No Place Like Homegrown: Benefits of Growing Bird Food at Home
British Bird Food Direct from Haith's and British Farmers: With local sourcing a key ingredient of any (good) bird food manufacturer, we're pleased to say that our Great & British Farmland Bird Food is 100% British and Superclean. What else would you expect from Britain's best loved bird food specialist?
If you’re looking to #BuyBritish our Great & British bird food could be just what you’re looking for. Ours isn’t just British, though, it’s SUPERCLEAN™, super fresh and blended by experts. It’s not terribly high in energy, but it’s a good everyday wild bird food that’s affordable and Made in Britain. We suggest you still feed high-energy bird foods to supplement what this food lacks in calories.
Great & British Farmland bird food.
British Bird Food Direct from Haith's and British Farmers:
Since 1937, Haith’s has purchased its raw materials in a responsible manner, focusing on the long-term benefits of nature conservation. Today more than 50% of our raw materials are sourced in Britain*, with large volumes sourced locally. We’re proud of that fact, but we continue to search for the best ways to further reduce our environmental footprint and increase, where possible, this figure.
In future years we’ll be working harder to purchase seed from British farmers who have signed up to Natural England’s Entry Level Stewardship Scheme, and “with nearly 60% of England’s agricultural land now in (ELS) Entry Level Stewardship” (according to Natural England), they are becoming easier to find.
The EL Scheme supports efforts to help farmland birds, such as Skylarks and Lapwings, thrive on farms. The Scheme also recognises that a “majority of farmland birds feed their young on insects and so require insect-rich foraging habitats for successful breeding.” Facts we have known for years as a birdfeeding community. British Farmers working with experts, to mprove nature conservation in-situ, is an important paradigm shift, because it will mean that more birds get fed.
How?
In an average garden, we are feeding many birds because their natural habitat has disappeared. However, when you buy from Haith’s your money is feeding more birds because the farmer is investing in nature conservation and feeding birds on his farm too, your single investment now gets bigger results. And it’s not just the birds that benefit; protecting water on farms helps "protect and provide the habitat for bats, newts, water voles and other small animals to flourish,” reports Natural England, Source: Farming for Birds (NE232). Note, though, that it’s important to keep in mind that British sourcing is only one (small) chapter of a much larger story...
Science-based quality control (QC) is essential, if birds are to benefit from supplementary feeding. A British bird food that’s full of dust, extraneous husk and nutritionally deplete helps no-one and just wastes resources. Wherever seeds come from (Britain or otherwise), they need to be cleaned as dust is harmful to a bird’s respiratory system and extraneous husk can damage delicate tissues and allow entry to pathogens.
* Total - the combined volume (by kg) of Haith’s wild bird food * Bill Oddie’s Bird Food Recipes. Combined total/volume means that some bird foods may have more British ingredients than others and that some may have no British ingredients.
Written by Haith's
