Following the October Budget, and recent changes and uncertainty around Agri-environment schemes, we are planning to focus our next event on updates to government funding. We are planning to cover SFI, Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery.

Megan Gimber from the People's Trust for Endangered Species will be shining a spotlight on hedgerow management and how you can incorporate looking after your hedgerows into your new Agri-environment scheme agreements. 

Reister for the event here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/elms-update-and-hedgerow-management-tickets-1077499743739?aff=oddtdtcreator

There is a lot of activity from different organisations across the Ouse, working with farmers in the group to restore and create habitat to improve climate resilience and support species recovery. It can often feel like these groups are working in isolation, but this is far from the case. At this event we will be hearing from Weald to Waves, Wilder Ouse, The Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust and Water Life Recovery Trust to discuss how they are delivering a co-ordinated approach to their individual programmes. There will be individual presentations followed by a panel discussion with the opportunity for you to ask questions on how they might support any projects you are currently planning.

Join us at Danehill Memorial hall on the 17th September 2024 where the Sussex Local Nature Recovery Strategy will be presenting what the new initiative seeks to achieve and the impacts this will have on individual farmers as well as the Cluster group as a whole. The LNRS will also be announcing what objectives will affect the group and there will be an opportunity for group members to express their comments and questions for the project. 

If you’re a livestock farmer, you can get funding for a vet or team chosen by a vet to visit your farm and carry out a health and welfare review of eligible livestock.

The review is designed to help you:

• reduce endemic diseases such as bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) in cattle, porcine reproductive and respiratory disease (PRRS) in pigs and the effectiveness of worming treatments in sheep

• improve the welfare of your animals

• increase productivity

• make sure your use of veterinary medicines and vaccines is appropriate

Cliffe farm vets will be coming to talk to you about the annual health and welfare review, what is available and how it can be used to support better lambing and calving outcomes.

Natural England and the Forestry Commission will be discussing all things trees and woodland, taking a closer look at the benefits of trees in the farmed landscape, including agroforestry, and managing existing woodland, as well as Deer and Squirrel control and grants available for woodland. These talks will be followed by a walk around Plashett Wood with James Noble, the Woodland Manager at Plashett Wood, who will discuss how they have been managing it. Thank you to the Trustees of the Ian Askew Charitable Trust for allowing us to hold the event at Plashett Wood.

The Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust have recently removed a significant weir on the Cockhaise Brook, outside of Lindfield, as part of a wider project to reverse the habitat degradation that constrains freshwater ecosystems and reinstate a mosaic of habitat and stream diversity along the Ouse and its tributaries. This work has been done in collaboration with Upper Ouse members Candida Dunford Wood and Helena Blaker, who have kindly invited the group to visit the site to see the works achieved by OART and learn more about the future opportunities for rivers and habitat enhancement activities you could get involved with.

The severe drought experienced over the summer, followed by flooding throughout the Autumn, has highlighted the importance of managing water on agricultural land to ensure farm productivity. The Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust have been working on a two year project on the Bevern Stream and Longford Stream, looking at making the rivers and surrounding agricultural land more resilient to drought. They will present their findings, alongside the Catchment Sensitive Farming Officer, to demonstrate how you can make your farm more resilient to drought, help improve water quality in the catchment, and what funding might be available to help with this

Landscape Ecology Programme Workshop
Introduced at the event at Woodland Farm in March, Kew is keen to share the work it is doing as part of the Landscape Ecology Programme relating to Natural Capital assessments and provisioning of specific guidance for habitat management for ecosystem services. They would like to work with farmers in the group to help them navigate what is becoming potentially a very important and also a very complicated sector around ecosystem services. 

Upper Ouse FiPL Project Application
Having discussed it briefly at the end of the last event, we have gone away and discussed the potential things a FiPL project could provide members of the group. With the help of groups like the Sussex Wildlife Trust, the Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust and Kew Wakehurst we hope to provide you with the tools to both improve the habitats and biodiversity on your land but also to engage with landscape scale schemes coming in the future. 

Walk around Wakehurst Place
After lunch, we will follow the Landscape Ecology Programme team to look at the work they are doing at Wakehurst Place, as well as get a bit of a tour of other elements of Wakehurst Place.

Sustainability at Woodsland Farm - Candida Dunford Wood and Helena Blaker
Having taken over management of the farm in 2018, Candida and Helena have completely changed the management of the farm to farm with wildlife and ecosystem services in mind while also providing sustainable, local food. Through working with Dan Burdett at Cockhaise Farm, and with the Sussex Wildlife Trust and Sussex Flow Initiative they have been able to achieve some of these aims and will be talking to the group a bit about their journey over the last few years.

Sussex Wildlife Trust - Sussex Flow Initiative, Nature Recovery Networks, and Ecosystem Services - Fran Southgate and Sam Buckland
As Project Officer for the Sussex Flow Initiative, Sam has been working with Farmers and Landowners across Sussex to implement Natural Flood Management measures and will be talking about those implemented in the Upper Ouse and on Woodsland Farm. Fran will be explaining some of the mapping work that has been done on the Nature Recovery Networks as well as identifying ecosystem services and nature-based solutions across Sussex so that you can see how it can be applied to your land.

Landscape Ecology Programme, Kew Wakehurst - Rebecca Roberts and Iain Parkinson
Kew Wakehurst launched its Landscape Ecology Programme last year in order to collect information on the value of UK biodiversity with the intention of sharing this information with farmers to help them assess their Natural Capital assets and provide guidance on how to manage habitat to enhance ecosystem services. Rebecca Roberts and Iain Parkinson will be coming to talk to the group more about this project and will be trying to get an idea of what information will be most useful to farmers.

Farm walk around Woodsland Farm
After a short break, we will follow Sam to take a look at the Natural Flood Management features implemented around Woodsland farm as well as some of the other management practices which have been incorporated at Woodsland farm.

Reduced productivity in agriculture and the need for technology in farming - Raphie Kaplinsky

Raphie is a Professorial Fellow at Sussex University. His recent book, 'Sustainable Futures: An Agenda for Action', was chosen as one of the 10 best books of 2021 by the respected Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf. Raphie's research has focused on the need for new technology in farming in order to reverse the declining trends in production and sustainability. 
Raphie will be giving an introduction to the wider issues facing sectors like agriculture and how the crucial work Sam and the Small Robot Company are doing is helping to address some of these issues. 

Per Plant Farming and the Small Robot Company - Sam Watson Jones

Sam Watson Jones is a fourth generation farmer from Shropshire and a Co-Founder of Small Robot Company. The business was started in 2017 to explore the potential of Per Plant Farming for arable crops, and has since grown to a team of 50 people, with £11m raised in total to date, including investment from around 300 farmers over several fundraising rounds. Today, the business is delivering services to three farms in Wiltshire and Hampshire, but has ambitions to grow this significantly in the coming years. Sam will discuss the potential for Per Plant Farming on the way that we produce food, and the technologies that are supporting the global transition to this new way of farming, and also provide an update on the work that Small Robot Company is doing to try to accelerate this change

How good are your soils? Field and laboratory evaluation of soil health - Ian Knight, Abacus Agriculture
Ian Knight has been working with farmers in the Ouse Catchment and will be discussing baseline soil structure and chemistry with the group, focusing on Ouse soils. With soil health and testing forming a central part of the new Sustainable Farming Incentive, understanding your soils has become even more important. 

A Billion reasons why you should know how healthy your soil biology is! - Nick Cooper, Farmyard Ltd
Nick Cooper will be taking a look at how healthy soil biology influences nutrient recycling, and improves water retention and drainage whilst increasing carbon capture in your soils. Linked to your soil structure is the community of organisms that make up the structure and work in symbiosis with crops. Understanding the biology of your soils can help you get the most out of them.

Matthew Woodcock will be talking to the group about the various opportunities and challenges associated with managing woodland and will take a look at the woodland of the Ouse catchment in a bit more detail.  Matthew is the Partnerships & Expertise Manager South East for the Forestry Commission. He has gained an understanding of the unique nature of woodland in the South East, and he has worked on a range of projects across the UK in other roles for the Forestry Commission.  His expertise in the sector covers the full breadth of woodland topics. He has been involved in projects such as the Dutch Elm Disease control programme and more recently in initiatives focusing on developing woodland markets in woodfuel and using woodland as natural flood defence. This will be a great opportunity to hear about what you can do with woodland on your land and to ask any questions you may have on this subject. We hope to see many of you there. 

An Introduction to Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services - Henri Brocklebank
Henri is the Director of Conservation at the Sussex Wildlife Trust and is working with a range of organisations to promote investment in Natural Capital. She will be discussing the important role Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services will play in the developing of the new ELM Scheme, with particular reference to its potential in Sussex.

The ELMS consultation and the future of agricultural subsidy - Natural England
Cath Jackson from Natural England will be discussing the most recent information on ELMS and will give an introduction to the broad shape of this proposed new scheme as well as any up to date news on the recently announced Sustainable Farming Incentive.