The farmers working to secure revenue through nature restoration

Located over 140 acres of mixed terrain across the rolling hills of North Yorkshire, family-run farm High Braythorne recently collaborated with Environment Bank to help diversify their income.

When farmer Rupert Arnold realised that it was not only increasingly becoming more difficult to make a profit from a small farm, but that farming subsidies were changing and eventually ending, he knew a change had to be made.

Rupert and his wife Fiona had studied holistic farming and focussed on how they could increase biodiversity and lessen the heavy workload of their current farming system.

This was to ensure they had options when they reached an age where they could not perform such physical work.

The couple along with their grown up children spent nine months researching every avenue and realised they didn’t have the expertise of an ecologist or the funds to support what needed to be done.

Rupert started benchmarking the profitability of his farm against other farms and decided he needed a new strategy for the business.

He then discovered that Environment Bank could help with achieving a more productive piece of land; something more niche that felt specialised.

By creating a Habitat Bank on 32 hectares of their farmland, a new and long-term revenue for the couple will be created, as well as providing a more certain future.

Land assessment, restoration and impact

A desk-based review was undertaken initially which looked at the site’s geology, soil chemistry, management history, hydrology and landscape connectivity.

This would help to determine the best possible new habitats for the land, which is currently a mixture of permanent pasture and silage fields.

The Environment Bank’s team of ecologists then conducted a thorough assessment of the landscape to ecologically baseline it, before creating a management plan with Rupert and Fiona to design the new habitats within the sphere of the Defra Biodiversity Metric.

Leading on the management plan is ecologist Rob Wreglesworth, who fully assessed the land and collectively set aside 32 hectares for a Habitat Bank to connect the ancient woodland currently on the farm, maximising the environmental benefits.  

Rob set about monitoring how much water run-off could be reduced from adding new habitats and ponds and the impact this would have in as little as 10 years’ time, when flooding had become impactful due to the compacted ground on the land.

These changes will result in better soil and a species-rich meadow which is deeper rooted to improve soil structure and increase the organic matter, which holds more water, as well as strategically placed ponds to slow the surface water flow, resulting in less erosion and better water quality in the catchment.

Rob and the team assessed which vegetation and wildlife were currently present, and how much woodland, ponds and hedgerows to include in the plan.

With planting starting this summer, working alongside the couple’s current Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) pilot scheme, the vision over the next five to 10 years is to have a farm with multiple revenue streams.

These will be based around farming and nature, while ensuring the long-term resilience of the farm.

The Habitat Banks can be grazed integrating them into the current farm business, meaning the land can still be grazed © Environment Bank

Benefits of Habitat Banks

By allowing nature to recover, Habitat Banks offer a huge range of benefits to the local communities.

Some of these benefits include better air and water quality, locked-up carbon, reduced flood risks, improved health and wellbeing and more nature-based economic opportunities.

Also, by increasing biodiversity, it can help to increase food yield with increased abundance of pollinators and improved soil health locally.

Contributing to the community is important to the couple, as well as enhancing the local landscape.

By creating a Habitat Bank on the land, this will enable them to increase biodiversity, encourage wild species, and continue to work with other farmers as an integrated farm, meaning others can still use their land for livestock grazing if needed.

The family hopes to also eventually use the Habitat Bank to gain accreditation for school visits and create projects studying biodiversity, working with students to track the management plan and monitor the wildlife, that are linked to the national curriculum and college programmes.

With so much biodiversity loss in recent decades, the developed habitat will encourage more species-rich pastures and see part of the estate reintroduced to its natural form, with the aim of delivering and maintaining a wide range of ecological and societal benefits for years to come.

Biodiversity uplift

The recovery programme on the land will be fully established over the next five to 10 years leading to the creation of a more functional and resilient natural landscape capable of supporting richer and more abundant biodiversity.

This wide open area of woodlands, species-rich meadows, ponds and grassland will act as a way to enable developers to meet their Biodiversity Net Gain requirements as mandated in planning law.

The Habitat Bank scheme enables Rupert and Fiona to access this new income stream with minimal risk or long-term liability.

Funding

For Rupert, one of the positive impacts of working with Environment Bank is the certainty of the long-term nature of the funding.

The capital investment in terms of water supply to the Habitat Bank, hedges, fencing and planting to restore the land would cost thousands, but by working with Environment Bank, they had access to the funds as well as the expertise of the ecologists.

Rupert said: “The Environment Bank model means we’ll receive a reliable income for at least 30 years which is very reassuring and quite rare in the farming sector.

“We would never have access to that or the level of security with any other structure whilst still continuing to farm.”

Environment Bank pays farmers up to £27,000 per hectare, and sometimes more, over a 30-year period with fixed annual uplifts for the management and lease of the land, as well as a generous welcome bonus.

Working with farmers across England

Habitat Bank creation is happening at quite a pace; there are already over 20 sites underway, with an additional 60 scheduled to commence over the rest of this year.

Since launching its multi-award-winning Habitat Bank scheme, Environment Bank has seen enquiries soar, and it is looking to establish over 2,000 hectares of Habitat Banks over the next few years.

If you would like any advice or further information on creating a Habitat Bank on your land, please call 01904 202 990.

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