimal tillage; Environmental Stewardship take-up became widespread and agricultural yields plateaued or ‘de- intensified’. Farm Assurance and the Voluntary Initiative (VI), an industry-led approach


TABLE 1


Arable gross margins (£/hectare) at the Allerton Project 2010-2016 2010


2011 Winter wheat


Spring beans Winter oats


673


Winter oilseed rape 799 512 808


783


1,082 507 873


No single/basic farm payment included * winter beans, **spring oats


64 | GAME & WILDLIFE REVIEW 2016 www.gwct.org.uk 2012


255 490 817 676


2013


567 162 580 570


2014


590 414


646* 354


2015


457 533


396* 507


2016


442 524


289* 156**


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