Farmers should look carefully at their farm to find small areas where they can engage with agri-environment management to provide a greater benefit to the wildlife and fauna in their area is the message from Professor Davy McCracken, Head of Hill & Mountain Research Centre as he chats with Upland Ecologist, Dr John Holland, at SRUC’s Kirkton and Auchtertyre research farms.

The farm has engaged with SGRPID agri-environmental schemes, and the resulting increases in biodiversity prompted a slight shift in focus for the farming businesses. Previous scheme managements have brought changes in water margin management, the planting of and mountain forest area for use as silvo-pasture and more recently the farm has engaged with moorland management and wader scrapes in order to benefit a range of farmland birds within the area. Species such as golden plover, Black grouse, Barn owls, otters, highland voles and even beavers are making returns to the area as a result of the changes in management. Previous production on the farm had seen higher outputs, but at the expense of considerably higher inputs which was unsustainable in the longer term and had gradually reduced the diverse wildlife within the farmed area. Moving forwards, incorporating more agri-environment management strategies has produced a healthier habitat for wildlife and is working towards helping the farm become more resilient to extreme weather conditions.