A GROWING number of farmers are going greener to restore breeding grounds for wild birds.
Since last August, nearly 1,900 farmers have entered agreements under the Entry Level and Organic Entry Level Stewardship scheme which pays farmers to create new habitats for wildlife. In the West Midlands just over 200,000 hectares, over 21 per cent, of farmland, is under environmentally friendly management.
By providing year-round food supplies and suitable nesting habitats, the scheme will help the efforts to reverse the decline in wild bird populations, which are now stabilised after many years of gradual decline.
Figures from Defra show that in the West Midlands native wild bird populations remained fairly static between 1994 and 2004. Kingfishers and ravens have fared exceptionally well and as farmland bird populations decreased by 14 per cent, corn buntings and grey partridges did poorly. Among woodland birds, willow warbler and willow tit populations did not fare well.
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