The NFU has said the government’s 12 newly announced Nature Improvement Areas set up to restore and create wildlife habitats must work closely with farmers and recognise their key role in food production.
The NIAs - which include farmer-led partnership Marlborough Downs -were one of the key recommendations emerging from last year’s Natural Environment White Paper.
They replace the ‘Ecological Restoration Zones’ first proposed by professor Sir John Lawton in his Making Space for Nature report.
The NFU has argued the farmer-led NIA on the Marlborough Downs represents a challenge both for the farmers’ there to deliver and for government to recognise that farmers needs have to be considered in these schemes from the outset.
Deputy president Meurig Raymond said: “The NFU has long argued that one of the biggest challenges facing farmers will be their part in meeting the expected global demands to produce more food but impact less on the environment.
“It’s now important that these new partnerships engage directly with the individual farmers and landowners in the dedicated areas.
“In addition, we expect Defra and its agencies to maintain the balance of activity in these NIAs between wildlife and habitats and other equally important challenges such as water quality, soil conservation and climate change mitigation and the need for farmers to manage their businesses. We need to prioritise wider countryside measures, rather than simply focus our resources in smaller areas of the country.”
The 12 NIAs who will start work on 1 April 2012 are:
•Birmingham and the Black Country Living Landscape
•Dark Peak:
•Dearne Valley Green Heart:
•Greater Thames Marshes
•Humberhead Levels
•Marlborough Downs
•Meres and Mosses of the Marches
•Morecambe Bay Limestones and Wetlands:
•Nene Valley
•Northern Devon
•South Downs Way Ahead
•Wild Purbeck
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