AS John Heslop walks across his fields, there is a frantic flapping of wings and a pair of partridges rise majestically into the air. Everywhere there is the sweet sound of birdsong and the rough grassland margins along the edges of the fields rustle with life.

Langton Farm at Langton village between Darlington and Barnard Castle is an example of how farmers can work with nature. Its fields throng with birdlife, not just the partridges, but pheasants, curlew, lapwing, skylark and a wealth of small songbirds. There are also hares and deer.

John is one of those farmers who acknowledges his industry's responsibility to repair damage caused by decades of intensive agriculture.

Indeed, the evidence that intensive farming destroyed habitats, sending the likes of curlew, lapwing, skylark and songbirds spiralling into decline, is overwhelming.

Currently the European Union and the British Government are reviewing the subsidy system which has for decades supported mass production of food. They, and environmentalists, want to see more finance diverted towards environmentally-friendly schemes. Those conducting the review would do well to examine the many farms like John Heslop's.

John is a 63-year-old third generation farmer. Langton Farm was started by his grandfather in 1912, and John took it over from his father in 1976, today farming 270 acres, 200 acres arable devoted to wheat, barley and oilseed rape, the rest to cattle and sheep.

He agrees that subsidy-supported intensive farming caused damage. "We have got a lot to rectify. Everybody focused on arable and I think that did a lot of harm," he says.

"I used to focus on production. That was what everyone was supposed to do. We needed to make a living by producing as much as we possibly could."

However three decades ago, he started talking to a couple of local ramblers in a village pub. "Talking to them made me realise that the footpaths and the countryside meant a lot to people."

Since then he has done what he can to encourage wildlife and is today a recipient of grants from the national Countryside Stewardship scheme which has financed projects such as planting new hedgerows and woodland. John also protects grassland margins around his fields and is exploring the possibility of creating a pond.

The problem is that Countryside Stewardship grants, some of which are being reduced, simply finance the projects - £2 per mile of hedge planting, £3 per cubic metre of pond, for example.

John believes that with many farms struggling financially, grants for environmental schemes have to be larger to make a contribution towards the overall costs of running farms. At their current levels they give the impression that the environment is an add-on rather than an integral part of agriculture.

John says that many farmers have difficulty accommodating environmentally-friendly schemes in the current harsh economic climate. He has witnessed a steady decline in the number of smaller farms, farmers either selling their land for development or being swallowed up by large 'super farms'.

Family farms, hit by unfavourable export currency conditions, fierce competition from other countries, and concerns over BSE and foot-and-mouth, simply cannot survive. "Farmers are used to perhaps one bad year but we have had four or five in succession. Foot-and-mouth will accelerate what is happening but I have a strong feeling that there should be a place for family farms," he says.

"However, the price of land is artificially high which reduces the chances of anyone new coming into farming. My children do not wish to go into farming but if I had a son wishing to follow me it would be murder for him to make a living and yet so many young lads are involved in farming and love it."

Although he appreciates suggestions that farmers facing calls for a reduction in mass production target niche markets, such as specialist meats, instead, he argues that such an approach will not support an entire industry. "And the more people produce for a niche market the less it becomes a niche market," he argues.

John and many like him would rather see a system which allows farmers to continue producing the necessary level of food while also being paid to protect the environment. He would like to see a change to set-aside, in which farmers are paid to leave fields fallow to avoid food surpluses, introducing a more realistic payment more in line with the income which a field might normally earn.

Farmers would, he believes, willingly enter into agreements which pledged them to restore and enhance wildlife habitats on their land. "I think things are getting better and farmers have realised that they cannot go on the same way. I think farming has realised that purely producing food is not as important as it once was.

"But if Countryside Stewardship is being reduced it does not really encourage farmers. And environmental work does have to be paid for."

It is a sentiment echoed by the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG), which helps farmers attain Countryside Stewardship funding. In the Yorkshire Region's latest newsletter, Phil Lyth, the Farm Conservation Advisor based in Northallerton, said that without environmentally-minded farmers, there would not be properly managed countryside to support creatures such as curlew, golden plover and red grouse.

He writes: "We need to take some tough decisions on what sort of farming industry we want in this new Millennium: assuming that we want one. I have no doubt in my mind that we do need farmers and that conservation is as much about people as it is wildlife."

Back on John Heslop's farm, the partridge have settled down into the deep grassy field margin again. It is the type of scene which could be enacted on every farm in the land with the right approach