Why commoners matter - a view from Ann Willcocks
Ann Willcocks
‘Dartmoor farmers never travelled very far - there has to be a link from Stone Age people, and the medieval period, and then to us. That's pretty deep roots. I think that's awesome, and I don't want to see those roots severed.’
Ann has been at Meads farm for 25 years, where she farms with her husband and son. They keep cattle, sheep and ponies, with rights to graze on Harford and Ugborough Commons. Ann is also of the Harford & Ugborough commoners association.
When we meet Ann, the threatened rains have held off. We walk away from her farm, across a field, and onto Harford Moor, one of Dartmoor’s commons on the southern edge of the national park. We follow what feels like an ancient, long-trodden route beneath old sycamores and hawthorns and jumblings of huge boulders. Very soon the view opens out and the trees thin to reveal the acid grassland dotted with clumps of low growing western gorse and bracken on open pasture. We look back over the lower, wooded land. Ahead of us, the higher ground of the common is shrouded, for now, in low cloud.
As we walk, Ann she tells us about her long relationship with Dartmoor. She grew up on the edge of Crownhill Down, just over the hill from where we are now. From here, she left to go to agricultural college in Aberystwyth and shepherded on several farms before coming back to Devon. She has been here on Meads farm with her husband William for 25 years, with Will’s family arriving in Harford in 1917. It’s home: Ann is as leared to the land as her animals are, and she smiles as she tells us how important this place is for herself and the family, for whom each small area holds memories. ‘We've been up to this little pond here, to look at frogs and tadpoles; we’ve been out on common at night listening to snipe, so many things. There are so many stories that will be handed down, little things, but important things.’
Thinking about commons: past, present and future
This sense of attachment is not just personal, though. Ann sees it as something collective and more generally, and sadly, undervalued. ‘If you go to Australia or New Zealand, they talk about their indigenous people.’ Ann wonders why this kind of lineage is under-acknowledged in England. “Dartmoor farmers never travelled very far - there has to be a link from Stone Age people, and the medieval period, and then to us. That's pretty deep roots. I think that's awesome, and I don't want to see those roots severed. That's why, wherever I can, I’m fighting for the collective of commoners. It's not for me, but it might be for the next generation, and the next generation. Unfortunately, we're spending an awful lot of time firefighting at the minute, just trying to maintain our position.”
Twelve years ago, there were ten graziers on Harford Moor - now there are seven. Ann is concerned about what could happen if this decline continues, with the loss of graziers and with them, the shared knowledge about the land, and the quality of the stock that has developed a hardiness from living on the moor.
Ann is a vocal advocate for commoners and continually presses for commoners to be included in conversations that determine the direction of farming and commoning practices. She is secretary of Harford and Ugborough Commoners Association, is on Dartmoor Commoners Council, and is in regular contact with Defra (the UK government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). She recognises the importance of considering a number of viewpoints as landscape decisions are made, including organisations such as Natural England and Butterfly Conservation trusts yet is keen that the commoners themselves are not overlooked. ‘We've got to value those people who are privileged to be commoners, the ones who do the day-to-day work, those who provide the livestock.’
Habitats, species diversity and measuring
While we’ve been talking, Ann has been checking piles of dung, picking up handfuls and carefully picking through them - she’s been learning about dung beetles and excitedly reveals several different beetles in just one handful of dung. ‘There’s an ecosystem that relies on that dung, and on the beetles,’ she says. ‘The fact that the land is grazed creates different habitats. This close-cropped grassland is what the golden plovers like; the gorse is what the stonechats like; the bracken is what the whinchats like; then there are wheatears, and cuckoos. You can't have all trees, or all bracken or all gorse, you’ve got to have diversity.’
“Nobody has ever come in and said, well, that’s looking better. Why aren’t we more positive? Because things are better. ”
As we walk, we discuss the national and international concern about decline in many species of wildlife, and what’s happening on the common in this context. Ann stresses the importance of having adequate data. ‘We've done thirteen years of agreements up here. Nobody has ever come in and said, well, that's looking better. Why aren't we more positive? Because things are better. You know, this never used to have any gorse, it used to be all acid grassland. We've now got a habitat for stonechats. And look at the end of the stony areas up there – the grass is getting too long and the wheatear numbers may well be declining. But there are many dung beetles.’
It seems to be good news that habitats for some species of wildlife are improving, but there’s a problem as well: ‘Nobody measures it, because this isn’t classified as a SSSI {a site of special scientific interest}, there’s no data,’ says Ann. ‘Why not?’ Ann believes there are many farmers who are happy to help monitor what’s happening on the commons and use this information to inform practice. For instance, the Farming Futures Project on the Dartmoor Forest trialed the delivery of outcomes on common land, working very closely with the commoners and giving the commoners a sense of ownership of an environmental scheme.
Thinking about governance
Ann is not only an experienced farmer and commoner; she has studied commons and commoning in detail, and completed a Masters thesis exploring group approaches to agreements on commons. She explains that the term ‘commons’ does not mean these areas are common property, or that anyone is free to do what they like there: commons are governed by the communities that are connected to them. ‘There's been governance on Commons probably since time began. It's not a lawless society.’ Not all commoners get on well within their common’s associations, but for Ann, the community discussions are vital and commoners work together to adapt to changing recommendations.
Over several decades, schemes have changed and stocking numbers have risen and then fallen; currently the emphasis is on delivery of ‘Public Goods’ with payment schemes intended to support farming practices that are more nature friendly. Understanding what’s happening on any individual common is crucial, as is acknowledging what’s already supporting valuable habitats. ‘Meads Farm has been in the family since 1939,’ says Ann. ‘The farmland here on the edge of the common has probably never been ploughed - it might have had potatoes in it during the war, that would be it. We've got deep soils, and permanent pasture. Do we keep it as it is? If not, do we risk losing the diversity that we've got here? It’s a species-rich grassland, and the soil has organic matter in it, and holds carbon.’
Ann talks again about the process of supporting commoning. ‘It comes back to having conversations and getting all the people who are interested together, to reason what they want, and find ways to keep commoners and livestock here.’ This bring me a question that presents itself repeatedly: each common is unique, with different people, different topography and vegetations, and different stocking numbers, so what is a ‘good’ common?
‘A good common,’ says Ann, ‘is where you have commoners, and where you have a functioning Commoning Association; and within that Commoning Association, you've got some people who are drivers, to get the job done. I know there are breakdowns of communications in some commoning associations and that's where we need an organisation to come in to facilitate. But what we don't want to see is a significant amount of money being paid out to opportunists, and we have to bring everybody into the conversation.”
“We have to find systems that work. It’s really important that we recognise the whole livestock system, not just a bit that facilitates agreements on common land.”
There are no simple answers, and there are many issues to resolve. One of the conundrums is how to release grazing pressure on commons over winter, and still find sufficient ground for cattle and sheep in the winter. Sheds are prohibitively expensive, and rental prices for land are increasing. ‘We have to find systems that work. It's really important that we recognise the whole livestock system, not just a bit that facilitates agreements on common land. It's about ensuring we have a sustainable number of animals to breed from, so that we can breed our own replacements. How can we facilitate off wintering, if that’s what’s asked for? How do we enable that to happen?’
Ann talks about the integral relationship between the home farm, with ‘inbye’ land, and the common. Meads Farm is a 25-acre farm with other land away, and rights to graze on Hartford Moor. ‘The common rights are absolutely integral. If we couldn’t graze on the common, the business would become unviable; we wouldn't be able to keep the hill cows or the hill sheep, we wouldn't have that stratification. It's important to keep the common and the status of commoners.’
In a time when the government is still planning the details of a new system of payments to support farmers, Ann is keen to see a whole support system that recognises the benefits of livestock off and on the common: keeping numbers right on the common, keeping farms viable. And at the heart of managing a balanced system, are people. ‘If you haven't got a viable farm on the edge of a common you’ve got nothing. It's easy to sell a farm house with a little bit of land for somebody to come and enjoy. But do they have the ability, the knowledge, the livestock? The animals know where they go and the commoners know their common like the back of their hand. And that knowledge isn't really appreciated. I don't think it's valued.’
Walking with Ann, we get a strong sense of a deep knowledge that is born from being in place, day after day, year after year. It’s something we have felt on many different commons, in different parts of the country. This is part of the natural and cultural capital of the uplands. It’s something that’s intangible and not easily articulated - certainly more difficult to measure than money - but not all that counts can be counted. Perhaps it’s best understood by being out on a moor in the company of someone who carries this knowledge.
Rob makes a large format portrait of Ann, before the rain sets in