Paying farmers to create woodland and wetland is the most cost-effective way to hit UK environment targets

Study of farmer preferences shows that turning whole areas of farmland into habitats comes with half the price tag of integrating nature into productive farmland, if biodiversity and carbon targets are to be met. Semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit area Lydia Collas Incentivising farmers to restore some land as habitats for nature could deliver UK climate and biodiversity targets at half the taxpayer cost of integrating nature into land managed for food production, according to a new study published today in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature . The research, led by the universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Glasgow, provides the first evidence for the taxpayer savings offered by focusing food production in certain areas to allow the creation of new woods, wetland and scrub habitats on some of the land currently used for farming. The study suggests that this -land sparing- approach would cost just 48% of the funds required to achieve the same outcomes for biodiversity and the climate through an approach known as -land sharing-, where conservation measures get mixed into farming by adding hedgerows to fields, reducing pesticides, and so on - all of which lowers food yield. Additionally, researchers say that trying to share land with nature through making farming more wildlife-friendly would see the UK lose 30% more of its food production capacity than if farmers are encouraged to spare portions of land entirely for creating semi-natural habitats.