How can a working farm balance producing food with protecting wildlife?

A visit to Ranscombe today is like stepping back in time.  Little has changed: the pattern of woods, fields and tracks being much the same as in the Medieval period. Many of the farming methods are the same too, so that wildflowers and grasses, once a common sight growing naturally among the crops, are encouraged, not weeded out.

Changes to make farming practices more efficient, particularly during and after the Second World War, caused a huge decline in wild plants and a knock on effect on wildlife. More land was ploughed up to maximise food production, arable fields became bigger as farming was increasingly mechanised, hedgerows and woodland were lost to the tractor, destroying wildlife habitats in the process. Fields were regularly sprayed to kill weeds - including wildflowers and rare grasses.

At Ranscombe, however, the farm is deliberately managed to encourage wildlife. Wide strips left around the perimeter of the fields are full of native wildflowers. Whole fields have deliberately been uncultivated and left to revert to naturally back to chalk grassland – one of our most threatened natural habitats.  

The woodland is actively managed too. Sweet chestnut trees are planted, and every 10 years, or so, are cut down (coppiced) to create long, straight poles used for fencing and broom handles. As a result of this thinning out, bluebells and other spring flowers flourish on the woodland floor. Species once thought to be extinct, like Corncrockle, flourish here and the rare Broadleaved cudweed.

A visit to Ranscombe Reserve is a rare, and much needed, glimpse of man and nature working in harmony and a model for more sustainable farming methods.

Caroline Millar - Discovering Britain.