• Home
• Wild plants
• Key habitats
• Arable farmland

Arable farmland

Arable farmland refers to fields that are used to grow crops; the word ‘arable’ comes from the Latin word arare which means ‘to plough’. There is currently almost 5 million hectares of arable land in the UK which amounts to 20% of the total UK land area; so it provides a sizable habitat.

There are around 150 plants that have adapted to the demanding routine of the arable habitat, from the iconic cornflower, golden corn marigold and brilliant red poppies, the wild flowers of this intensive landscape do their best to provide diversity, colour and beauty.

Key issues

Although arable farmland is an extensive habitat the intensification of arable farming since the 1940s has resulted in the vast majority of it becoming ever hostile to the wildlife that finds a home there, especially the wild plants. Farmers have become so effective at controlling arable 'weeds' that of the 30 species that have shown the greatest decline across Britain, 60% are found in arable and other cultivated land and no other habitat has seen a higher level of species extinction. A combination of improved seed cleaning, increased fertiliser use, high yielding crop varieties and the introduction of herbicides has all contributed to their decline. Arable plants are now the UK’s most threatened group of flora.

In fact far from being opportunistic ‘weeds’, appearing wherever ploughed land exists, the life-cycles of wild arable plants are actually quite complex, reflecting subtle variations in soil, aspect and climate, with many rare species showing high fidelity to historic areas. Certain hotspot areas therefore need to be targeted in order to maximise the gain for important arable plant communities. A valuable attribute of many arable flowers, including prickly poppy and night-flowering catchfly, is that they have seed that can lie dormant in the soil for many years. This is good news in that this means even some of Britain’s rarest arable flowers can respond to sympathetic management, which should not affect the commercial value of the crop.

What we're doing about it

Plantlife is taking action through the following:

• Plantlife arable plants project.
• Conservation work at our Ranscombe Farm reserve.
• Tir Gofal monitoring project.