OpenFields

The management of land for environmental benefit is without doubt agood practice for the quality and diversity of our wildlife, our rivers, and our landscapes.

Set Aside schemes were introduced in England in 1988 to prevent the over production of food, by taking agricultural land out of production. Set aside land could then be managed to produce environmental benefits, e.g. by providing areas of feeding habitat for wildlife, and by preventing water courses becoming contaminated by agricultural sprays. Areas of set aside also added to the diversity of the landscape by creating patches of non-cultivated land. In more recent years, around 500,000 hectares of land has been left fallow or put into set aside, making it England's third largest land use.

Various revisions of the original schemes have set environmental requirements which farmers need to meet in order to receive the Single Farm payment from the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The Openfields library provides materials which deal with the many issues surrounding land management for environmental benefit.