| THE ALLERTON PROJECT - INNOVATIVE FARMING - 25TH ANNIVERSARY 1992


Allerton Project starts and base- line monitoring and habitat improvement commences


1993


Wild game management is introduced and the fi rst shoot takes place


1995 Songbirds double in


response to game manage- ment. Hare


numbers rocket 1996


Wildlife seed mix research commences and the fi rst visitor centre opens at Manor Farm


2002


Where the Birds Sing a


10 year report of the Project is launched


2003


The shoot ceases due to lack of game (predator


control stopped in 2001)


2004


Allerton is launched as the fi rst LEAF Innovation Centre by Sir Don Curry


2005


The Project wins the regional


cross compli- ance advice contract from Natural England


2007


Songbird num- bers drop and winter feeding ceases. Allerton Recycling is launched


25


th


Anniversary 1992-2017 The Allerton Project


25 years of innovative farming


Creating real-life solutions to real-life problems, is a hallmark of the Allerton Project’s research. The Allerton team explain


O


ur renowned Allerton Project farm at Loddington, Leicestershire is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. The Project has achieved a huge amount in this time including helping to shape policy and agri-environment schemes, farming more sustainably for the environment, game and wildlife, while educating huge numbers of visitors each year and playing an active role in the community. The farm is the former home of Lord and Lady Allerton who bought the estate in 1934 and although they were keen on fieldsports, they had not managed their own farm for this purpose. The executors of their will set up the Allerton Research and Educational Trust in April 1992 to own and manage the farm. The Project set out to explore the potential of game management on farmland for meeting wider environmental objectives and formally became the GWCT’s ‘Allerton Project’ in 2006. The Project is almost unique in that it combines a farm business, research centre and demonstration farm. The farm comprises 333 hectares, almost three-quarters of which are arable crops and an eighth is pasture.


Creating real-life solutions to real-life problems It has always been our intention to farm profitably, so that we can demonstrate our practices to other commercial farmers. We cost out, in detail, our farming, research and demonstration activities and the farm’s


16 | GAMEWISE • SUMMER 2017


profitability has consistently matched or exceeded a benchmark of similar operations.


Across the last 25 years, we have endeavoured to demonstrate what might be done to tackle issues facing farmers and farmland wildlife.


Overcoming the ‘hungry gap’


Lack of food in winter was identified as a contributor to the national declines of some farmland birds. By looking at the use of many seed-bearing crops by farmland birds, we could recommend the composition of seed mixtures that might be appropriate Countryside Stewardship habitat options. Since then, wild bird seed mixtures have been included as an option in agri-environment schemes. Our research also showed that different crop species retained their seed for differing periods through the winter. To solve this, we recommended that wild bird seed mixtures are implemented in combination with supplementary feeding in the second half of the winter. Influenced by our long-term data from the Allerton Project, this became an option within Stewardship schemes in 2013 and farmers can be paid to feed their birds in this ‘hungry gap’ period.


The importance of game management Having gathered baseline figures in 1992, we were able to chart the impact of introducing wild gamebird


“ The Allerton


Project has shown that ordi- nary farms can make a profi t while still doing extraordinary work for wildlife. Many farmers and landowners have visited it over the past 25 years and have left inspired to do more for wildlife on their own land.


Helen Woolley, Director General, CLA


” www.gwct.org.uk/allerton


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