MANY vulnerable farm birds could suffer a terrible blow after moves to suspend the setting aside of fallow land resulting in huge losses in nesting and feeding sites across the South East.

Set-aside was introduced in 1992 to remove land from production and reduce the EU's grain mountains, but in 2007 the EU suspended set aside for a year. And now the European Commission has put forward proposals to abolish it completely next year as part of a health check of the Common Agricultural Policy.

According to a DEFRA study released last week, there could be a massive 77 per cent reduction in temporary fallow land across the south east with a third less land put down to permanent habitats such as grass.

This is bad news for birds such as stone curlews, lapwings and tree sparrows, which depend on fallow plots for nesting sites and food.

RSPB spokesperson, Hester Phillips, said: "Despite repeated efforts from south east farmers to keep their land fallow, economic constraints mean many can't afford to do so now set-a-side has been suspended.

Farmland birds are in dire straits across the south east and the shocking scale of set-a-side loss is a further blow to these precious birds."

The RSPB's Gareth Morgan, Head of Agriculture Policy, added: "We are extremely worried about what this means for wildlife, especially as the European Commission have failed to put a realistic proposal on the table for anything to replace the wildlife benefits of set aside.

"We applaud Defra for undertaking this research but these results are a wake-up call. They must now act to ensure a measure is adopted on all farmland in England."

"The current "Health Check" of the CAP provides an ideal opportunity for the UK to take the lead and convince other European countries that a measure to replace the wildlife benefits of set-aside across the whole of Europe is needed."