Consultation outcome

Annex B: Current Countryside Stewardship Options - Mid Tier, Higher Tier and Capital Items

Updated 13 September 2018

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

We are interested in exploring the best way to achieve strong environmental outcomes, offer high value for money and encourage broad participation in a new system by making maximum use of the freedom from existing EU requirements resulting from the UK’s departure from the EU.

Nonetheless, Chapter 6 sets out that in designing our new environmental land management system, we will learn from the past and seek to incorporate the best elements of previous and existing schemes in designing the new, improved post-EU exit offer.

The following list includes examples of the type of land management practices, currently within Countryside Stewardship, that we are considering as part of this process to see how the best aspects might be incorporated into a new scheme. Alongside this we will consider capital items that provide support for this management, and the specific targeted management that is required on some sites.

In addition we will be exploring how new and more innovative approaches can improve environmental outcomes. This will include looking at management practices to deliver a broader suite of environmental outcomes as well as alternatives to an option based approach to delivery.

Management practice	Potential benefits
Nectar flower mix	Provides areas of flowering plants to boost essential food sources for beneficial pollinators.
Flower-rich margins and plots	Provide important habitat and foraging sites for invertebrates (including wild pollinators) and birds.
Winter bird food	Provides important food resources for farmland birds, especially in autumn and winter.
Skylark plots	Provides skylarks with suitable access to nesting habitats in winter cereal crops throughout their breeding season.
Nesting plots for lapwing and stone curlew	Provides nesting sites for lapwing on arable land. The plots can also benefit other declining farmland birds, brown hare and some important arable plants.
Enhanced overwinter stubble	Provides important winter food sources for seed-eating birds, spring and summer foraging and nesting habitat for other farmland birds and undisturbed habitat for other farmland wildlife, including many pollinators.
Cultivated areas for arable plants	Creates uncropped, cultivated areas for a wide range of scarce and declining arable plants, and provides areas of less densely vegetated ground for insects and other invertebrates, and summer foraging habitats for declining farmland birds.
Supplementary winter feeding for farmland birds	Provides important food resources for farmland birds in late winter and early spring on arable and mixed farms. It supplements crops of winter bird food when they have been depleted and before natural food sources become available in late spring.
4m to 6m buffer strip on cultivated land	Protects ponds from nutrient leaching and runoff. This will maintain and enhance water quality and wildlife
Management of hedgerows	Increases the availability of blossom for invertebrates. By allowing fruit and berries to ripen it provides food for overwintering birds. It will also improve the structure and longevity of hedgerows.
Permanent grassland with very low inputs (outside SDA)	Provides more flowering grass and wildflower species, a varied structure offering nectar and shelter for invertebrates and increased food supply for birds.
Legume and herb-rich swards	Provides a sward with abundant legumes and herbs, suitable for productive cattle and sheep. It will also provide habitat and food for invertebrates, including crop pollinators, and improve soil structure and water infiltration.
Take field corners and small areas out of production within permanent pasture	It creates year-round habitat and food for a range of wildlife.
Ryegrass allowed to set seed	There will be an abundance of ryegrass seed in the autumn, providing food for many birds (including yellowhammers and other buntings, gamebirds such as grey partridge, and skylarks) until late winter.
Lenient grazing	Provides critical spring and summer invertebrate food needed by species such as yellowhammers.
Buffering in-field ponds and ditches in improved grassland	Protects ponds from nutrient leaching and runoff. This will maintain and enhance water quality and wildlife.
Permanent grassland with very low inputs in SDAs	Provides more flowering grass and wildflower species, a varied structure offering nectar and shelter for invertebrates and increased numbers of ground-nesting and feeding birds, particularly waders such as lapwing and snipe.
Enclosed rough grazing	Provides breeding and feeding habitat for birds, and a mosaic of upland rough grazing habitats with diverse sward heights and extended areas of wet, marshy grassland vegetation.
Management of rough grazing for birds	Provides the appropriate grassland habitat and sward structure for feeding and nesting birds and benefits (through water level management) for aquatic plants, invertebrates and other important species.
Haymaking	Ensures the continuation, or reintroduction, of haymaking on fields which are, or were, cut for hay each year. It allows a crop of herb-rich hay to be grown and harvested, which will lead to wildflowers and grasses blossoming and setting seed. This will help to conserve many of the plants in the meadow and provide pollen and nectar for bees and other insects.
Rush control	Reduces rush cover in parcels with heavy infestations and will help to prevent the loss of botanically rich grasslands and provide nesting areas for breeding wading birds.
Cattle grazing	In combination with other grassland management options, where cattle grazing is appropriate for delivering the aims of these options, this provides a more varied sward structure (which will increase wildlife diversity), better scrub/bracken/coarse vegetation control, particularly in wet areas and on steep slopes.