North Norfolk Coastal Group conference held at Holkham Hall

The second annual North Norfolk Coastal Group (NNCG) conference at Holkham Hall attracted around 100 farmers, landowners and representatives from conservation bodies and environmental agencies.

The meeting explored how seemingly peripheral field features can actually play a central role in nature conservation - aided by stewardship grants and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), part of a new post-Brexit payments system to reward nature-friendly farm practices.

First, the biodiversity value of hedgerows was highlighted by Richard Negus, who lays hedges on farms and estates throughout East Anglia. He also helps develop hedgerow management plans and has written a book on their benefits to biodiversity.

Richard Negus (far left) with other speakers at the North Norfolk Coastal Group (NNCG) annual conference at Holkham Hall (Image: Chris Hill) He said hedgerows provide protection, food, nesting habitat, connectivity and shelter for wildlife, as well as their vital agricultural functions.

And a "mosaic" of different hedgerow types is needed to benefit a variety of wildlife, while creating a "safe corridor" between other features such as ponds or woodland.

"We don't want every single hedge looking identical," he said. "What a turtle dove needs is different to what a bullfinch needs, which is different to what a yellowhammer needs.

"What we want is a mosaic across your entire farm - or indeed, across your entire landscape-scale farm cluster."

Hedges need to be managed in a way that supports both wildlife and the work of the farm, he said. For example, although blackthorn can provide a staple seasonal food source for wildlife, he does not plant it alongside arable fields, as it can extend into the margins and "denude another vital habitat".

Mr Negus added that "meaningful grants" are now available for planting, laying, coppicing and cutting hedges, as well as getting professional assessments and advice - so there was "no reason" not to maximise their value for biodiversity.

The biodiversity value of hedges and field margins was discussed at the North Norfolk Coastal Group (NNCG) conference at Holkham Hall (Image: GWCT) Meanwhile, Dr Roger Draycott a director of advisory and education for the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) explained why well-managed arable field margins are "fundamental to the success and recovery of biodiversity in North Norfolk".

He showed findings from the GWCT's long-running research on 8,000 acres of Sussex farmland, where invertebrates have been sampled every year since 1968, along with weed counts and pesticide records.

It showed a dramatic decline in insects such as ground beetles and aphids, which are a vital food source for young birds.

"Many of our farmland birds depend on insects in their first few weeks of life, because a protein-rich diet is absolutely fundamental in those first few weeks of growth and development," said Dr Draycott. "When we have more invertebrates in our cereal fields, the chick survival rate is higher.

"Clearly they will be affected by insecticides, but herbicides are just as important as they take out the weeds on which the insects feed."

However, he said there are "lots of research-based techniques" to boost insect numbers alongside arable crops, such as conservation headlands, beetle banks, wildflower strips, nectar flower plots and cultivated margins.

"They can all provide significant benefit to invertebrate biodiversity and they are all available in stewardship and SFI," he said.

The North Norfolk Coastal Group (NNCG) annual conference was held at Holkham Hall (Image: Chris Hill) The conference also heard from David Sillett of Defra, who said the new Labour government is "broadly supportive" of the environmental incentive schemes launched under the previous Tory administration, including the SFI.

He said half of farmers are now in these schemes, with a choice of more than 100 SFI "actions" to pay for nature-friendly features on their land.

In response to a question about Defra's allocation in next month's Budget statement, Mr Sillett said: "There is a spending review across government at the moment and Defra, like all departments, has worked hard to put a bid into the Treasury. We don't know what the settlement will be, but we do know that ministers and everybody in Defra is really committed to that, negotiating and pushing hard for a good deal."

The meeting also heard insights on regenerative farming and "carbon accounting" from the Allerton Project in Leicestershire, and an update on the North Norfolk: Wilder, Wetter, Better for Nature project, a "Landscape Recovery" pilot scheme, which now comprises 67 land managers covering 5,000 hectares.

Other "hot topics" included the private investment potential of emerging natural capital markets, and the opportunities and pitfalls of controlled-environment agriculture and "vertical farming".

Holkham Estate owner the Earl of Leicester opened the conference by highlighting the success of the NNCG in helping share knowledge across every facet of the rural landscape.

"As farmers and land managers we can be a fairly sceptical bunch and a bit suspicious of new ideas," he said. "But when you are in a group like this - a mixture of farmers, land managers and nature conservation organisations - there is a lot more trust, and therefore we see the ideas that we share with each other, and we learn."

Speakers at the North Norfolk Coastal Group (NNCG) annual conference at Holkham Hall (Image: Chris Hill)