Anna Pavord: 'Hay-making is an ancient technique - but how long can it last?'

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All through August I listened for the ker-chunk, ker-chunk noise that means that the hay is being baled on our top field. But it hasn't happened. Why? Hay meadows are supposed to be one of our most precious habitats. How many hands have been wrung over their disappearance? How many times have we been reminded that more than 90 per cent of them have been lost over the past hundred years? That remaining 10 per cent will be owned by trusts – the National Trust, county wildlife trusts – who depend for survival on other people's money, not their own. Or people like us who are lucky enough to have a bit of land, but don't make our living from it.












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