Landscape Matters Issue 4 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 19
focus and for both the idea of multi-functional outcomes
is a completely new challenge. Consequently, a very high
proportion of farmers are struggling to know how to balance
their business objectives with the ‘public goods’ agenda.
At the same time the industry is struggling to understand
how to make their business resilient to unpredictable
weather patterns. Many are predicting a new set of emerging
markets, such as the carbon market, so positioning
estates to make the best use of new opportunities is yet
another pressure. The preparation of Farm Management
Plans requires as much imagination and innovation as the
traditional urban based designs but our training on microclimate, soils, water, air and ecosystems places us in a
unique position to help the industry face the new world.
One of the contenders for setting rural agendas is using
the National Character Areas (NCA) as the framework
to articulate agendas at a scale the farming industry can
relate to. After all the NCAs are a map not a plan, and they
have been created by the farming community. We know that
intervention within any one NCA is likely to have the same
consequence across the whole of the NCA. The profession
has defined the NCAs and can work on strategic policies at
that scale.
Management Plans that increase woodland cover to meet
the new Government policies, that restore the health of
soils, that transform the state of biodiversity, that secure
the future of Natural Capital, that conserve the historic
environment, that modernise access for health and wellbeing
of local people are just a few of the challenges that the
Landscape Profession can help the farming industry deliver.
Climate Challenge Cup Finalist
So why did the Cholderton Estate do so well? We have been
working with the Department of Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (DEFRA) on a model Land Management Plan of best
practice for mixed farming on chalk soils. This is part of the
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