The Scottish Demonstration Farm - Auchnerran
We estimate about 30% of Scotland looks, and farms, like Auchnerran. © Marlies Nicolai/GWCT
BACKGROUND
Livestock and grass-dominated agriculture on the edge of the hill are important across the UK but this farming is hard pressed to be both economically sustainable and home to increasingly vulnerable species such as curlew, grey partridge and hares. By integrating, researching and demonstrating game, wildlife and farm conservation approaches, we believe there are practical solutions to this challenge.
70 | GAME & WILDLIFE REVIEW 2016
In November 2014 GWCT took on one of its most significant, exciting and challenging projects, the Game and Wildlife Scottish Demonstration Farm (GWSDF) Auchnerran. In 2016 we were delighted that our Patron, HRH Duke of Edinburgh, was able to visit the farm and express his support for what we are trying to achieve – a profit- able farm using game shooting and farmland conservation practices to deliver wildlife and habitats, clean water and healthy soils. The aim is to develop this project as a partner to our existing demonstration farm – the Allerton Project at Loddington in Leicestershire. The landscape and farming could not be more different so testing general principles will be fascinating. We are tenant farmers at Auchnerran, whereas at Allerton we are owner
occupiers. Auchnerran is a 480 hectare (ha) hill farm lying 250 metres above sea level in Aberdeenshire, with 5,000ha of contiguous moorland grazing rising to 870 metres. Allerton is 333ha, 120 metres above sea level. We estimate about 30% of Scotland looks, and farms, like Auchnerran – which makes it an important and very relevant demonstration. It is a broadly even mix of ploughable land (capable of growing barley, rotational grass or forage turnips), permanent grass and hill-edge rough grazings (woodland, scrub, heather, rushes), currently utilised by a black-faced sheep flock of 1,155 ewes. At the Allerton Project 25 years ago, we took on a farm that had been ‘farmed
quite hard’ and set out to continue to farm it commercially but to balance that with strong environmental and shoot management to improve biodiversity. This we did very successfully, and within five years we restored farmland bird numbers back to levels not seen since the 1960s, while continuing to produce wheat yields on a par with neighbouring commercial farms.
www.gwct.org.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92
