Following efforts by the Game Conservancy Trust based at Sussex Downs, farmers in the British countryside have adopted a new method of conserving bird species. A six metre-wide outer strip is left unsprayed with pesticidesin farms. Insects in the protected strip provide larder to birds. The populations of birds like grey partridges, turtle doves, bullfinches and lapwings have fallen drastically over the last 25 years. This decline has resulted from the unrestricted use of herbicides and pesticides that break the food chain, eliminating weeds that the insects feed on, and the insects eaten by the birds.