September 16, 2025 • 31 mins
Access to nature and an increase of arable land going into environmental schemes are the hot topics this week.
A recent study has shown that 42.3% of farmers across the UK reduced their cropped arable area to take part in agri-environment schemes for harvest 2025, with the majority being in the South East and East of England where less productive and marginal ground which is difficult to access with machinery are being put into schemes to improve profitability and help the environment.
Meanwhile a Labour-led all-party parliamentary group has released a report which concludes that there is not enough access to nature in England and calling for greater access to nature, particularly inland waters. There is also a push for improving accessibility of existing rights of way by removing stiles and replacing with inclusive alternatives.
Richard and Richard discuss these topics, the deeper meanings and their potential impacts on rural spaces and our wildlife.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
Links
- Environmental scheme study
- Helena Horton's article about access to blue spaces
- More information on the All-party parliamentary group and their recent report
- Subscribe on Patreon for extra content (you can cancel at any time)
- If you enjoy what we do, consider a one-off tip on Ko-fi
- CountrySlide website
- Negus' book tour dates can be found here
The Hosts
Richard Negus website
Callum McInerney-Riley website
Richard Prideaux website
Edited and Produced by Amy Green for Rural and Outdoor.
A recent study has shown that 42.3% of farmers across the UK reduced their cropped arable area to take part in agri-environment schemes for harvest 2025, with the majority being in the South East and East of England where less productive and marginal ground which is difficult to access with machinery are being put into schemes to improve profitability and help the environment.
Meanwhile a Labour-led all-party parliamentary group has released a report which concludes that there is not enough access to nature in England and calling for greater access to nature, particularly inland waters. There is also a push for improving accessibility of existing rights of way by removing stiles and replacing with inclusive alternatives.
Richard and Richard discuss these topics, the deeper meanings and their potential impacts on rural spaces and our wildlife.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
Links
- Environmental scheme study
- Helena Horton's article about access to blue spaces
- More information on the All-party parliamentary group and their recent report
- Subscribe on Patreon for extra content (you can cancel at any time)
- If you enjoy what we do, consider a one-off tip on Ko-fi
- CountrySlide website
- Negus' book tour dates can be found here
The Hosts
Richard Negus website
Callum McInerney-Riley website
Richard Prideaux website
Edited and Produced by Amy Green for Rural and Outdoor.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello everyone, and welcome to what is sort of a
new venture. This is the Country Slide news segment, although
patrons will actually recognize this as the second attempt at
this because well the first one was kind of fueled
by red wine. Although now we try to do it
properly and do it so the public can hear it.
(00:23):
But we are still the only rural news program where
we have to finish early because one of us is
going out wild fowling.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, yeah, this is Can you imagine how much more
popular the news would be? They're go and so we
haven't got Timefran finally, because the wind's blowing and I've
got and try and hopefully get underneath some ducks. Yes,
I would, I'd much for further news if that was
the case. So anyway, we're here for a short time,
not a good time, Mum Richard. So what's our first
(00:51):
news story going to be?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, this one it's I think we got it from
the Farmers Weekly. It's Emma Gilbard and it's how environmental
schemes are affecting UK arable area and it's in a nutshell.
It's according to the survey taken for the HDB Spring
twenty twenty five Planting in Variety survey, just over half
(01:15):
of English farmers reduce their cropable arable area to take
part in agriate environment schemes for harvest twenty twenty five.
Across the whole of the UK, this figure dropped to
forty two point three. So it's where this balance between
food production and nature and where the schemes exist and
(01:35):
how incentivized people are to do one over the other.
You've got a better handle on this because we don't
have any crops over here. We've got senan cows.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
No. I mean, it's an interesting one and it worked
okay because basically if you look at it, I mean,
the best way that farmers were doing it both for
their bottom line and I would argue for nature, was
that they were making the land that was profitable and
sustainable for growing crops. They were using that as a
(02:06):
cropped area, and then through things like yield mapping and
also just knowledge of their own land, they would turn
the edges, awkward corners, etc. Into areas where they would
you know, so if you've got a field that looks
like the Isle of Wight in shape, is that you
would square it off into a rectangle so therefore it's
(02:28):
much more economical to farm. And all those little sort
of gullies and canyons and bits that stick at awkward
angles squared them off, and that was where the stewardship
options went. Now, I think one of the reasons why
this it probably has gone up in such a big
way is because some of the options under SFI were
(02:53):
very very generous. You know, some of the legume rich
fallows and some of the wildflower options were so incredibly
generous that some farmers thought, do you know what, Okay,
so my year one is a bit costly because I've
got to go and put the seed in and make
it sure it actually grows. But then after that I
(03:13):
don't have to do anything with it and with wheat,
you know. Was they said the world week this year
is going to be really low, the soothsayers said, and
they were right. So therefore it was actually quite a
sensible move. Now, you see, I'm not I was a
bit more sanguine about it because I thought, well, most
farmers would rather go and grow a crop because that's
(03:37):
what they do, and so therefore the stewardship options. So
we're saying, well, you know, because the X amount of
Croperbil area has been lost. Isn't actually the end of
the world. But we've now all of a sudden got
a lot of land being slated to come into solar
(03:58):
and so if we were to keep up with the
amount of land being lost for as a croper bel
area and plus the solar as well, you do suddenly
start thinking, oh, my lord, but you can understand it
when wheat prices were so shocking this year that you
can understand why people could could go into it. So
(04:21):
I think in a way the story it does. You
know that down to the forty two point three percent
of land getting cropped, that story, But I think it's
that it's suddenly going to ramp up that bit more
because it's not just the stewardship options, it's the it's
(04:41):
solar too. So you know, this is actually quite a
story and one that may affect potentially. I think, you know,
if we were to get a reform government in next time,
you know they've already intimated that they're much more interested
in food sufficiency and food sustainability grown in this country,
(05:04):
we might suddenly see a bit of a drop. So
in the stewardship areas so interesting as we've said before
as well. It's these things don't happen very quickly. You
can't just say, right, well, this year we're doing nature,
and the next year we'll do crops, and then the
year after that will do solo. Is that once you've
(05:25):
changed the use of a field and all the access
to it and the gateways and the way it's laid
out or put, in the case of solar, some great
big concrete lumps in the ground and some steel uprights
and fencing to keep people out and all of these
other things, you can't change it back into something else
very quickly. So once that is lost as cropable area,
(05:46):
it's quite a bit of work to turn it back
into a food production area, and particularly with modern machinery,
I agree entirely, and I think one of the you know,
one of the things that I think is where we
probably lost the SFI, where there were some farmers and
agents who are advising their clients too well take advantage
(06:10):
of this because this current scheme looks almost too good
to be true, So let's get some money out of
it whilst we can. Was understandable, I suppose if you're
an agent, because they're getting paid via a percentage of
the profits that the farm is earning that year. But
it was very short termism and it didn't in the
(06:34):
end go to help the farmers who are actually doing
stewardship for the right reasons. And you know, what's not
said in this piece is about solar and I think
one of the big stories really is the fact that
if you look now, the cows if you pardon the pump,
(06:54):
are actually coming home. And we now understand that a
lot of the sort of almost the inheritance tax and
the swinging impacts on farming what seems to be becoming
clear now it was just the means of coercing farmers
into moving in the direction of moving fields over into renewables.
(07:14):
Because we've seen recently in the news that in the
reshuffle one of the few people who didn't get reshuffled
was mister Milliband, so clearly he's got some pull. So
there we go. Is it good for us, probably not?
Is it good for nature probably not? No.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And it's too simple a metric by which to understand
what's going on. Yeah as well, Yeah, exactly, it's a
very complicated situation and none of these things will be
created or be resolved quickly speaking of which is a
slightly more complicated issue but one that I thought was
(07:58):
mostly gone. But maybe it is, and maybe it's just
it's got a lot of noise behind it at the moment.
And I can sort of see two elements to this,
and one is Helena Horton's piece in the Guardian today
which is right to swim and wild camp in England
should be enshrined in law, Labour MPs say, and then
(08:20):
report from a group of MPs from the All Party
Parliamentary Group for Outdoor Recreation and Access to Nature, so
that is listed there as being a labor lad all
party group straight away, and then we've got the report
here as well. But there's some interesting language going on
here with all Party and then Labor Lady, which are
(08:44):
too that you can't be both, No you can't. I'm
not all party. If there's only many months.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Ago, I was involved in the All Party Parliamentary Group
for Horse Racing and Thoroughbred Breeding. I know, very long winded.
That was an interesting one because anybody in everybody could
be on this group provided they had a race course
in their constituency or one of the training centers, so Lamborn,
(09:12):
Newmarket middle of Moulton and that meant genuine chunk of
the middle of England. Yes, that was a big old
chunk of that. But plus, if you think about it,
you could have an MP for Doncaster or red Car
you know, absolutely died in the wall, old school Labor.
But then you might also have the MP for Newmarket,
the MP for Epsom and whatnot. So it genuinely was
(09:35):
and all party things. And my only experience of it
was twofold. This is slightly off the topic of the news,
but it was that you didn't get them all sitting together.
I went to a dinner every year and the Labour
people sat at one end, the Liberal Democrats sat in
the middle, and the Tory sat at the other end
of the room. So it wasn't exactly a collegiate thing.
And the second thing was I watched Matt Hancock skip
(09:58):
in and slap pretty Patel on the backside. So that
because that's completely not to do with the news, I know,
but it just sort of showed me the sort of
man that Matt Hancock is because he used to be
the MP for Newmarket. But anyway, onto the all party
parliamentary group thing. Now I think this is one of
those weird talking shops that they've all come to a
(10:21):
conclusion that sounds so right on and so wonderful. That is.
I mean, it would almost take a three hour program
to go through most of this lunacy that they have
they've come up with. But one of the biggest takeaways
that I saw in there, which actually worried me, was
(10:42):
not just the one that they want all styles to
be ripped up and replaced with accessible field gateways. In
other words, is every single style in the country has
got to be ripped up, and it now means that
people with disabilities or age related infirmities. Can you imagine
(11:06):
the cost if we were to do this, that you
were to put accessible styles everywhere? That's bonkers, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
There's a lot in this document, and I would say
there's a couple of ways to read it. One you
could just read it based on what's in there, so
we'll link out to it in the show notes. There's
a few there's a lot of focus on rivers within
this that does seem to be the headline of this
(11:36):
accessing blue spaces blue spaces, yes, which is so as
opposed to green spaces. And then there's access to nature,
which is which is a very interesting way of putting
things because that infers that nature is there as a
resource for humans. Yeah, you'll you know we need to
(12:00):
access nature, which we do. I mean, you and I
have both chosen work that puts us out in fields
all the time and next to nature, but we're not
When I do my work and I think you're the same,
You're not there thinking all of this is there for me.
You're sort of doing it in service to nature, a
wild service, as you says you were. You might want
(12:21):
to call it. There's so much to write a book
with that title. But all of the framing in this
document is about access to nature, as if nature is
just a resource that's set out there like a mineral
deposit and everyone should have a right to mine this
mineral deposit. Not No, we need to actually do something
(12:41):
to make sure that that mineral deposit, that fixed resource,
is still there for the future. I'm picking up on
a few things here. Of the people involved in this,
so the officers of this All Party Parliamentary Group are
Andy McNay, Labor, Phil Brickle, Labor, Lord Hodgson of Ashley
(13:05):
Abbot Conservative and the Treasure There is miss Polly Billington.
I don't know anything about Polly Billington, but I noticed
that Kath Flickcraft, doctor Flickcraft, from the British Mountaineering Council
is their public inquiry point. This all party parliamentary group
is effectively the British Mountaineering Council, which is worth noting
(13:28):
because they are sort of the lobbying group, sort of
the sport representative for hillwalking or what is now called
mountain hiking and climbing and things like that. So I
used to be a member a long time ago. It
was actually a requirement when I did my outdoor qualifications
you had to be a member of the British Mountaineering Council. Now,
(13:51):
they were sort of the political arm of the kinder
trespass and back in the in the thirties and the
sort of the war between hikers and gamekeepers there. So
they are a very political organization. They have really moved
their focus over the last few years to access, so
(14:14):
they have been they're a part They're in bed with
Right to Rome. They also have this Wee wild Camp
campaign which is simultaneously campaigning for access for wild camping
whilst also educating people on how you should wild camp
and what you should do. But nothing on their nothing
in their literature, nothing in their education do they talk
(14:37):
about disturbance of habitat. They don't talk about destruction of habitat.
Everything's to do with either litter or polluting water sources,
with sort of human bodily waste from toileting and those
kind of things. But nothing is there about just being
there as a human in nature, which we know has
a huge effect on the security of those habitats. It's
(15:00):
for things that live there and that want to be
left the hell alone. So when if you're looking at
this and you're you've been you're listening to this podcast
as you're coming to it from the outdoor side of things,
just bear in mind that this is basically the British
Mountaineering Council talking to themselves. Because Andy McNay is heavily
(15:20):
involved with the British Mountaineering Council of Mountaineering. He's an
MP for Rossendale and Darwin, which is not exactly a
huge area of biodiversity, but it has a lot of
sensitive habitats in the uplands. You've also got Phil Brickle,
who is a is a paddler. He's a kayaker. His
thing has been access to water for kayaking. So within
(15:46):
this group, I can't see and obviously I don't know
who's been reporting to them and making representation and so on.
But there's nothing here from farming. There's nothing here from
the field sports side of things. There's nothing here from
any of those other stakeholders within this. And that's what
I think will be what's missed from this, because we'll
(16:06):
just get lots of tweets and ex posts and everything
else now from people saying, well, look at this, isn't
this ridiculous? Look at this? This haid a thing about styles?
You know not? You knows. There's lots of stuff to
pick out in there. Did Basque approach them? Did the
Game and One Life Conservancy Trust? Did the National Gamekeepers?
Did the NF you you did all these organizations? Did
(16:30):
they try to work with these groups?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well? I can't believe that they Well I can't see
any evidence of it. I mean, there's one that stuck out.
One that stuck out for me was that, you know,
one of my pet hates at the moments, this thing
called biodiversity net gain or kicking the can down the road.
As it's called. So basically, if you know, at the moment,
(16:55):
if you build a new development which is perhaps on
village edge, so in my neck of the woods is
huge numbers of old home farms are now falling by
the wayside. The ones that are right next to the village,
they are now getting developed because that for some reason
(17:16):
they've sort of worked this out that it's brown field
and they're all building housing developments called Larks Rise and
lap Wing Meadow and you know, naming all the red
listed species which no longer can go there because it's
being replaced by Yes, I know, and they just haven't
(17:37):
seemed to quite got it yet. But there's a there's
a thing which is called biodiversity net gain. So the idea,
I suppose in principle is quite sensible, is that you know,
if you are going to build, then it beholds to
the developer to pay for So if you use one
acre and be one point one acre of like similar
(17:59):
habitat has to be improved and they have to pay
for that to be done. So if you have truly
lost one acre of old meadowland, theoretically there should be
one point one acres of meadowland replaced and made good
for biodiversity net gain right, So therefore basically one to
(18:21):
have your cake and eat it and kick the can
down the road.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Now, one of the.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Things that's in this thing here is it says that
Biodiversity net game aims for a ten percent gain in
biodiversity but currently fall short and recognizing the value of
undeveloped and informal use by local people. So BNNG requirements
should explicitly contribute to improve public access to nature alongside
(18:48):
ecological benefits. So I think there you go. Is that
that this is the direction that this is of travel
here is that they're saying alongside ecological benefits. Word, that's
what they're saying, is that yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So
we're going to go and put in this habitat which
is essential, which has been lost for species X. We're
going to put it back in. But it's also got
(19:10):
to work alongside that people have access to it. So
it's always been my big bugbear personally in all the
stuff with Right to Rome and all that lot is
it's always about is it good? People need nature? And
when they never ask the question does nature need people?
Which we know the answer is invariably no, they only
(19:32):
want the people who actually do the good stuff for them.
And even once we've done the good stuff, they'd rather
be buggered off and got out of the way. So
I think this is a rather glossily presented piece of
work which doesn't seem to have a huge depth to
it of people inputting stuff from across the viewpoints and
(19:57):
of land use and land owners. It does seem to
have a lot of well, you know, this is a
working countryside. All I'm seeing on this document is an
incredibly racially an age diverse document, you know, images of
all the people going going along, they'll have to say,
(20:17):
though largely it's not very many elderly people on there.
They just seem to be lots of people of different
races using the land, and nothing really saying about what
impacts this might have on nature or the people who
grow the food that feed us so that we're fit
enough to go out paddling and hill walking and kayaking
(20:40):
and riding. Very badly, I have to say, the image
that they've got of these people riding, well, the lady
on there, she's riding far too long, her heels are up,
her hands are too low, she's got a Well it's
just shoddy, really, I mean it's just in every shape
or form it's that just sums it up. You've got
(21:01):
people riding on here who shouldn't be on a horse.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I love that. That is the thing that you've picked
out of that this is what you get. Well, there's
a few things in there, like one of them appears
to be a photo from Bavaria I think is actually
a stock photo. Another one looks like it's from North
America somewhere that it was like one of those American
campgrounds where there's a set aside fire circle and you
(21:27):
park your RV next to it. They've actually weirdly chosen
a lot of stock imagery rather than from other countries
which have a completely different level of human population and
population density and completely different land used history, which is interesting.
(21:49):
There's a there's got to be a root forward for
this because this is this has actually been the way
of things for a long time. For any kind of
funding or anything like that, for outside of Agtham, everything
has to do with people that basically there's almost no
funding for just doing a nature project. It has to
be how you have to show how the local community
(22:10):
or a set of stakeholders benefits from that thing, and
I kind of work in I work in that world,
so I'm having to come up with very clever projects
that actually do have a good outcome for nature while
also the fulfilling the requirements of those that funding or
the framework that we're working with or some sort of
local you know, access to nature plan or something like that.
(22:33):
So last week went around with the county, the County
Biodiversity team on a dormouse project, because we do very
well for dormouse here, the Hazel dormouse, it's what they're
doing quite well in this sort of corner of northeast Wales.
So we were looking at one of the projects. It's
there that monitor is it and that it takes one
(22:55):
of the biggest monitoring projects takes place in a public
access woodland. So a lot of the discussion was how
can we try and funnel people onto the footpath and
keep them on the footpath and keep their dogs on
the footpath so that this big area over here becomes
free from people, so that the dormhouse have places to
be and you know, we can sort out the gray
squirdl problem separately and habitat and everything else. But how
(23:19):
do we keep the public access whilst keeping people funneled
into those right areas. And another part of that is
trying to do it with volunteers, So not just saying
doing volunteer things for the sake of the volunteers, but
actually working with volunteers like you or I would go
out and look at a coppice or a hedgerow or
(23:40):
something like that and actually say, right, these are the
factors at play here, and these you know there is
a cost to humans being here, So how can we
make it as good as we can for nature whilst
also allowing people here. There is a root forward for that.
I don't think mass participation works in those kinds of areas.
You can't have thousands of people doing that at the
same time, have like ten at a time. And crucially,
(24:04):
the outdoor organizations, which I see a lot of and
I'm quite aware of them from basically a previous career,
they have no interest in doing anything with farmers, landowners
or anything like that. They just want to focus entirely
on the people that pay their membership fees and effectively
their customers. Meanwhile, farming, shooting, field sports, they have no
(24:25):
interest in dealing with the outdoor people because they don't
pay their wages either. They don't pay their membership fees
to it. I'm kind of a unicorn in that I
sit in both worlds and I think both are a
bit crap. That would be my advice. If you're listening
to this podcast and you're from the farming field sports side,
you have to engage with the outdoor recreation side, because
(24:48):
otherwise they're going to come in and they're going to
eat your lunch and they're going to take over. And
this because there are more people interested potentially in outdoor
recreation than paying two grand to stand there and fish
for salmon ah or stand on a peg. There's just
the massive people. There's more people interested in the outdoor
recreation that are interested in shooting and fishing, which you're
(25:12):
going to be outnumbered if you indeed get a handle
on this. You know, that's a rare bit of my
actual politics coming out.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
One of the things intrigues me here, and I think
this is an interesting one. Helen Holton's article is quite
well written, and she leans to the left as she
always will do, but she hasn't possibly asked the questions.
But a lot of this it does seem to be
that her article focuses on the right to swim and
(25:43):
wild camp stuff, and this access to blue spaces. I've
never heard that one before. I hear a lot of
access to green spaces, but access to blue spaces. Now.
One of the leading lights in the right to Roam
movie is Robert McFarlane, who has just written a book
(26:06):
called Is a River Alive? Claiming that rivers have rights. Now,
one would imagine that if I've read the book, and
I've indeed I wrote my review of it in the
Critic and you know, I didn't really buy it, but
it was beautifully written as all this stuff, I doesn't
really buy it. But if one is to follow his mantra,
(26:28):
and one presumes, because he is one of the out
leading advocates and probably the most famous advocate of the
right row movement, if rivers have right, one then presumes that.
And I think now that obviously sentient beings have rights,
don't today. Wasn't that something that suddenly came in under
(26:50):
Boris Johnson? So one would presume that, I wait now
for the court cases where you're getting water voles going
and being represented by a by one of the ambulance
chasing law companies going after them, and indeed it is
(27:10):
something as we talked about on the show You and
I the other day, Richard, is that while Justice have
already turned their laser like focus onto the co steering world,
well then if they're looking at that, then surely the
disturbance that would come if much of this all party
parliamentary groups wishes were granted, which, sorry to disappoint everyone,
(27:36):
they won't be because labor has slightly bigger fish to fry.
Number ten is going to read this and go yeah,
thanks and throw it away. But you know, there is
Let's be honest, this is only something because the country slides,
we have to talk about rural issues. It doesn't matter.
It really doesn't matter. I mean, to be perfectly fact,
(27:58):
we'll interesting, well yeah exactly do you remember you're not
not who's there Kia ka who? Well that's politics, yeah,
but it's It's one of those things is that if
well Justice looking at this, and we are inevitably going
to see increased disturbance of wildlife from what these people
(28:20):
are saying, and they haven't consulted, you know, a more
holistic group, then probably we are going to look at
just the only people who are going to benefit from
this aren't going to be people who actually want more
access and go kayaking and climbing and walking and horse
riding badly or wherever any of those things. It's going
(28:42):
to be not the wildlife either. It's going to be
the lawyers who are going to go, great, I've got
a thing here because I've got Dormouse the Ramblers Association,
and off they go and they'll be charging us field.
So I think that's, you know, basically where we've come to,
and that's that's the new stories we've got. You know, well,
(29:03):
we have just literally bumped into, you know, the fact
that it looks like the Prime Minister. I mean, when
you've got the Times saying it's not a question of if,
it's a question of when he goes, you do think,
oh my lord, we're you know, we are on quite
a quite an interesting time going forward. It's that there's
(29:26):
people trying to go and the Mayor of Manchester is
looking at how quickly he can resign and then get
a seat so that he can then become an MP,
so that he can then go and stand up again.
We're in very feebrile times. And so I suppose probably
we shouldn't really worry too much about the stuff such
as all parliamentary parley party groups saying, you know, all
(29:51):
this stuff, because it's just going to become you know,
shredded paper very soon, Richard. So I'm not you know,
he may gave Helen Horns something to write about, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
It did, But all this stuff will come back at
some point. So if you're I would say, urge the
rural side of things to stay engaged on the topic
and don't be complacent about it. Just keep one eye
on it at least. But yeah, I mean, if we were,
as you say, if we were a real news program,
we would have covered all sorts of things like over
(30:24):
one hundred thousand people turning up in London this weekend,
or sort of seemingly well an assassination last week in
the US which is probably going to change the political
landscape for the next fifty years. Or there's all sorts
of things over happening in the Middle East and god
knows what's going to happen with that by next week.
(30:46):
So yeah, I mean, if we were a real news program,
we'd have covered some of those. But we're not so
there you go.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, but what do we do instead? What do we
do instead? We said building styles, stupid idea, don't go
something because you disturbed water voles and a bit worried
about food because someone's putting solar panels and they might
be destroying the AB eight and AB nine in the process. Yeah,
there's the news for you. I better go off and
(31:13):
shoot some ducks, didn't I I suppose.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
All legally and ethically for food. If you're listening, help absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yes, it's called wild wild food. By the way. That
is called because it is now the wild fowling season
and we've got some rough weather down on the coast,
and so therefore I will be able to go and
stand in a muddy marsh and not shoot anything and
get windy, rather than just get there and get bitten
by midges. So that's where I'm going. Yeah, I'm going
(31:41):
to ring a gamekeeper. That's what I'm going to do, right.
Thank you everyone for listening. Let us know what you
thought of.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
The new show.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Thank you for listening to the news.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Bye bye.
Hello everyone, and welcome to what is sort of a
new venture. This is the Country Slide news segment, although
patrons will actually recognize this as the second attempt at
this because well the first one was kind of fueled
by red wine. Although now we try to do it
properly and do it so the public can hear it.
(00:23):
But we are still the only rural news program where
we have to finish early because one of us is
going out wild fowling.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, yeah, this is Can you imagine how much more
popular the news would be? They're go and so we
haven't got Timefran finally, because the wind's blowing and I've
got and try and hopefully get underneath some ducks. Yes,
I would, I'd much for further news if that was
the case. So anyway, we're here for a short time,
not a good time, Mum Richard. So what's our first
(00:51):
news story going to be?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, this one it's I think we got it from
the Farmers Weekly. It's Emma Gilbard and it's how environmental
schemes are affecting UK arable area and it's in a nutshell.
It's according to the survey taken for the HDB Spring
twenty twenty five Planting in Variety survey, just over half
(01:15):
of English farmers reduce their cropable arable area to take
part in agriate environment schemes for harvest twenty twenty five.
Across the whole of the UK, this figure dropped to
forty two point three. So it's where this balance between
food production and nature and where the schemes exist and
(01:35):
how incentivized people are to do one over the other.
You've got a better handle on this because we don't
have any crops over here. We've got senan cows.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
No. I mean, it's an interesting one and it worked
okay because basically if you look at it, I mean,
the best way that farmers were doing it both for
their bottom line and I would argue for nature, was
that they were making the land that was profitable and
sustainable for growing crops. They were using that as a
(02:06):
cropped area, and then through things like yield mapping and
also just knowledge of their own land, they would turn
the edges, awkward corners, etc. Into areas where they would
you know, so if you've got a field that looks
like the Isle of Wight in shape, is that you
would square it off into a rectangle so therefore it's
(02:28):
much more economical to farm. And all those little sort
of gullies and canyons and bits that stick at awkward
angles squared them off, and that was where the stewardship
options went. Now, I think one of the reasons why
this it probably has gone up in such a big
way is because some of the options under SFI were
(02:53):
very very generous. You know, some of the legume rich
fallows and some of the wildflower options were so incredibly
generous that some farmers thought, do you know what, Okay,
so my year one is a bit costly because I've
got to go and put the seed in and make
it sure it actually grows. But then after that I
(03:13):
don't have to do anything with it and with wheat,
you know. Was they said the world week this year
is going to be really low, the soothsayers said, and
they were right. So therefore it was actually quite a
sensible move. Now, you see, I'm not I was a
bit more sanguine about it because I thought, well, most
farmers would rather go and grow a crop because that's
(03:37):
what they do, and so therefore the stewardship options. So
we're saying, well, you know, because the X amount of
Croperbil area has been lost. Isn't actually the end of
the world. But we've now all of a sudden got
a lot of land being slated to come into solar
(03:58):
and so if we were to keep up with the
amount of land being lost for as a croper bel
area and plus the solar as well, you do suddenly
start thinking, oh, my lord, but you can understand it
when wheat prices were so shocking this year that you
can understand why people could could go into it. So
(04:21):
I think in a way the story it does. You
know that down to the forty two point three percent
of land getting cropped, that story, But I think it's
that it's suddenly going to ramp up that bit more
because it's not just the stewardship options, it's the it's
(04:41):
solar too. So you know, this is actually quite a
story and one that may affect potentially. I think, you know,
if we were to get a reform government in next time,
you know they've already intimated that they're much more interested
in food sufficiency and food sustainability grown in this country,
(05:04):
we might suddenly see a bit of a drop. So
in the stewardship areas so interesting as we've said before
as well. It's these things don't happen very quickly. You
can't just say, right, well, this year we're doing nature,
and the next year we'll do crops, and then the
year after that will do solo. Is that once you've
(05:25):
changed the use of a field and all the access
to it and the gateways and the way it's laid
out or put, in the case of solar, some great
big concrete lumps in the ground and some steel uprights
and fencing to keep people out and all of these
other things, you can't change it back into something else
very quickly. So once that is lost as cropable area,
(05:46):
it's quite a bit of work to turn it back
into a food production area, and particularly with modern machinery,
I agree entirely, and I think one of the you know,
one of the things that I think is where we
probably lost the SFI, where there were some farmers and
agents who are advising their clients too well take advantage
(06:10):
of this because this current scheme looks almost too good
to be true, So let's get some money out of
it whilst we can. Was understandable, I suppose if you're
an agent, because they're getting paid via a percentage of
the profits that the farm is earning that year. But
it was very short termism and it didn't in the
(06:34):
end go to help the farmers who are actually doing
stewardship for the right reasons. And you know, what's not
said in this piece is about solar and I think
one of the big stories really is the fact that
if you look now, the cows if you pardon the pump,
(06:54):
are actually coming home. And we now understand that a
lot of the sort of almost the inheritance tax and
the swinging impacts on farming what seems to be becoming
clear now it was just the means of coercing farmers
into moving in the direction of moving fields over into renewables.
(07:14):
Because we've seen recently in the news that in the
reshuffle one of the few people who didn't get reshuffled
was mister Milliband, so clearly he's got some pull. So
there we go. Is it good for us, probably not?
Is it good for nature probably not? No.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And it's too simple a metric by which to understand
what's going on. Yeah as well, Yeah, exactly, it's a
very complicated situation and none of these things will be
created or be resolved quickly speaking of which is a
slightly more complicated issue but one that I thought was
(07:58):
mostly gone. But maybe it is, and maybe it's just
it's got a lot of noise behind it at the moment.
And I can sort of see two elements to this,
and one is Helena Horton's piece in the Guardian today
which is right to swim and wild camp in England
should be enshrined in law, Labour MPs say, and then
(08:20):
report from a group of MPs from the All Party
Parliamentary Group for Outdoor Recreation and Access to Nature, so
that is listed there as being a labor lad all
party group straight away, and then we've got the report
here as well. But there's some interesting language going on
here with all Party and then Labor Lady, which are
(08:44):
too that you can't be both, No you can't. I'm
not all party. If there's only many months.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Ago, I was involved in the All Party Parliamentary Group
for Horse Racing and Thoroughbred Breeding. I know, very long winded.
That was an interesting one because anybody in everybody could
be on this group provided they had a race course
in their constituency or one of the training centers, so Lamborn,
(09:12):
Newmarket middle of Moulton and that meant genuine chunk of
the middle of England. Yes, that was a big old
chunk of that. But plus, if you think about it,
you could have an MP for Doncaster or red Car
you know, absolutely died in the wall, old school Labor.
But then you might also have the MP for Newmarket,
the MP for Epsom and whatnot. So it genuinely was
(09:35):
and all party things. And my only experience of it
was twofold. This is slightly off the topic of the news,
but it was that you didn't get them all sitting together.
I went to a dinner every year and the Labour
people sat at one end, the Liberal Democrats sat in
the middle, and the Tory sat at the other end
of the room. So it wasn't exactly a collegiate thing.
And the second thing was I watched Matt Hancock skip
(09:58):
in and slap pretty Patel on the backside. So that
because that's completely not to do with the news, I know,
but it just sort of showed me the sort of
man that Matt Hancock is because he used to be
the MP for Newmarket. But anyway, onto the all party
parliamentary group thing. Now I think this is one of
those weird talking shops that they've all come to a
(10:21):
conclusion that sounds so right on and so wonderful. That is.
I mean, it would almost take a three hour program
to go through most of this lunacy that they have
they've come up with. But one of the biggest takeaways
that I saw in there, which actually worried me, was
(10:42):
not just the one that they want all styles to
be ripped up and replaced with accessible field gateways. In
other words, is every single style in the country has
got to be ripped up, and it now means that
people with disabilities or age related infirmities. Can you imagine
(11:06):
the cost if we were to do this, that you
were to put accessible styles everywhere? That's bonkers, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
There's a lot in this document, and I would say
there's a couple of ways to read it. One you
could just read it based on what's in there, so
we'll link out to it in the show notes. There's
a few there's a lot of focus on rivers within
this that does seem to be the headline of this
(11:36):
accessing blue spaces blue spaces, yes, which is so as
opposed to green spaces. And then there's access to nature,
which is which is a very interesting way of putting
things because that infers that nature is there as a
resource for humans. Yeah, you'll you know we need to
(12:00):
access nature, which we do. I mean, you and I
have both chosen work that puts us out in fields
all the time and next to nature, but we're not
When I do my work and I think you're the same,
You're not there thinking all of this is there for me.
You're sort of doing it in service to nature, a
wild service, as you says you were. You might want
(12:21):
to call it. There's so much to write a book
with that title. But all of the framing in this
document is about access to nature, as if nature is
just a resource that's set out there like a mineral
deposit and everyone should have a right to mine this
mineral deposit. Not No, we need to actually do something
(12:41):
to make sure that that mineral deposit, that fixed resource,
is still there for the future. I'm picking up on
a few things here. Of the people involved in this,
so the officers of this All Party Parliamentary Group are
Andy McNay, Labor, Phil Brickle, Labor, Lord Hodgson of Ashley
(13:05):
Abbot Conservative and the Treasure There is miss Polly Billington.
I don't know anything about Polly Billington, but I noticed
that Kath Flickcraft, doctor Flickcraft, from the British Mountaineering Council
is their public inquiry point. This all party parliamentary group
is effectively the British Mountaineering Council, which is worth noting
(13:28):
because they are sort of the lobbying group, sort of
the sport representative for hillwalking or what is now called
mountain hiking and climbing and things like that. So I
used to be a member a long time ago. It
was actually a requirement when I did my outdoor qualifications
you had to be a member of the British Mountaineering Council. Now,
(13:51):
they were sort of the political arm of the kinder
trespass and back in the in the thirties and the
sort of the war between hikers and gamekeepers there. So
they are a very political organization. They have really moved
their focus over the last few years to access, so
(14:14):
they have been they're a part They're in bed with
Right to Rome. They also have this Wee wild Camp
campaign which is simultaneously campaigning for access for wild camping
whilst also educating people on how you should wild camp
and what you should do. But nothing on their nothing
in their literature, nothing in their education do they talk
(14:37):
about disturbance of habitat. They don't talk about destruction of habitat.
Everything's to do with either litter or polluting water sources,
with sort of human bodily waste from toileting and those
kind of things. But nothing is there about just being
there as a human in nature, which we know has
a huge effect on the security of those habitats. It's
(15:00):
for things that live there and that want to be
left the hell alone. So when if you're looking at
this and you're you've been you're listening to this podcast
as you're coming to it from the outdoor side of things,
just bear in mind that this is basically the British
Mountaineering Council talking to themselves. Because Andy McNay is heavily
(15:20):
involved with the British Mountaineering Council of Mountaineering. He's an
MP for Rossendale and Darwin, which is not exactly a
huge area of biodiversity, but it has a lot of
sensitive habitats in the uplands. You've also got Phil Brickle,
who is a is a paddler. He's a kayaker. His
thing has been access to water for kayaking. So within
(15:46):
this group, I can't see and obviously I don't know
who's been reporting to them and making representation and so on.
But there's nothing here from farming. There's nothing here from
the field sports side of things. There's nothing here from
any of those other stakeholders within this. And that's what
I think will be what's missed from this, because we'll
(16:06):
just get lots of tweets and ex posts and everything
else now from people saying, well, look at this, isn't
this ridiculous? Look at this? This haid a thing about styles?
You know not? You knows. There's lots of stuff to
pick out in there. Did Basque approach them? Did the
Game and One Life Conservancy Trust? Did the National Gamekeepers?
Did the NF you you did all these organizations? Did
(16:30):
they try to work with these groups?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well? I can't believe that they Well I can't see
any evidence of it. I mean, there's one that stuck out.
One that stuck out for me was that, you know,
one of my pet hates at the moments, this thing
called biodiversity net gain or kicking the can down the road.
As it's called. So basically, if you know, at the moment,
(16:55):
if you build a new development which is perhaps on
village edge, so in my neck of the woods is
huge numbers of old home farms are now falling by
the wayside. The ones that are right next to the village,
they are now getting developed because that for some reason
(17:16):
they've sort of worked this out that it's brown field
and they're all building housing developments called Larks Rise and
lap Wing Meadow and you know, naming all the red
listed species which no longer can go there because it's
being replaced by Yes, I know, and they just haven't
(17:37):
seemed to quite got it yet. But there's a there's
a thing which is called biodiversity net gain. So the idea,
I suppose in principle is quite sensible, is that you know,
if you are going to build, then it beholds to
the developer to pay for So if you use one
acre and be one point one acre of like similar
(17:59):
habitat has to be improved and they have to pay
for that to be done. So if you have truly
lost one acre of old meadowland, theoretically there should be
one point one acres of meadowland replaced and made good
for biodiversity net gain right, So therefore basically one to
(18:21):
have your cake and eat it and kick the can
down the road.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Now, one of the.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Things that's in this thing here is it says that
Biodiversity net game aims for a ten percent gain in
biodiversity but currently fall short and recognizing the value of
undeveloped and informal use by local people. So BNNG requirements
should explicitly contribute to improve public access to nature alongside
(18:48):
ecological benefits. So I think there you go. Is that
that this is the direction that this is of travel
here is that they're saying alongside ecological benefits. Word, that's
what they're saying, is that yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So
we're going to go and put in this habitat which
is essential, which has been lost for species X. We're
going to put it back in. But it's also got
(19:10):
to work alongside that people have access to it. So
it's always been my big bugbear personally in all the
stuff with Right to Rome and all that lot is
it's always about is it good? People need nature? And
when they never ask the question does nature need people?
Which we know the answer is invariably no, they only
(19:32):
want the people who actually do the good stuff for them.
And even once we've done the good stuff, they'd rather
be buggered off and got out of the way. So
I think this is a rather glossily presented piece of
work which doesn't seem to have a huge depth to
it of people inputting stuff from across the viewpoints and
(19:57):
of land use and land owners. It does seem to
have a lot of well, you know, this is a
working countryside. All I'm seeing on this document is an
incredibly racially an age diverse document, you know, images of
all the people going going along, they'll have to say,
(20:17):
though largely it's not very many elderly people on there.
They just seem to be lots of people of different
races using the land, and nothing really saying about what
impacts this might have on nature or the people who
grow the food that feed us so that we're fit
enough to go out paddling and hill walking and kayaking
(20:40):
and riding. Very badly, I have to say, the image
that they've got of these people riding, well, the lady
on there, she's riding far too long, her heels are up,
her hands are too low, she's got a Well it's
just shoddy, really, I mean it's just in every shape
or form it's that just sums it up. You've got
(21:01):
people riding on here who shouldn't be on a horse.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I love that. That is the thing that you've picked
out of that this is what you get. Well, there's
a few things in there, like one of them appears
to be a photo from Bavaria I think is actually
a stock photo. Another one looks like it's from North
America somewhere that it was like one of those American
campgrounds where there's a set aside fire circle and you
(21:27):
park your RV next to it. They've actually weirdly chosen
a lot of stock imagery rather than from other countries
which have a completely different level of human population and
population density and completely different land used history, which is interesting.
(21:49):
There's a there's got to be a root forward for
this because this is this has actually been the way
of things for a long time. For any kind of
funding or anything like that, for outside of Agtham, everything
has to do with people that basically there's almost no
funding for just doing a nature project. It has to
be how you have to show how the local community
(22:10):
or a set of stakeholders benefits from that thing, and
I kind of work in I work in that world,
so I'm having to come up with very clever projects
that actually do have a good outcome for nature while
also the fulfilling the requirements of those that funding or
the framework that we're working with or some sort of
local you know, access to nature plan or something like that.
(22:33):
So last week went around with the county, the County
Biodiversity team on a dormouse project, because we do very
well for dormouse here, the Hazel dormouse, it's what they're
doing quite well in this sort of corner of northeast Wales.
So we were looking at one of the projects. It's
there that monitor is it and that it takes one
(22:55):
of the biggest monitoring projects takes place in a public
access woodland. So a lot of the discussion was how
can we try and funnel people onto the footpath and
keep them on the footpath and keep their dogs on
the footpath so that this big area over here becomes
free from people, so that the dormhouse have places to
be and you know, we can sort out the gray
squirdl problem separately and habitat and everything else. But how
(23:19):
do we keep the public access whilst keeping people funneled
into those right areas. And another part of that is
trying to do it with volunteers, So not just saying
doing volunteer things for the sake of the volunteers, but
actually working with volunteers like you or I would go
out and look at a coppice or a hedgerow or
(23:40):
something like that and actually say, right, these are the
factors at play here, and these you know there is
a cost to humans being here, So how can we
make it as good as we can for nature whilst
also allowing people here. There is a root forward for that.
I don't think mass participation works in those kinds of areas.
You can't have thousands of people doing that at the
same time, have like ten at a time. And crucially,
(24:04):
the outdoor organizations, which I see a lot of and
I'm quite aware of them from basically a previous career,
they have no interest in doing anything with farmers, landowners
or anything like that. They just want to focus entirely
on the people that pay their membership fees and effectively
their customers. Meanwhile, farming, shooting, field sports, they have no
(24:25):
interest in dealing with the outdoor people because they don't
pay their wages either. They don't pay their membership fees
to it. I'm kind of a unicorn in that I
sit in both worlds and I think both are a
bit crap. That would be my advice. If you're listening
to this podcast and you're from the farming field sports side,
you have to engage with the outdoor recreation side, because
(24:48):
otherwise they're going to come in and they're going to
eat your lunch and they're going to take over. And
this because there are more people interested potentially in outdoor
recreation than paying two grand to stand there and fish
for salmon ah or stand on a peg. There's just
the massive people. There's more people interested in the outdoor
recreation that are interested in shooting and fishing, which you're
(25:12):
going to be outnumbered if you indeed get a handle
on this. You know, that's a rare bit of my
actual politics coming out.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
One of the things intrigues me here, and I think
this is an interesting one. Helen Holton's article is quite
well written, and she leans to the left as she
always will do, but she hasn't possibly asked the questions.
But a lot of this it does seem to be
that her article focuses on the right to swim and
(25:43):
wild camp stuff, and this access to blue spaces. I've
never heard that one before. I hear a lot of
access to green spaces, but access to blue spaces. Now.
One of the leading lights in the right to Roam
movie is Robert McFarlane, who has just written a book
(26:06):
called Is a River Alive? Claiming that rivers have rights. Now,
one would imagine that if I've read the book, and
I've indeed I wrote my review of it in the
Critic and you know, I didn't really buy it, but
it was beautifully written as all this stuff, I doesn't
really buy it. But if one is to follow his mantra,
(26:28):
and one presumes, because he is one of the out
leading advocates and probably the most famous advocate of the
right row movement, if rivers have right, one then presumes that.
And I think now that obviously sentient beings have rights,
don't today. Wasn't that something that suddenly came in under
(26:50):
Boris Johnson? So one would presume that, I wait now
for the court cases where you're getting water voles going
and being represented by a by one of the ambulance
chasing law companies going after them, and indeed it is
(27:10):
something as we talked about on the show You and
I the other day, Richard, is that while Justice have
already turned their laser like focus onto the co steering world,
well then if they're looking at that, then surely the
disturbance that would come if much of this all party
parliamentary groups wishes were granted, which, sorry to disappoint everyone,
(27:36):
they won't be because labor has slightly bigger fish to fry.
Number ten is going to read this and go yeah,
thanks and throw it away. But you know, there is
Let's be honest, this is only something because the country slides,
we have to talk about rural issues. It doesn't matter.
It really doesn't matter. I mean, to be perfectly fact,
(27:58):
we'll interesting, well yeah exactly do you remember you're not
not who's there Kia ka who? Well that's politics, yeah,
but it's It's one of those things is that if
well Justice looking at this, and we are inevitably going
to see increased disturbance of wildlife from what these people
(28:20):
are saying, and they haven't consulted, you know, a more
holistic group, then probably we are going to look at
just the only people who are going to benefit from
this aren't going to be people who actually want more
access and go kayaking and climbing and walking and horse
riding badly or wherever any of those things. It's going
(28:42):
to be not the wildlife either. It's going to be
the lawyers who are going to go, great, I've got
a thing here because I've got Dormouse the Ramblers Association,
and off they go and they'll be charging us field.
So I think that's, you know, basically where we've come to,
and that's that's the new stories we've got. You know, well,
(29:03):
we have just literally bumped into, you know, the fact
that it looks like the Prime Minister. I mean, when
you've got the Times saying it's not a question of if,
it's a question of when he goes, you do think,
oh my lord, we're you know, we are on quite
a quite an interesting time going forward. It's that there's
(29:26):
people trying to go and the Mayor of Manchester is
looking at how quickly he can resign and then get
a seat so that he can then become an MP,
so that he can then go and stand up again.
We're in very feebrile times. And so I suppose probably
we shouldn't really worry too much about the stuff such
as all parliamentary parley party groups saying, you know, all
(29:51):
this stuff, because it's just going to become you know,
shredded paper very soon, Richard. So I'm not you know,
he may gave Helen Horns something to write about, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
It did, But all this stuff will come back at
some point. So if you're I would say, urge the
rural side of things to stay engaged on the topic
and don't be complacent about it. Just keep one eye
on it at least. But yeah, I mean, if we were,
as you say, if we were a real news program,
we would have covered all sorts of things like over
(30:24):
one hundred thousand people turning up in London this weekend,
or sort of seemingly well an assassination last week in
the US which is probably going to change the political
landscape for the next fifty years. Or there's all sorts
of things over happening in the Middle East and god
knows what's going to happen with that by next week.
(30:46):
So yeah, I mean, if we were a real news program,
we'd have covered some of those. But we're not so
there you go.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, but what do we do instead? What do we
do instead? We said building styles, stupid idea, don't go
something because you disturbed water voles and a bit worried
about food because someone's putting solar panels and they might
be destroying the AB eight and AB nine in the process. Yeah,
there's the news for you. I better go off and
(31:13):
shoot some ducks, didn't I I suppose.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
All legally and ethically for food. If you're listening, help absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yes, it's called wild wild food. By the way. That
is called because it is now the wild fowling season
and we've got some rough weather down on the coast,
and so therefore I will be able to go and
stand in a muddy marsh and not shoot anything and
get windy, rather than just get there and get bitten
by midges. So that's where I'm going. Yeah, I'm going
(31:41):
to ring a gamekeeper. That's what I'm going to do, right.
Thank you everyone for listening. Let us know what you
thought of.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
The new show.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Thank you for listening to the news.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Bye bye.
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