The latest State of Nature report by the conservation bodies in the UK hit the headlines with its grim reading for biodiversity, but farming can play a major role in turning around the situation, the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) insists.

The farmer-led organisation says the report, paints a disturbing picture of major losses of biodiversity and species decline. It is also clear that over recent decades agricultural practice has been a key driver behind this.

The report highlighted:

  • • On average, the abundance of 753 species living on land or in freshwater has declined by 19% across the UK since 1970.
  • • UK distributions of 4,979 invertebrate species have, on average, decreased by 13% since 1970.
  • • The distributions of 54% of Great Britain’s flowering plants and 59% of its mosses and liverworts have declined since 1970.
  • • Almost 1,500 species are threatened with extinction in Great Britain.

Despite this, the NFFN says farming can play a critical role in turning around the declines in nature by adopting more sustainable approaches, especially in Wales given that agriculture accounts for almost nine-tenths of land use. And it is encouraged by the latest report mentioning the NFFN and its work by name.

The organisation is now calling on politicians across Wales to put in place well-designed, targeted and properly-funded schemes to deliver the ambitious goals for nature the report says is necessary while also ensuring food production is protected and agricultural businesses are able to thrive.

Hywel Morgan, NFFN Cymru chair, said: “The proposed sustainable farming scheme must support farmers to tackle the nature and climate crises hand in hand with sustainable food production - something the NFFN believes can and must happen.

“After all, long-term food production is dependent on a stable climate and healthy functioning ecosystems, so we must get to grips with these issues.

“Nature friendly farming is also the best way to lower costs to help make farms more profitable. I have first-hand experience of this having made the move from quite an intensive farming system to a regenerative one.”

The report highlights increasing nature-friendly farming, along with sustainable forestry and fishing, as one of five areas which are key to how the UK is responding to the biodiversity challenges it faces.

It says “nature-friendly farming needs to be implemented at a much wider scale to halt and reverse the decline in farmland nature”, while saying that local schemes have delivered benefits for many species.

The report also highlighted the work of the NFFN and how it has brought together more than 3,000 farmers across the UK who want to farm in a more sustainable way which works for both nature and for agricultural businesses. It acknowledges that the organisation’s “ongoing work” has had “multiple benefits for species and farmers”.

The report also sets out the current and ongoing situation for nature in Wales, and highlights that farming has a massive role to play as an enormous 88% of the country’s land area is given over to agricultural use.

On average there has been a 20% decline in species abundance across Wales since 1994, though the report could only analyse a smaller number of species than for the UK as a whole. Plant life across Wales is changing, with both decreases and increases in distribution. Generally flowering plants have declined across upland regions. More positively, though, pollinating insects have increased on average by 14% since 1970.

The report says that across both lowland and upland areas in Wales nature has faced pressure from recent agricultural practices such as more intensive grassland and moorland management, loss of landscape-scale habitat diversity, high-input and intensive livestock grazing and impacts on specialist species such as those associated with declining agricultural habitats such as low-intensity arable land. Undergrazing, particularly in the uplands where there has been a decline in grazing by heavier livestock such as cattle, is also an issue which has led to habitat degradation.

The picture for plants across Wales varied considerably, with little change in lowland areas but steep declines in plants associated with calcareous grassland, a picture also seen across the UK. This could be due to both under-grazing and over-grazing by cattle and pollution.

The report says the new Sustainable Farming Scheme, set to begin in 2025, is seeking to address some of this and conservation organisations are calling for it to maximise nature restoration, carbon storage and reducing chemical use and nutrient run-off into rivers.

The NFFN, though, has gone further, saying that the consultation coming up on the Sustainable Farming Scheme is a critical opportunity to ensure it is ambitious enough to tackle the scale of the challenges laid bare in the report.

The organisation says there is a real risk that without a sustained push for far-reaching and well-funded policies with nature and biodiversity at their heart the scheme could be watered down when it comes to environmental goals. It says policymakers need to be very clear how funding is going to work and be used to deliver the required outcomes, while also warning that protecting biodiversity is a vital part of ensuring food security for the country.

Martin Lines, CEO of the NFFN, said: “With significant, rapid declines being demonstrated throughout our natural world, the State of Nature Report makes grim reading. The loss of biodiversity will impact our ability to feed ourselves well in the future and to adapt to a rapidly warming world.

“Despite the worrying picture the report paints, it provides hope that things can be turned around. Through the widespread adoption of nature friendly farming we can restore nature in our fields and in our landscapes, for the benefit of long-term business resilience and economic prosperity. We now need a clear vision for the future alongside the political will to make this a reality.”