The Silver Lapwing competition is sponsored by farmcare, the UK’s leading farm management business and part of the Co-operative Group, and organised by the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG), the UK’s leading independent provider of on-farm conservation and environmental advice.

Michael McWhinney, FWAG’s Marketing Manager, said “The competition’s new country structure has resulted in more farmers taking part. Wildlife habitats and conservation features vary between countries and are valuable environmental assets from which farmers can derive useful income.

Christine Tacon, General Manager of farmcare, said "Farming profitably, yet in sympathy with wildlife, is every farmer's aspiration. The Silver Lapwing Award highlights the ways in which some of the UK’s leading farmers are achieving this balance and publicises them for the greater benefit of the whole industry. The Award is even more relevant to our industry since CAP reform now puts responsibility for the environment firmly at the farmer’s door, linking future payments to it.”

“Farmcare has increased its sponsorship of the Silver Lapwing Award this year to ensure that all the regions of the UK were separately assessed and publicised. Clearly, the actions a lowland arable farmer takes to encourage wildlife will be rather different than those of a livestock hill farmer, and we feel it is important that the Award embraces both. We hope that the Silver Lapwing Award will encourage every farmer to do a little bit more than they have before, which will have a far greater impact on the environment than even the best efforts of the few most active farmers.

The relevance of the Award for today’s farmers cannot be overestimated, making it even more important that the activities of our excellent national winners are widely recognised.”

Further information

To enter The Silver Lapwing Award, click here and follow the Silver Lapwing link.

For information regarding Farm Care click here

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