Successful funding applications to support farmland biodiversity...
Exciting news from the Cranborne Chase UK Cluster about new opportunities to support biodiversity and ecosystem services.
After conducting site visits Clare and the cluster prepared funding applications for 2.7km of new hedge planting for winter 2021/22 as well as preparing and submitting a FiPL application to the Cranborne Chase AONB.
The applications were successful! On the first Clare reports:
This was our first opportunity to apply for funding as a group to deliver habitat creation and 5 Cluster farmers got involved. As well as making linked applications, I co-ordinated purchase and delivery of hedging plants, compostable guards and canes, enabling everyone to benefit from discounted prices. It went really well, with everyone being flexible to accommodate the combined delivery schedule and working hard to get the hedges planted.
About the second Clare notes:
This was an even more ambitious group funding application that included wildlife boxes, cameras, fencing the newly planted hedges, cultivated plots for arable plants, kick-starting the cluster website, and the start of a machinery ring with the purchase of a people carrier trailer for farm walks and a brush seed harvester. As well as the benefits of securing funding for projects that would not have happened, this also engaged some farmers that had not been to cluster meetings before and required us to look closely at the clusters objectives.
It's great to see Framework's Advanced Clusters empowering people to seek funding to ensure valuing farmland biodiversity adds up for agribusinesses.
We look forward to sharing more about the results of the measures this funding will allow the cluster to introduce.