The Agri-Environment

The application of ecological theory and conservation biology to agricultural ecosystems has become an important and growing research field and undergraduate course component in recent years. This book is both an academic textbook and practical guide to farm conservation, and has evolved from the authors' extensive teaching experience. It covers the ecology of farmed land, how agricultural practices influence the environment, how agriculture has changed over time and how the species that inhabit the agri-environment have adapted. It also covers the history of agricultural policy and subsidies and the development of agri-environment schemes. A number of different farming systems are discussed, as are the difficulties in determining their relative merits. Guidance is offered on how to produce a workable farm conservation plan, and the final chapters look to the future and the development of new, greener farming systems.

John Warren has 20 years of research and teaching experience in agroecology, at the University of Liverpool and the University of the West Indies. He spent 7 years at the Scottish Agricultural College as head of the Farmland Ecology Unit, and is currently Director of Education and Lecturer at the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Clare Lawson has 10 years of research experience in habitat restoration and ecosystem processes within the farmed landscape, working at the University of London, Cranfield University and latterly as a Research Fellow at the University of Reading in the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER). Her current research focuses on the impacts of management practices on farmland biodiversity and the importance of trophic interactions (plant-soil and plant-insect interactions) in grassland restoration. Ken Belcher is an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Prior to this, he was a waterfowl and wetland biologist and he maintains a strong interest in the interactions and potential conflicts between agricultural systems and wildlife conservation.