Alasdair Boden: The Rivers Trust is helping me find my way

Farmers have to be flexible. In fact, they need the flexibility of a Cirque du Soleil performer to cope with every government U-turn.

The problem is that while the government has a roadmap, they’re not sharing the route.

This is bad enough for more experienced farmers, but us newbies find ourselves up the wrong creek with an umbrella.

See also: Alasdair Boden – ‘Accidental’ farmers bring fresh ideas

About the author

Alasdair Boden

Having been brought up in Kendal, Alasdair Boden returned to the Lake District in 2019 when he and his wife, Heather, bought a holiday cottage business. The 37-year-old describes himself as an “accidental farmer’ having later acquired the 40ha historically connected to the enterprise.

Read more articles by Alasdair Boden

Defra wants us to plant trees and re-establish wildflower meadows – but how and where? And what about producing food?

To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, sometimes we’re doing the right thing, but not necessarily in the right place or in the right order.

Locally, a farmer got criticised by environmentalists for ploughing a field, only for it to transpire he was planting a species-rich meadow.

Another example was an estate planting a forest, something applauded by environmentalists, only for it to transpire it was at the expense of even rarer wildflower meadows – the right idea, but the wrong place.   

The government should be offering more advisers to work with land managers and farmers, but they’re leaving us to blindly find our own way.

Thankfully, that’s where environmental trusts can help – and, in particular for us, the West Cumbria Rivers Trust.

The moment we got the land in 2020 I realised I was out of my depth, so sent a plea for help to all the environmental trusts. Then I sat and waited. And wait I did.

I was ignored by quite a few, but before too long the West Cumbria Rivers Trust was trudging through the fields offering advice on what to do and, critically, what not to do.

They fully funded hedges and brought in a team of volunteers to help maintain them.

We do sometimes have to stop them going too far (we’ll leave beavers for another time), but they respect that and for that I respect them and actively engage in their projects. 

The government has multiple failings. They throw out ideas to win votes and sway the public, without thinking how to action them.

Thank goodness there are some environmental trusts to pick up the slack.