My day out at Lyscombe Farm, Cheselbourne.

Posted on June 21, 2024 by The Farmer

Notes from a day out with Dorset Wildlife Trust at Lyscombe. Friday 10 May 2024

Brian Bleese, Chief Exec of DWT introduced proceedings, he first introduced George McGavin, President, who very enthusiastically described the importance of the deal that resulted in the purchase of Lyscombe Farm, and the plan for the day.

Others followed, including Tony Juniper (Chair) and Marian Spain (Chief exec) of Natural England. There was repetition of the self-congratulatory theme, and we were told that so many organisations and individuals have gone above and beyond to achieve this ground breaking deal, which, several speakers noted, will not only unlock the building of 3700 new houses in the catchment, but will also make a huge difference to Poole harbour itself, which currently languishes under a pollution-fuelled mat of green algae, which was so visible from the train on the way down to Dorchester from London that morning.

The meeting had coincided with a release from Government of a piece announcing this amazing scheme which will allow for thousands of new houses to be built in the south west.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-south-west-homes-to-be-enabled-by-latest-nutrient-mitigation-scheme

Extract from Government announcement:

Thousands of new homes for development are to be enabled in Dorset thanks to the government backed Nutrient Mitigation Scheme, Natural England has announced today (Friday 10 May).

The scheme will enable around 3,700 new homes to be built in the catchment over the next few years whilst protecting water quality.

By securing nutrient mitigation at Lyscombe, the scheme will enable new homes to be built in the catchment whilst protecting numerous rare birds such as avocets, spoonbills and black-tailed godwits from additional pollution that affects their precious habitat within Poole Harbour.

To quote Marian Spain in the government’s press release above: “The purchase of Lyscombe is a significant step forward for nutrient mitigation and a boost for sustainable development. Providing nutrient credits through work at sites like these will ensure that we can keep building homes for the future, without harming our waterways.”

I tried to ask questions at one point, specifically, could they share with us the calculations which showed how this 330 hectare farm could mitigate the potential pollution from 3700 homes? But questions were not being taken. Secondly, how could 330 ha of farmland (farmed organically since 2000) improve the nutrient status of Poole harbour on its own, being only 0.4% of the 80,000 hectare catchment? Thirdly, how does the purchase of the farm demonstrate good value for public money, costing as it would have at least £10 million?

We were then divided into groups and set off on walks to different parts of the farm, I was fortunate to be in a group with Giles Foster Mitchell, retiring farm manager for Mark Russell, the vendor of the farm. A small group of us managed to get some tricky subjects aired, mostly with a very helpful chap from Natural England. (John Stobart). Giles told us the farm has been organic since 2000, has not had a dairy in recent years and has been largely run as an extensive beef and sheep enterprise, with some of the arable area on the flatter top parts of the farm being rented out to a local organic farmer, who brought in manures.

We had walked down across the farm to meet the Little Piddle, a stream which emerges from a spring a little further up the valley we were in. Rob our DWT guide had explained the early plans the trust has for improving the stream and its environment, re-routing it from its artificially deepened current route, so that a boggy wetland will result, which will be able to slow down the flow of water, and allow any nutrients in it to be absorbed by plants before it continues to wend its way ultimately to Poole Harbour. The wetland itself will become a valuable wildlife habitat. The stream usually flows all year.

It should be noted here that Lyscombe farm, although farmed extensively and organic for many years, is surrounded by other farms which operate more intensively, with large dairy pig and arable operations nearby, so it is quite feasible that the spring water will be carrying excess nitrates leached from elsewhere, so a wetland to help clean the stream will indeed be beneficial.

John from NE, and his colleague Nikki went a considerable way to explain different aspects of the deal that led to the purchase of Lyscombe farm, which involved at least 3 different sources of funds, each of which were targeted at different parts of the farm. The Nutrient Neutrality money, through Natural England’s Nutrient Mitigation scheme, has been used to buy the portion of the farm that has been arable most recently, and although having been organic for the last 24 years, can still be attributed with nutrient neutrality credits. We were told the deal has unlocked the building of 3700 houses, enough to at least raise the eyebrows, but the people running the project, when questioned, are not really pretending that the farm is actually supposed to mitigate for all of the pollution caused by those houses in the future, in spite of what was implied at the start of the meeting. (Government’s own figures for housing density are 35 per hectare, so the notional 3700 new houses will commit approx 105ha to concrete, tarmac and gardens. I can’t help wondering if this would include schools, shops, hospitals, roads, etc, or whether that would require even more space.)

John explained how the fact that the land is being committed in perpetuity, and will never return to agricultural production, adds significantly to its value in terms of nutrient mitigation. He also explained that to make the calculations which result in mitigation values being attributable to schemes like this, a computer model called Farmscoper was employed.

(Farmscoper is a decision support tool to assess diffuse agricultural pollutant loads on a farm. It can also quantify the impacts of farm mitigation methods on these pollutants.

The farm systems within the tool can be customised to reflect management and environmental conditions representative of farming across England and Wales. The tool contains over 100 mitigation methods, including many of those in the Defra Mitigation Method User Guide. From ADAS)

Interesting to note here that Farmscoper was a few years ago assessed as one of a number of possible systems available that could be used by the Environment Agency and farmers in the Poole Harbour catchment to monitor/calculate farm activity and nitrate leaching risk, but the EA decided it was not suitable for farmers to use in this instance. Since then the now discredited Nutrient Leaching Tool (NLT) has been developed, imposed upon farmers, and repeatedly found seriously inadequate for the task of matching farm activity to leaching risk. The EA have now had to back off with it, pending a comprehensive rewrite, or replacement. Consequently several years of potentially valuable data collection from across the catchment have been wasted.

Returning to the conversation with John Stobart, we learnt that a different pot of money, from Natural England’s National Nature Reserves funding, has purchased the SSSI and other low input environmentally sensitive areas of the farm, but which DWT will manage.

The speakers had claimed over and over how projects like this can help to rescue Poole harbour, but during the conversations afterwards it was quite easy to feel that this had been somewhat misleading. What was missing was the detail. In our small group by the stream, John spent a great deal of time, faced with persistent questioning, explaining how the project at Lyscombe will have huge knock-on effects, far greater and more valuable, both environmentally and financially, than will actually occur on the farm itself. Quite difficult to grasp, we now understand that projects like this are very effective, for example, in putting huge pressure on water companies to clean up their act and reduce river pollution from sewage treatment works outflows. Considering the huge exposure in recent months on the size of the problems facing our rivers, I felt he was being somewhat optimistic.

After an illuminating conversation, some of which was admittedly a struggle to understand in every aspect, we suggested that it is essential that they (DWT/NE) make significant efforts to explain the deal in simple terms for public consumption, in order to head off the noisy criticism that is likely to emerge. The questions at the top of this piece are on the lips of very many farmers in the PH catchment, in which Lyscombe sits, and although we heard a pretty full explanation of the big picture benefits that should flow from the purchase of the land, the immediate difficulties faced by farmers in the catchment are not addressed at all. The value for money question is particularly pertinent here. For the last 5 years, farmers in the PH catchment have been threatened with the imposition of a Water Protection Zone, which if imposed would reduce the catchment to trees and a little bit of ‘dog and stick’ farming. Hence the catchment’s 500 farmers are extremely worried, their livelihood would be destroyed. During the last 5 years, the Poole Harbour Nutrient Management scheme (PHNMS) has been formed by the EA, and the Poole Harbour Agricultural Group (PHAG) has brought together many of the catchment’s farmers as a coherent and co-operative body. At the heart of the work of PHNMS has been the NLT, which from the start has been troublesome, unreliable, and has undermined much of the goodwill binding the PH project together.

When explaining this to the NE people, relating the Lyscombe project to the problems faced by farmers (and EA) in the PH catchment, they claimed the situations are very different and shouldn’t be considered together. This land use change at Lyscombe is for ever, in perpetuity, whereas PH has to be solved in shorter timescales. I said over and over that if money can be found for a project like this, then money must be found for a proper NLT and to properly progress the works needed in the catchment. They agreed, however as happens all too often, it is clear that they work in silos, and being different issues, these people have no control over the decisions and funding needed for Poole Harbour. Patently ridiculous, seeing how many time PH was mentioned at the beginning of the meeting.

Questions needing answers

I would like to see the calculations which show how this 330 hectare farm could mitigate the potential pollution from 3700 homes?
How can a change in management of 330 ha of farmland (farmed organically since 2000) improve the nutrient status of Poole harbour on its own, being only 0.4% of the 80,000 ha catchment?
How does the purchase of the farm demonstrate good value for public money, costing as it would have at least £10 million?
Should we be worried about Nutrient neutrality units being traded out of catchment?
Will they share the break down of the financing for the project, it would be helpful to understand exactly how much and where the money has come from. I think this could be helpful as well to understand if there are any funding mechanisms we could tap into in the PH catchment that haven’t yet been explored as well as where public money has been used.
If this turns into a trend, led by NE and ambitious NGOs, is there a danger a huge amount of money will be spent achieving practically nothing in terms of actually reducing pollution?

Alternatives you could spend the money on:

Help water companies clean up
Help farmers learn new techniques to use fert and manure more efficiently, eg the NLT
Pay farmers to lay off any N or Muck application up to 200m from any waterway
Pay farmers to not use fert at rates higher than, for example 100kg/ha

Stop press 2nd July, Dorset Council have just announced they are purchasing a former dairy farm at Higher Kingcombe, using a grant from central government.

https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cljyrr3yj0xo?s=08

From BBC news website: A local authority is buying a dairy farm as part of nature-recovery efforts.

Dorset Council has agreed to buy Middle Farm at Higher Kingcombe, which sits alongside a Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) nature reserve.

The council said changing its use to woodland or rewilding the area would reduce harmful nutrients flowing from the farm into watercourses.

The exact purchase price of the farm has not been disclosed, although the council has received a £4.63m grant from central government.

The authority has not confirmed whether the cost is higher or lower than the grant total.

In a statement, it said the current intensive use as a dairy farm was “not ideal” as it suffered from run-off and soil erosion.

“The land is ideally located to deliver both nutrient reduction and nature recovery in the headwaters of the River Hooke.

“Changing its use to woodland or rewilding can reduce nitrates as required and could be achieved with little investment,” it said.

The sale was approved by the former Conservative administration and is continuing after the Liberal Democrats took control of the council following the local elections.

Dorset Council said it was supported by Natural England and that there had been discussions with DWT, which runs the adjacent Kingcombe National Nature Reserve.

May – June 2024

Posted on June 16, 2024 by The Farmer

The View from the Hill

A few weeks ago our experimental area of bi-cropped wheat with crimson clover looked like this. The clover, sown at the same time as the wheat last autumn, has become rather dominant, and when it then rained heavily a week or so later, pretty much the whole lot laid over. Since then the clover has finished flowering and started to die back, and some of the wheat has managed to stand up again. However the early clover dominance will have depressed the potential yield of the wheat, which is the part we get paid for, and it is far too late now for the wheat to throw up more tillers to fill in the gaps. The difficulty with minority interest cropping like this is that there is not much guidance aavailable for seed rates etc, so there is quite a lot of guess work. The wheat/clover bi-crop last year went the other way, we used a less vigorous white clover, so lacking in vigour that there was barely any there at all by spring. Some other farmers across the country, trying similar things, are having better luck than us, this is what a good clover under-storey looks like, although if I’m honest, there’s not enough cereal (oats I think) in this field.

The reason for the bi-cropping is to see if we can move away from mono-cropping, which can have poor outcomes for soil and environmental health. We are growing the wheat for Wildfarmed, a new company dedicated to growing and baking healthy food which does not degrade the environment, and making it widely available on the high street. Bread widely available in Waitrose and M&S. No chems and limited nitrogen, plus a crop partner. Diverse families of roots in the soil foster a broader range of mycorrhizal and other organic activity in the soil, one way of doing this is to keep an under-storey going through several seasons, it keeps the soil shielded from hot sun and heavy rain, the clover fixes its own nitrogen, some of which can become available to the following crop as the clover dies and regrows. A good under-storey can also shade out weeds. Diversity is one of the five guiding principles of soil focussed, regenerative farming, which, thanks to the great god Gabe Brown from North Dakota, can be summarised as follows:

Minimise soil disturbance. Minimising physical and chemical disturbance to the soil prevents damage to the micro-flora and fauna that form the soil ecosystem. …
Keep the soil covered. …
Maintain living roots in the soil. …
Maximise plant diversity. …
Reintroduce livestock.

And here is the great god himself, discussing the finer points of soil management with a hairy farmer from Dorset. Doug tells me that Gabe has recently added a 6^th important element, that of context – by which he means that how you apply these principles to your land should also consider the context, your soil type, location, altitude, aspect etc. Gabe’s book ‘Dirt to Soil’ is considered by many to be the regenerative bible, it’s a great story, and full of useful guidance. Not all that emanates from the US is bad!

Out here in our herbal ley fields, our cows are happily munching away in their mobs, they have got very used to being moved on to fresh grazing every day, and don’t hesitate to let the world know if we are late to move them on. This year’s rainy spring has led to a very vigorous grass growth everywhere, an early hay cut has been taken in places, and even parts of the river meadows have been mob grazed this year to force the animals to graze it properly. The system is working well with the lightweight Kiwi-designed electric fence easy to move, and a network of water pipe across the fields with quick release push-fit fittings so that it is straightforward to empty and move the troughs daily.

As you can see, Theo the bull is enjoying his favourite 6 weeks of the year, with a mob of cows and their calves, including the pretty one in the foreground, one of his daughters from last year, out of cows with a certain amount of Belgian Blue in their genes, which has given us two calves this year with freckles and a white line along the spine, a little reminiscent of the rare breed Gloucester cattle.

Advantages from mob grazing include the following: Fewer flies bothering the animals, fresh grazing every day moves the cattle off yesterdays dung pats where the flies often congregate. Fresh grazing also reduces the pressure from intestinal worms, a 50 day cycle between the grazing of any single part of the field helps to break the lifecycle of worms, so less wormer is needed, which when present in the dungpats, can kill the flies and beetles on which species like the rare Greater Horseshoe bat thrive. (See last month for more on this). Some of the herbs which the animals are grazing can themselves have an anthelmintic effect (discourage or kill intestinal worms). Mob grazing which leaves around a third of the pasture behind allows the plants to regrow more quickly than traditional grazing which takes nearly all the herbage, because there is still enough leaf to enable plenty of photosynthesis. As plants are grazed down, their roots die back, and therefore they take even longer to recover and regrow, both under and above soil level.

Several weeks ago this fellow was spotted emerging from the end of the unloading auger on our combine, so our good friend Alan was called up, and he put in many patient hours of watching and waiting before catching a string of wonderful pictures as Wol emerged, and then took off for his early evening patrol of the surrounding area. We decided that he was probably a lone male, roosting in the combine during the day, amongst other haunts we believe he uses. Seeing as we will need the combine in a few weeks’ time, Alan advised us to erect an owl box in the vicinity, in the hope that he moves over before harvest, and that maybe he might find a mate for next season. The giveaway for other roosting spots are the owl pellets on the floor, and great slashes of white poo below the roost. Have you ever pulled apart an owl pellet? Fascinating to find the tiny bones of many little rodents, tidily wrapped up in the indigestible skin of the unfortunate prey. I have to admit to being very impressed by Chris Packham’s ability to identify different species of small mammals from the jawbones and teeth patterns thereon, which he had teased out of owl pellets on one springwatch episode.

Following swiftly on the heels of the bluebell season, the wild garlic show was as good as it gets this year, here is Fishmore hill near Milton Abbas, the ultimate Dingly Dell, always a joy to drive through at the right time of year, and below is the lane down to Bramblecombe farm from Milton Abbas, where the bridleway crosses the road, thick with garlic on both sides, the walking boots always take on a marvellous aroma.

The problem with failing to keep up with a monthly edition of this publication, is that with so much going on at this time of year, things are being missed, I really must try harder. Here is Tangle with the first lambs of the season, born on May 5^th, they are now considerably bigger. We had a good lambing, one triplet, 3 singles and 8 twins, overall average 175%. 12 ewes is admittedly not much to get excited about, but you need to remember these are special sheep, kept entirely for their entertainment value for school visits, and not at all for commercial reasons. Many a child has lit up when let loose with the sheep and a handful of toast, the screams of laughter and excitement are a great reward, I am quite often told that children otherwise uninspired by school life, come alive on such outings. Sheep therapy should become a thing, they are rich in character and greediness.

A fascinating seminar with local grain merchant Bartholomews, held at the Hall and Woodhouse brewery, not only fed a group of farmers with a very fine cooked breakfast, but with vital intelligence on the current grain markets. An essential event in the farming year, this meeting, presented by grain trader Edd Britton, gave us much useful information which will help us to navigate the minefield that is the world wheat market for the next few months. The weather in the US and Russia, (both major world wheat producers) have been very influential factors recently, with quite violent up and down swings in grain price over a short period of time, making rational sales decisions very tricky. The graph here shows how the balance between import and export of wheat in and out of the UK has altered over the last 10 years. In most years we are now a net importer, for several reasons, firstly the good old reliable British weather, followed by the bioethanol and starch plants further north, which take a great deal of grain, sucking it in from a wide area, and helping keep the market buoyant. However if prices rise too far they will close for a while until things calm down. Then there are generally lower levels of production as farmers commit more land to environmental schemes, taking (usually poorer) land out of production in exchange for payments of public money for public goods like wild flower headlands and wild bird food. Housebuilding has some effect, taking land out of production for ever, and then there is the contentious issue of organisations like the Dorset Wildlife Trust, in conjunction with Natural England, purchasing land with Nutrient Neutrality money, paid by housing developers in exchange for planning permission. Please see this page https://viewfromthehill.org.uk/my-day-out-at-lyscombe-farm-cheselbourne for a full account of my day out with the DWT as they celebrated the revolutionary purchase of Lyscombe farm, which by reverting it to 100% nature, and no food production, will somehow unlock the building of 3700 new homes in the Poole harbour catchment, in which the farm sits. As you will see, I am not convinced by the wisdom of this in terms of value for money, or whether any actual improvement will occur in Poole Harbour as a result of this purchase. Is this where I should be banging on about the importance of looking after our home grown food supply? There has to be room for food production to thrive, we have a growing population, and some of the best soils and weather climates for food production anywhere in the world, but without care for soils and nature, healthy food production will become increasingly difficult. Weeds and insects become resistant to chemicals, which all too often wreak collateral and unintended damage elsewhere, so we have to learn to be cleverer.

Fred’s big sky big hay yield picture from the meadows. We haven’t seen grass like this for a very long time on this field, something to do with being flooded 4 or 5 times over the winter perhaps, borrowing fertility from upstream?

Another big sky from when the rape was in flower, the green, yellow, blue, and clouds look just wonderful.

A common spotted orchid found in a brand new site, on a wildflower margin miles from any other orchids. Now approximately 14 years away from being intensively farmed, we are seeing some interesting plants showing up on our oldest margins, I am reliably informed that the tiny orchid seeds, almost dust-like, will have sat in the soil for decades, waiting for the right conditions to return to enable germination. They need the right mycorrhizal conditions to develop, to connect the seeds with the right nutrients in the soil. They have endured so many years asleep in the soil, through generations of evolving human activity, only to return to life when government schemes pay farmers to rein back a bit on the intensive farming, we have to make room for nature in and around our food production, and this shows it can work.

Baboons invade Durweston, during Dorset Art weeks. Not only a very skilled photographer of owls, hares, newts, and countless other wildlife, our clever friend Alan has been exhibiting his latest talent. I love the way the chicken wire has been brought to life, the animal has a cheeky look to him.

We also played host here at the farm, to local artists, during the county wide art festival, such a variety of work was to be found down so many winding lanes, in private houses or other venues in the towns and villages across Dorset. Here is a lovely painting by Claire Thomas, exhibited at the Big Yellow Bus project in Shillingstone, it is a view of the lane between Travellers Rest and Shepherds Corner, I love her interpretation.