Land sharing and Land sparing

As day two of the South of England Show opened the winds are up and the going underfoot is slightly damp, although it was heartening to see yesterday that a worm was making its way across the floor of the International Pavilion aided by the water that had seeped through the floor material as had a solitary three leaf clover.

On listening to Farming Today as I drove along the road towards Ardingly I heard the reporter, Caz Graham, in discussion with a man, Ben Phalan from the University of Cambridge, on the potential that intensive farming could help floral and faunal biodiversity in the developing world. An article published in Science on the 2nd of September (Volume 333 no. 6047 - pp.1289-1291) examined the concepts of both land sharing and land sparing.

Land sharing integrates both the desire to meet rising food demands and the need to have less impact on the ecosystem's biodiversity whereas land sparing is where "high-yield farming is combined with protecting natural habitats from conversion to agriculture". The paper's abstract continues to state that the writers "compared crop yields and densities of bird and tree species across gradients of agricultural intensity" in two regions one in the south west of Ghana and in northern India.

The abstract concludes that "more species were negatively affected by agriculture than benefited from it, particularly among species with small global ranges. For both taxa in both countries, land sparing is a more promising strategy for minimizing negative impacts of food production, at both current and anticipated future levels of production".The full article can be read here on a subscription site.

An article found in last year's Guardian, see here, written by Damian Carrington gives us a bit more information. Land sharing is where "all the land in a region is farmed, but using wildlife friendly techniques which may dent yields a little". An example of this occurs in Europe under the premise of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that "rewards farmers for giving a helping hand to animals, birds and plants that share their land, by protecting hedgerows, leaving some trees and strips for flowers and beetles". Whereas Land sparing is "some land is farmed intensively to maximise yields while other land is left entirely alone and protected as a nature reserve".

Both Damian Carrington and Ben Phelan, with his colleagues, ask the question - "Would the CAP's vast budget for land sharing schemes - €34.5bn from 2007-13 - be better spent on reserves, under the reforms now being discussed?"

Carrington answers this question by writing "The answer is we don't know, because the balance of costs and benefits between land sparing or sharing will depend on location, and the situation in the tropics and subtropics is likely to be quite different to that at higher latitudes".

But the concept of land sharing and land sparing is certainly a topic to look at greater detail in the future. Does anyone else have any thoughts or experience?

South of England Show Post 2

So as the afternoon passes on, the rain has started to fall but still there is a procession of both carriage drivers followed by various packs of hounds.

On talking to one of the members of Eurolink, I have learnt some more on the benefits of honey. He was telling more of the use of honey - one of them was to preserve biopsy samples from patients in villages in lesser developed countries as they are taken from the village to the city. On returning the message from the city to the village clinic, it is often transferred through satellite phone. So from a prehistoric medium to a twenty first century form of communication.

The propolis, a brown sticky substance, that the bees collect from various trees and plants and combine with their own enzymes are used as a form of protection, within the hive, against bacterial and viral infection. One website states that there are "much higher levels of a substance...called Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester...and very many dihydroflavonoid compounds...pinocembrin and pinobanksin". These compounds, no doubt, help to combat "a wide range of infections including" burns, sinus infections, sore throats, ulcers and wounds". It is also just as important that as it is a natural antibiotic, the micro-organisms are unable to to develop a resistance to the Propolis.

There is, of course, a bee and honey pavilion at the South of England Show where you will be able to gain more information.

South of England Show post 1

So as we enter the first day of the South of England show at Ardingly, Eurolink and International Farmlink is situated at one of the corners of the show ground. It gives us the opportunity to talk about, well alright type about, the current agricultural and rural affairs.

A recent article in the New Scientist (2nd of June 2012) states that traces ofradioactive caesium, from the leak in Fukushima Daiichi plant, has been found in Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) in low enough doses so that it won't harm humans. But it is thought by Daniel Madigan of Stanford University in California that the levels of the caesium may aid the tracking of other marine life such as Salmon Sharks, turtles and seabirds.

A post that I found on the twitter feed of Eurolink (@eurolinkseas) also described the decline of farmbirds. Richard D. Gregory reports for the New Scientist on the 6th of June 2012 that the losses of some "European bird populations are in precipitous decline"..."with a downward trend of 36 specialist farmland birds for the last 30 years equates to an estimated loss of 297 million farmbirds in Europe during that period".

Gregory continues to state that "European agricultural policy needs substantial reform so that it delivers measures to help birds and other wildlife across the continent's farmed landscape...nesting habitats and food in the summer and winter...policies must also support low-intensity farming systems that deliver a range of ecosystem benefits in addition to wonderful biodiversity".

More information can be found here as well as the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme and TEEB.org