Record-high prices for wheat might be bad news for consumers, but they may bring an unexpected benefit for the UK’s upland wildlife. According to Professor Robin Pakeman and colleagues at the Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, the increasing price of those crops used to make animal feed could lead more to more upland areas being used to graze cattle. The researchers have found this is potentially good for biodiversity.

Speaking at this year’s BA Festival of Science in York, Professor Pakeman said: “Our research over the last five years has shown some level of grazing is actually beneficial for a healthy mix of wildlife in the uplands. Cattle are especially good in this regard as the way in which they graze leads to a richly varied habitat which allows a greater range of plant, insect, and bird species to flourish.”

Areas such as the uplands that not been considered profitable to farm in recent times may very soon see a return of grazing livestock he added.

In many upland areas sheep numbers have declined in recent years, due in part to changes in EU support subsidies. It was feared that a lack of financial incentive would have lead to a complete loss of mixed livestock farming.

However, greater demand from countries such as China and India for wheat and an increase in land being used to grow biofuel crops have increased cereal prices.

“Many farmers in the lowlands and hill areas where cereals can be grown will shift out of the relatively unprofitable beef cattle market and into grain. Global demand for meat is, however, increasing and this may make upland cattle more attractive,” said Professor Pakeman.

The research carried out by the Institute and its collaborators has shown that a limited amount of cattle and sheep grazing is the most beneficial to upland wildlife – such as the meadow pipit, a widespread upland song bird – because of the mixture of short and tall vegetation patches this grazing management creates. These vegetation patches provide feeding and nesting sites for the birds.

Under these conditions, there are not just more pipits nesting, but they lay eggs that are a third bigger than when there is more intense grazing – or conversely – no grazing. Bigger eggs generally mean healthier chicks.

“Like many commodity markets, agricultural products are in a global economy and changes in prices will impact the UK countryside. Sometimes negatively – as the change in setaside policy might be – or positively if it keeps livestock farming going in the uplands and marginal areas of the UK,” added Professor Pakeman.

The Macaulay Institute is the premier land use research institute in the UK. Two hundred and seventy staff are based at the Macaulay Institute at Craigiebuckler in Aberdeen. The Macaulay Institute aims to be an international leader in research on the use of rural land resources for the benefit of people and the environment and is involved in research across the globe; from Scotland to Chile and China. More about the Macaulay Institute can be found at www.macaulay.ac.uk

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The Grazing and Upland Birds (GRUB) project has been running since 2002 and is the largest experiment of its type ever attempted.

Comparison of grazing management regimes is being carried out in the Trossachs, at Glen Finglas, 23 miles northwest of Stirling, with the kind permission of The Woodland Trust.

Researchers have established 24 fenced plots and each plot is about the size of five football pitches (3.3 hectares). We have stocked each plot in one of four ways – each with different numbers of sheep and cattle:

• Nine sheep per plot – this is standard commercial stocking density
• Three sheep per plot
• A mixture of sheep and cattle (but equivalent to three sheep all year round)
• No sheep or cattle

The work is funded by the Scottish Government. Other partners in this project are: Scottish Agricultural College, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, RSPB, BioSS (Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland), University of Aberdeen and the University of Exeter in Cornwall.