OAKBANK NEWS AND BLOG

Addressing deer pressure is a core concern for anyone managing woodlands and the government has just unveiled a 10-year plan to help. In England, land use change, introduction of non-native species and a lack of natural predators have contributed to increased deer impacts. Without action, excessive deer pressure prevents young trees from establishing, degrades habitats (for example, undergrowth habitat loss has contributed to over 90% increase in nightingale numbers since the

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Emma Reynolds, announced in her speech at the NFU Conference the welcome return of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2026, with a dedicated budget of £50m. FETF 2026 will re-open for applications on 17th March  and will be available to all eligible farmers, growers, forestry owners and contractors in England (those registered with the RPA with an Single Business Identifier (SBI) number.) 💡 This anno

This week, a new global report published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) examines the interdependencies between business and biodiversity. In a world that has to grapple with new ways of achieving economic growth, without further degrading nature, the assessment is that despite data quality and methodologies improving, global business remains too tangled in complexity to deliver meaningful nature-positive action

As I made my way to Oxford for my second year at the Conference, the weather warnings made a part of me wonder if we’ll all end up snowed‑in together in the Examination Rooms, Ministers included. It would certainly allow plenty of time for the kind of in‑depth conversations farming needs right now! Joking aside, the Oxford Farming Conference always feels like the perfect place to take stock of where policy in practice is heading, particularly in England. December brought some

Today, the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published the new Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) for England , - a "detailed roadmap" to deliver legally binding environmental targets under the Environment Act 2021. Alongside the EIP, the government has announced £500 million in public funding for Landscape Recovery , designed to leverage private finance such as Biodiversity Net Gain units and carbon credits, and £85 million to improve and r

Defra confirms a one-year Countryside Stewardship Mid-Tier extension for over 5,000 English farmers, offering payment continuity and environmental delivery support.

You can hardly go to an arable farming event without hearing about "cover crops" and "catch crops". But are they worth the space, time...

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs)  are spatial plans, stemming from the Environment Act 2021, to drive habitat restoration, nature-based solutions and environmental improvements across England. With nature in decline (e.g. species studied across the UK have declined on average by 19% since 1970) and in the context of national targets for reversing this decline, LNRSs should provide locally led roadmaps showing where best outcomes (i.e. most needed and most likely to su