Farmer in running for top award

A vale of Glamorgan farmer is on the brink of becoming the first winner of the Nature of Farming Award.

Peter Davies of Slade Farm in Southerndown, Vale of Glamorgan, is one of four UK finalists bidding for public votes to take the new award from the RSPB and BBC Countryfile magazine and a prize of £1,000.

Mr Davies, 52, and his wife Rosamund farm 324 hectares – 800 acres – of Glamorgan's Heritage Coast on land that includes two separate Site of Special Scientific Interest, as well as two Ancient Monument sites.

The tenanted organic farm includes a mixture of arable land, cattle and sheep farming and outdoor pigs, all managed in a way that encourages wildlife to thrive.

Since 1970, the number of farmland birds across Britain has fallen by more than 40%, mostly because intensive farming methods reduce bird habitats.

At Slade Farm, Mr Davies provides feeding and breeding areas for some of the most threatened farmland bird species in Wales such as owls, choughs, yellowhammers, peregrines and tree sparrows.

Other important Welsh wildlife on the farm includes voles, great-crested newts, brown hares, lesser horseshoe bats and a variety of moths, butterflies and rare plants.

Slade Farm is one of the only sites in the UK for some plant species and was one of the first to be signed up to the Tir Gofal agri-environment scheme in 1999.