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Farm payments

<strong>Q) Our DIY shoot has done its best to stay on the right side of the farm manager by always keeping to the edges of the fields and avoiding standing crops or drillings. However, he has now told us that we cannot drive around the edges of the arable fields, even close against the hedge, because he will lose some of his farm payment if we do so. Is this true? (Name and address withheld)</strong>

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A) That is correct. If the ground over which you shoot is in a Stewardship scheme, the edges of the fields will probably be ?grass margins?. These attract a payment if they are part of either Entry Level or Higher Level Stewardship, due to their conservation value, and that payment can be stopped if they are driven on because this is rightly seen as having a negative effect on anything using the margins for nesting or brood-rearing.