Dale Grange Farm Case Study video transcript

My name is Richard Wheeldon. We're here at Dale Grange Farm in Chelmorton in the Peak District and I I farm here at Dale Grange Farm. We're a beef and sheep farm. It has been many different kinds of farming over over its history, we've been a dairy farm, we have done cereal crops. It's really important for farms, particularly in the national park, to to work with nature-based solutions and to integrate them into their business.

Over the last 30 years, nature has declined at a rapid rate in the Peak District, and therefore, our businesses are are just less robust and less resilient to change. Whether that's disease in plants, whether that's disease in livestock and animals, or whether that's just helping with water quality and climate mitigation. It's important for us to think about building those resilient aspects of nature into our farm businesses.

Significant changes are needed to really help us tackle both at a local level and national level nature's decline. We've seen 20 years worth of grant funding to help nature, but yet still nature declines. So the significant change will need to be how we can work better with not only government but with industry and private finance, to make that step change in integrating nature into countryside and farm businesses. We've seen minor changes over the last 20 years and they haven't worked. What we need are step change approaches where we really integrate nature into our businesses and think about those as an asset to our business rather than something that's taken away from our business.

Delivery for nature can be done at a small scale or a large scale. In a farm business context, where we're stood now is one of the small exclosures we created on the farm just on some, an area of land that's more difficult for us to farm. Starting small can really help species begin to be part of your farm business. So here, even on a on a small scale, we see a lot more activity from wildlife that supports a farm business. At a policy scale, we really do need long-term thinking beyond single governments. But to really make that step change for nature, for climate, and for society, governments need to think beyond their 4-year term. Whether you're a member of the public, whether you're a farmer, whether you're a small or large business, to really get the change we need, everybody should be supporting and thinking about nature delivery as part of the work they do.

Dale Grange Farm Case Study video

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