I have been disappointed to see various reports on Natural England's so-called ‘anti-farming' culture.
As both head of agriculture for Natural England and a partner in our family farm in Worcestershire, farming is my life blood. My family have farmed in the county for over 200 years, and I have farmed our land for the last 20 years of those. Farming is the backbone of our beautiful countryside, putting food on our plates and shaping the landscapes we see around us today.
This is not just my view - it is a view shared by my colleagues across Natural England. I cannot stress enough the importance the entire organisation places on engaging and working with farmers to protect and enhance some of our most valuable and treasured landscapes.
Yes, we are the Government's statutory advisor on nature conservation; our role is to provide advice on the management of sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and we have a legal responsibility to ensure management of protected sites is done in a way that leads to ‘favourable condition'.
But that does not mean we are here to dictate to farmers, or to put up barriers to agriculture and food production. Quite the opposite.
Each year Natural England receives around 3,000 applications for SSSI consents - a consent which allows farming activity on SSSIs.
Of these, fewer than 1 per cent are refused. We work together with farmers to find pragmatic ways to agree consents, allowing farming to continue whilst also protecting the SSSI feature. Farming and nature cannot be seen at polar ends of the spectrum.
Many of the SSSIs on farmland have been shaped and created by around 6,000 years of farming in this country, for example in Dartmoor.
A favourable condition on Dartmoor means a mosaic of habitats containing gorse, heather, bogs and other upland plants which support species such as curlew and golden plover once common across the South West uplands, while also protecting peat and preventing carbon being released into the atmosphere.
Farmers have a vital role to play in meeting this favourable condition. They know better than anyone that these special habitats rely on grazing to maintain the mixture of plant species needed, but too much grazing at the wrong time of year can lead to a domination of grasses and the loss of the structure that is needed for wildlife to flourish.
Over the last six months, our teams have been out walking the moors with ecologists, farmers, conservation organisations and landowners, discussing pressures, problems and solutions. What is abundantly clear from these conversations is that, together, we have the same long-term vision for the moor - and a joint determination to get there.
The Independent Review into the management of protected sites of Dartmoor is now underway, with the expert panel and terms of reference announced just this week. By reviewing the ecological evidence base and current trends, the review will make recommendations on the most effective grazing and management regimes that will deliver the sustainable and profitable agricultural production we all want to see.
In the meantime, we continue to work with farmers around the country to deliver for both agriculture and the environment.
The farmers and landowners we work with know these special landscapes like the back of their hands, and more often than not are at the forefront of wanting to protect them. Our view is that those farmers who are custodians of SSSIs should be properly rewarded and we want to support all those who wish to apply for agri-environment schemes, both existing schemes but also new opportunities arising from Defra's new Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMs). We are working actively with Defra to propose ways how farmers delivering the highest level of environmental outcomes on SSSIs can be better rewarded.
As we look to the future, it's imperative we bring together farming and nature helping us meet our commitment to restore 75 per cent of our SSSIs to favourable condition by 2042. It is these SSSIs which will sit at the heart of a much wider network for nature recovery, essential for future profitable and sustainable farming systems.
