Landscape and nature oriented farms at Twickel
A phased approach
After meetings with the tenants at Twickel the zest to take part in the pilot project ‘Farming for Nature' turned out to be bigger than expected. Because of this, it was decided to use a phased approach in future projects. In the first phase ten farms, scattered all over the estate were chosen. Seven of these chose for a landscape oriented farm, the other three will become nature oriented farms.
Landscape oriented farms
The farmers have difficulty with working the corners and sides of their land. These uneconomic parts are very suitable to be retracted from production and to be managed in another way, for example as coppice wood bush or thicket. The tenants that chose for the landscape oriented version will receive compensation for the parcels that were retracted from production and redesigned as landscape element. An adequate compensation system is still being worked on.
Nature oriented farms
In the first phase concrete plans have been worked out for three farms to be transformed into nature oriented farms. In the farming plans the surrounding wet moors, which are rare in the Netherlands, will be part of the nature oriented farms. On the three farms part of the land will be wetter by draining the ground water less deeply. In this way good conditions are made for meadowlands with diverse species and for water storage. At the same time the recovery of the ground water level in the adjacent moors is realized. The monitoring of the changes has already started. Attention is paid to: effects on farm economics, ecological effects on grassland development, development of unique flora, development of the summer bird population, development of the soil and the production capacity; yields and costs; (social) effects on the neighbourhood, etc. These data will be stated in a yearly report.
The farming plans of these three businesses can be found elsewhere on this website.