Have farmers destroyed all our hedges?

[@threeriversforge1997]

Excellent analysis, and a good illustration of why you should be wary of anyone trying to blame others for something. Usually, there's a lot more to the story. One thing I will note, though, is that the old sources referenced were only looking at the hedgerows in terms of farming and ignored a lot of the other benefits. For example, the hedges needed to be tended and that was work for hundreds of people in the community. The wood removed from the hedges was used for fuel as well as products that could be used around the home - like buckets, troughs, ladders, spoons, and chairs. The bodgers were once a very lively part of the local culture, but lets not forget that they also helped to create other jobs. The local blacksmith was needed to forge the axes and billhooks that the bodgers used. Colliers were needed to turn the brash into charcoal for homes and businesses. When people turned their backs on that part of their culture, they put hundreds of people out of work, but they also sacrificed a part of their regional heritage. And for what? Were the goods really cheaper when imported and the people now made reliant upon some manufacturer in some far off land - whether that be the big city miles away or a country on the other side of the world. The products are still being made, just not by the guy down the street. Hedgerows are very important and I think we do a disservice to ourselves when we don't take the whole picture in. For farming, they can be a bit of a chore, but how is removing them really a benefit? Using modern flail cutters to trim them is nice, but that tells us that we've made the working environment so difficult that we can no longer employ hundreds of men to do the job and do it better. There's always more to the story, and the things we support, or don't, can often have very long-lasting ramifications that we never see because they take so long to show up.

[@g.m.9180]

"Biodiversity" is not just deer and pigeons... hedges are a shelter not for deer but for smaller mammals and birds of all kinds, and just as importantly, a reservoir for a whole variety of plants, insects and arthropods, fungi... I get you may consider these as pests but they still evolved with a role to play in an interconnected ecosystem. Their benefits to farmers may not be immediately visible, but if what remains of the biodiversity of our landscapes continues to collapse, we can be pretty sure that crops will be impacted... that's even if we manage to revert climate change by some miracle

[@g.m.9180]

also earthworms (thrive in a soil rich in biodiversity, but disappear in a soil too heavily amended with pesticides and fertilizers)

[@g.m.9180]

The real tragedy is that this conundrum lands on the shoulders of farmers, when the whole society should be responsible for it

[@Senthiuz]

The biodiversity also helps somewhat with pest control through predation. Many pests attack single species, but since they tend to have short lifecycles a predator usually cannot survive on a single pest alone, having a variety of ready plants provides a reason for predators to stick around and be ready for when crops get swarmed. Diverse cover cropping can have some of the same benefits.

[@piotrwojdelko1150]

I like British hedges

[@grantdickerson6103]

what about hedge funds

[@maxsonthonax1020]

Have hedge funds destroyed all farmers? 😅

[@06a09]

at around 7 minute mark you mention flooding. i'd argue hedges and trees definitely do stop flooding as they slow down the rate that water runs off land into rivers. drains do the opposite, as do non permeable things like concrete. they speed the rate that water runs off an area. might be good for the land owner, not so great for the people living down stream being overwhelmed by everybody else water. trees increase permeability in soil and also increase the overall surface area of the land. the water hits the canopy, then flows down the trees slowly. id go as far to say this is probably the reason for the increased flooding around the country that the establishment keeps blaming on climate change. its probably got more to do with people concreting over everything upstream. (new build housing estates, roads etc etc).

[@Senthiuz]

Increasing impermeable surfaces upstream or downstream is a big issue for farmers. Cause who is the flood control authority going to let flood in a big wash? 50 acres of fields or 50 acres of houses? The retention/permeability difference between a hedge and a field isn't significant compared to a field and a building. Any project needs to come with retention offset requirements to encourage less impermeable surfaces used and mitigate downstream effects caused.

[@martinhambleton5076]

The gross flooding blamed on climate change is really because no maintenance is carried out on canals and rivers. Because of vast amounts of silt and weed and years of deliberate neglect. Climate change can even be used these days for a bad case of hemorrhoids it seems. The real cause is forever laziness and expense.

[@mws16sparks]

The hedgerow management cycle, and Nigel Adams are both good places to start. Viewing hedges as dynamic rather than static objects helps keep them healthy, and provide the benefits to wildlife and farmers that they bring. As an aside - a laid hedge is not normally left bare at both sides in a field, it depends on style, but there’d often be a side with brash, or small branches left on to keep stock from browsing. It help protect the re growth and provides shelter for birds wildlife etc.

[@peterfoster8004]

A newly laid hedge is only thin and spindley when its newly laid. In subsquent years that hedge, if well maintained, will be come a dense and ecconomical stock-proof barrier that will not rot and rust like a post and wire fence

[@footshotstube]

foxes for certain & a few confirmed species of bat are known to frequently use hedges as corridoors and hunting patrol routes

[@grahamcuthbert783]

A load of crap, none of my hedges have ditches, most hedges including thin hedges are wildlife corridors, good for nesting birds even laid hedges are used, the Yellowhammer loves to nest at the base of a hedge. Strips of woodland are maybe better than a thin hedge but to say that hedges are not important is an ignorant remark.

[@glennlingard7851]

You obviously haven’t been to Lincolnshire!!

[@georgeniceguy3934]

Love the video. Keep up the good work fam!

[@angelinashcherbakova1568]

I've never been so invested in hedges in my life

[@maxsonthonax1020]

"Animals... participating in this great game of The Floor Is Lava." 😂

[@davydacounsellor]

I suggest to look into tree fodder. The dutch have been doing it for thousands of years, sheep farmers in new Zealand still do it today, as a lot of hedge row trees even have deworming attributes, privet being one, my uncle once told me to cut a privet to give the sheep something to eat and mineral up takers like beech, Interesting subject.

[@nickhbt]

I normally love your videos, but this video shows an appallingly poor understanding of the tragedy of the Commons. Please read Elinor Ostrom's original work, or the derivative work of counyless authors like David Graeber or any non Neoclassical economist.

[@rogermason6808]

I.M.O hedges need to be cut and laid so that the vegetation remains small and thick. When allowed to get to big gaps develop and then livestock and deer etc quickly make holes and it is not long before the destruction gets out of control and the whole hedge is ruined. I think hedges do provide shelter from the wind, rain and sun when sheep can be seen taking advantage of them. I hate to see hedges replaced with wire for that reason and I love to see a well kept traditional hedge.

[@Idontwantmynamehere]

Out of curiosity, how much of that 17.4% hedge loss do you think could be the result of expanding cities that develop farmland? Should developers be told they can't remove the 'ancient' and 'natural' hedgerows when they are building their new subdivisions?

[@mws16sparks]

Hedgerow regulations only apply to hedges in the countryside, so as soon as planning is given for development they are no longer protected. Bonkers

[@gracehurst486]

Me and Matt enjoyed watching!😊

[@TransportSupremo]

Im hedge cutting at the moment. It burns quite a lot of diesel. Hedges don't help with emissions

[@Washpenrebel]

The most important bit of information missed in the comments is before 1800. There were no enclosed lands. So no hedgerows or very little. The countryside we see today is relatively new. If you fly into Austria you'll still see the land strips of all the different crops.

[@Rissen_]

but before before that it was woodland and meadows etc, rather have the hedge rows as a compromise since its unrealistic to to turn alot of our farms back into proper meadows, woodlands and wetlands

[@Washpenrebel]

@Rissen_ it depends where you lived. Most woodlands were sown in the 1500s and 1600s to be playgrounds for the wealthy landowners. Most of these were plantations and man made for hunting. If I want to really blow your mind. Rabbits are not a native mammal of the UK. Most of the deers aren't either apart from the red deer. You have a view of the past that's far, far from reality.

[@benjamindejonge3624]

To hedge or not, that’s the question. Wheat farmers in Canada taking them out, dough it ain’t easy and expensive while on the other hand the Germans bring back the tree rows on their farmlands as windbreakers and the natural capacity of mineral distribution

[@nicks4934]

I just let our hedge grow. Looks great

[@LotharTheFellhanded]

So I'm not sure if I'm off the mark, but why don't the people collectively improve the common land? Because they'll share the cost and the benefits? I feel like all farming problems eventually come back to 'commune farms work best".

[@jonathanwhite460]

because enclosures happened over 200 years ago.

[@Senthiuz]

Most of enclosure was a land grab by the Lords. It was a way for them to turn lands they couldn't charge rent for into land they could. Increased productivity was more or less a happy byproduct. Farmers couldn't do it because you needed money or friends in parliament, and a passle of farmers had neither.

[@tombrown407]

They did. The enclosures where motivated by greed and theft by the aristocracy.

[@toddberkely6791]

different mindset and the extremely marginal gains of preindustrial agriculture. peasant mindset is about minimising risk, not maximising profit. once you understand this peasant cultures worldwide make sense.

[@martinhambleton5076]

We have more specialists and experts in agriculture than any other industry at a guess. Sometime ago, I heard that there are roughly 100,000 farmers in the UK and roughly 600,000 in administration. That is a ratio of 6:1 Many of these will be quangos and I doubt that many of them will have ever set foot on a farm or even know anything practical and agriculture related. In France, for instance, from Calais to the Swiss border was World War One front line. As a consequence of that, no greenery by way of hedges and trees is not older than the cessation of that war in 1918 Nature always overcomes and adapts. Farmers are very much seen but not heard. They have a bad press in general. The government wants control with carrot and stick tactics. But most of all, the governments want cheap food. For a long time now, farmers have been busy fools. Farmers are very industrious, hard-working people. In reality, I would say that they are working for far less than the minimum wage. However, the narrative presented is a bunch of Hooray Henry's who drive Range Rovers and shout, "Get off my land, you buggers!!" This couldn't be further from the truth.

[@DavidRose-m8s]

There's been a large increase in Forest in NZ where previously milled or abandoned hillsides have returned to forest with introduced Gorse often being the forest nursery. Where native cover has gone backwards is where exotic forests have been planted. This is often done sneakily where mixed pasture, and native tree hillsides are planted in pine. When the pine is harvested all the natives are cleared completely. This is mostly done by corporations often after carbon credits so go figure.

[@Andreasson_]

Impressive work

[@emilyhaskins2434]

great video!😄

[@Likemusicat4]

Your hedges look great! It does boggle my mind when i see farmers cutting hedges within an inch of their life, why waste the time and money?

[@malkomalkavian]

What about Benson?

[@aleksanderstawiarski9829]

Love it!

[@jamesthomas4841]

Both figures for hedges can be true, the 50% loss is net loss the 17.4% gross loss. I am not sure whether the 50% figure is accurate but it is certainly reconcilable with a 17.4% gross loss. I suspect there has been some manipulation of figures by advocates for hedges but I don't know that. Many miles of hedgerows have been lost but remember new hedges have been planted as well. New road schemes almost always have new boundary hedges. In recent years farmers and other land managers have had incentives to plant new hedgerows. Certainly where I am from there has been substantial loss of hedgerows but there has been some replanting. Not all hedgerows date from the parliamentary enclosure period though in Leicestershire most will have. Even in counties like Leicestershire they were many hedges that predate the enclosure process. Small fields around the village were common even before the big open fields were enclosed. Further parish boundaries were almost always hedges. The common would have been hedged at it's boundaries to stop animals wandering onto the arable open fields. In some cases each of the open fields would have been hedged to allow for animals to graze them when they were in fallow. Some hedges even in areas like the East Midlands are thousands of years old. Finally a well maintained hedge is a far more effective barrier than for example a post and rail fence. On our land we rarely have animals getting through a hedge but I am continuously having to repair wire and post and rail fences.

[@davidwiiliams1656]

Well explained

[@5UM0N3]

Not the tragedy of the commons, such a BS premise 🤦 6:54 It's not just that they absord water, they slow it and also prevent soil erosion. Why misrepresent? 7:52 Ah yes the two sole forms of wildlife, birds and deer. C'mon dude. Otherwise interesting video! Coexistence is important, striking a balance for farmers and wildlife

[@footshotstube]

foxes and thir prey Bats all use hedges , indeed batwont cross a gap of a new gate in a hege ,iveseen it , and ive done the surveys ,thts my reference oh and ive layed more hedges than i have planted aswel

[@Rachaella454]

👏🏼👏🏼

[@fegtynpax5147]

You hsvr more hedges then we do in America

[@Nosawoapamen]

"You don't solve drainage problems with hedges. You solve them with drains." Very true.

[@Rissen_]

Not true, ever heard of soil drainage? a water table? Aquaifers? the way water was diverted for thousands and thousands of years before our drains that are built on a system of crusty old bursting pipes as it is, so adding more to the already understress system isnt going to help anyone, we do need to fix our infastructure but thats for urban expansions and normal rainfall, not to make up for the issues that a barron field with no organic matter left in the soil or hedgerows makes(floods and droughts).

[@charliedoherty5965]

Take off that scarf lad.