Pet food company funds Suffolk landscape project

A ground-breaking partnership has seen a group of farmers team up with pet food company Nestlé Purina to undertake environmental work in Suffolk.

Known as the High Suffolk Farm Cluster, the farmers are providing sites for bird boxes made by retired carpenter and naturalist Jim Peart and funded by Nestlé Purina as part of the Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) programme. 

The bird boxes are providing nesting sites for bird species including the little owl, kestrel, and spotted flycatcher. In addition, winter bird feed is being provided by Kings Crops via Perdix supplementary feeders.

Patrick Barker from Lodge Farm in Westhorpe said: “The collaboration is integral to sustainable landscape scale farmland nature recovery in our region and environmental improvements for the wider community.” 

Farmer-led support

Nestlé UK & Ireland regeneration lead Matt Ryan emphasised that the support received by the High Suffolk Cluster was farmer-led. “Our involvement in this, and other farm clusters, provides vital financial and communications support,” he explained.

Mr Ryan said: “We are determined to assist farmers to not only continue producing high quality food, but also help them to improve on-farm biodiversity and deliver positive environmental outcomes for the wider landscape”.  

Nestlé Purina has also funded a biodiversity survey conducted by Oakbank Game and Wildlife; alongside a hedgerow survey and management plan by R&R Countryside Services; and a woodland assessment across the 4,000ha farmed by the group.

These surveys will encourage beneficial hedgerow and woodland coppice management practices, improving habitats for many threatened wildlife species – and helping farmland birds through the winter hungry gap when natural food sources are scarce.

Future plans

More farms could be invited to join the cluster group. “The cluster will be open to more farms once the project is fully established,” said Mr Barker.

“For farmers to have sustainable businesses in the future, we need to focus on key areas. Innovation is essential, meaning we can farm in a more sustainable way, collaboratively with our neighbours.

“We also need to be educators, both individually and as a cluster, informing consumers, policy makers and young people about the true story of food, farming and the wildlife that calls our farms home.”