Penarfynydd is
a National Trust tenanted farm 4km west of Aberdaron near the village of Rhiw
on the Llŷn Peninsula. Twenty years ago the heathland was in poor shape with
intensive sheep grazing but today it is looking good with a mixed regime which
includes cattle, ponies and a specialist breed of sheep. This is a success
story in which both the farm’s economy and a broad range of scarce wildlife have
benefitted through multiple partners working as an effective team. Penarfynydd
is living proof that farming and nature conservation does not need to be a
compromise.
You can read the rest of this blogpost or you can listen to Tom explaining what it's all about:
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| Tom |
It is very
much a mixed farm where Tom Jones, the farmer, manages 850 ewes, 70 beef cattle
and contract rears around 100 dairy heifers.
His wife Sharon also rears pigs which are sold direct through farmers
markets and in local shops. Spring sown cereals such as barley and oats are grown
for winter feed and when the hens are laying, locals and passers-by on the Wales
Coast Path can buy eggs at the farm gate.
The farm has
a mixture of improved and unimproved land, which includes land outside NT
ownership. The unimproved land comprises two large areas of steep, rough
coastal grazing, Mynydd Penarfynydd and Mynydd Graig, with a smaller area of coastal
slope at Porth Ysgo.
Importance for Wildlife
These
coastal habitats are of international significance and designated as a Special
Area of Conservation (SAC) and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). In
particular Mynydd Graig is one of the best and largest remaining examples of
heathland on the Llŷn, where heathland declined by around 50% between 1920 and
1998¹. On the exposed coastal fringes, whipped by high winds and salt spray,
are communities of maritime plants such as spring squill, sea thrift and,
clinging to rock ledges, the nationally rare golden samphire.
Penarfynydd
and Mynydd Craig are designated for chough with two pairs breeding in the coastal
sea caves. They feed on the invertebrates in animal dung and can sometimes be
seen guzzling yellow meadow ants whose nests dot the unploughed grasslands. In
autumn and winter, when the choughs have finished breeding and form mixed
groups, small flocks come to feed on the site.
These chough
have been studied for over 20 years; one of the breeding females was raised in
Port Dinorwig, and probably met her partner when he travelled from Llŷn to roost
over winter in Snowdonia.
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| Golden Hair Lichen |
As Tom says,
‘it’s designated for just about
everything!’
Sheep reductions
Over 20
years ago Mynydd Graig and Mynydd Penarfynydd looked very different; the sites
were used all year round and heavily grazed by sheep with vegetation only a few
centimetres high. In winter, as the
grasses died back and lost their nutrition, the sheep would seek out the sweet
tasty shoots of heather.
As part of a
Section 15 management agreement² with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) sheep
numbers were reduced and excluded altogether during autumn and winter. In the
short term the removal of winter sheep protected the heathland, the structure
of the vegetation became more diverse and suppressed heather was released. But
this summer-only grazing regime was not enough to keep on top of the tougher,
coarser species and the heathland and grassland habitats were becoming engulfed
by gorse and bracken.
As the
coarse, unpalatable species spread, sites such as these become less relevant to
farms and this is often the point at which these sites become abandoned, or
trapped into unsustainable burning cycles in an attempt to clear the gorse and
stimulate a flush of grass. Both the
wildlife and farms lose out.
Ponies
In 2006 10
ponies were introduced to Mynydd Penarfynydd to help tackle the coarse
vegetation and nibble on the gorse to keep the heathlands more open. These ponies, a rare breed from the harsh
environment of the Carneddau, are used to grazing on poor quality vegetation
and ideally suited to life on Penarfynydd.
Whilst they generate no income for the farm Tom says they pay their way by
keeping the vegetation in better condition for sheep. He likes having them
around and, although they are shy of adults, they have made friends with his
young children. They also keep the turf shorter, which helps foraging chough,
and provide the all important source of dung close to the nest sites of the
chough.
Cattle
Mynydd Graig,
which has been occupied since the Bronze Age and has medieval field systems, is
an enormous site needing a large number of animals to make an impact on the
vegetation. 30 Welsh black cattle were
introduced in 2009, helped by a Section 15 management agreement with fencing,
water supply and bracken control works.
Originally these animals were from the family’s breeding herd but, since
taking over the farm, Tom has been tweaking the system.
Supported by
the Llŷn Coastal Partnership³ some fencing for a particularly tricky bit of the
coast has been added, a water trough was moved to resolve the problem of cattle
creating a quagmire on the coastal path, and an additional trough helps spread
the cattle across the site. The biggest
change was a decision to move away from putting cows and calves on the site; Tom
now buys in low value store cattle from the uplands and sells them on after one
year. This system is producing good
margins with the animals remaining on Mynydd Graig all year without any
supplementary feeding.
Bracken
control has helped to increase the area of grazeable land available to both
cattle and sheep with sheep on the site during the late summer but removed for
the winter. This mixed grazing regime is ideal for chough, heath and the
coastal habitats. The cattle help prevent the bracken from returning and have
successfully grazed the rank grassland. They
have also made some in-roads into opening up the heathland and, as part of his
Glastir agreement, Tom will be experimenting with small-scale burns, to help
break-up the vegetation and entice the cattle to graze there and keep even more
of the heath open.
Utilising
Mynydd Graig in this way has provided an entirely new income stream for the
farm which does not place any additional demands on the rest of his
enterprise.
Aberdale Sheep
Although
sheep grazing at the wrong time of year can be damaging to heathland it should be
part of the mix; sheep are particularly important on coastal grasslands where
the diversity of flowers depends upon grazing. Around Llŷn there are numerous examples of
coastal grasslands where grazing has been abandoned or is under-utilised.
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| Aberdales are prolific breeders |
Using the
same principles as he applied to Mynydd Graig with cattle, Tom has been looking
for ways to improve his margins on the unimproved coastal land at Porth
Ysgo. He is currently working with
Innovis, a company which provides Aberdale sheep, a breed which was developed
to help farmers make more efficient use of poorer marginal land. The experiment is working well with 197% scanning
rates and savings on feed costs. Because the ewes cannot be grazed on good land,
without the risk of producing too many lambs, the Aberdales need to be managed
entirely on the marginal land. Even though they are tupped on
the least productive ground, the Aberdale flock can still maintain a high
output of lambs which is critical to the bottom line.
Rotational Cattle grazing
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| Strip grazing |
Tom has also
been experimenting with rotational grazing on his improved land and has
produced a Farming Connect (Welsh Government Knowledge Transfer Programme) case
study to share his experience with other farmers. 60 dairy heifers graze on 12 acres in total;
they graze 1 acre at a time and are moved on every 24 to 72 hours. This system leads to better soil fertility,
healthier plants with deeper roots and better balanced mineral content for
animal nutrition and an increased ratio of dry matter quantity to palatability.
For Tom this
means better liveweight gains and greater utilisation of his improved pasture.
This style of management also reduces the need for expensive fertiliser inputs.
In nature conservation terms the use of fertiliser can have a big, negative
impact by adding atmospheric nitrogen to habitats which rely on being poor in
nutrients for their diversity and richness.
The approach
The
management of Mynydd Graig and Mynydd Penarfynydd has been supported through a
mixture of agri-environment schemes, Section 15 management agreements and
capital works such as fencing and bracken control funded by the Llŷn Coastal
Partnership. Using Section 15 to top up agri-environment schemes was the key in
supporting the introduction of cattle and ponies.
Through
working with the partnership the farm has been able to draw on a broad range of
expertise for working on the management of designated sites. Most importantly
there has been a two way dialogue between the farm and the partnership to
develop solutions that work in the real world.
References
1.
Changes in the extent and fragmentation of
heathland and other semi-natural habitats between 1920–1922 and 1987–1988 in
the Llŷn Peninsula. Stevens 1992
2.
Section 15 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act
1981
3. Llŷn
Coastal Partnership - a long established partnership of statutory agencies, environmental
and community organisations; led by Gwynedd Council and including NRW, National
Trust and RSPB. Cadw’r Lliw yn Llŷn project ran for four years before the
landscape partnership was successful in gaining a Heritage Lottery Fund grant
for a range of projects including heathland management and new walks linked to
the coastal path. The HLF has now
entered its final year. http://www.ahne-Llŷn-aonb.org/36/en-GB/Landscape-Partnership
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