A FARMER has signed up to a scheme which aims to improve the countryside and protect the region's threatened farmland birds.
Applications for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' Countryside Stewardship Scheme increased by 20 per cent in the North-East last year.
Options available for the first time this year include creating feeding and nesting areas for seed-eating birds.
Guy Rutter, of West House Farm, Bishop Middleham, already has a stewardship agreement covering his 400-acre arable farm which has enabled him to recreate rare flower-rich limestone grassland.
He hopes to add an agreement to create over-wintering stubble for corn buntings and tree sparrows, leave unsprayed crop headlands for insect-eating birds and plant wild bird seed mixtures.
For more information on how stewardship can be integrated into a farming business, call 0191-214 1800.
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