Vital shift to nature-friendly farming stifled by uncertainty and indecision

THE Trust's purpose is to create a wilder Nottinghamshire for everyone and while we are perhaps best-known for caring for nature reserves, influencing how others manage their land has always been central to our work.

- By ERIN MCDAID

I recently came across a passage in our 1966 annual report that highlighted that while we would occasionally establish a long-term interest in sites, our preferred tactic was to seek cooperation of site owners to protect important habitats. Sixty years on, this is still our approach.

Most of Nottinghamshire is farmland, making efforts to support farmers to protect, enhance and restore wildlife habitats vital.

In our experience, many farmers are all too willing to embrace nature, but to be able to consider enhancing wildlife habitats or embracing nature-friendly farming they must be confident their business is in good shape and have certainly that appropriate financial support is in place.

Despite many farmers believing it's the right thing to do, encouraging them to embrace nature is a hard sell when many farm businesses are under commercial pressure and confusion about the various 'Agri-environment' schemes is rife.

The main three schemes, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship and Landscape Recovery schemes are all in a state of flux.

The SFI is a key tool to enable farmers to manage their land sustainably and to reward efforts to restore nature, clean up rivers and mitigate impacts of climate change.

The scheme was paused back in March 2025, leading to anger and frustration across the farming sector.