It is thought a change in farming methods has led to the mice losing their habitats.
But there is also a growing awareness that modern intensive farming methods have much to answer for.
And that means no access to better-paying jobs or new farming methods -- in short, more poverty.
What's needed now are farming methods that use less overall energy and produce food closer to home.
And they are in decline, because they eat insects whose numbers have been cut by modern farming methods.
Even if policy were right, small farms are slower than large ones to adopt better crops and farming methods.
For example, learning about health and the environment motivated people to clean roads and to adopt improved farming methods.
"That's partly due to the farming methods, the picking, the packing, the distribution in terms of general logistics, " he adds.
Although Lord Haskins supported the idea of subsidies for environmentally-sensitive farming methods, he said a fully organic approach could never feed the world's population.
Weeds continue to grow, even in polycultures with holistic farming methods, and without pesticides, hand weeding is the only way to protect a crop.
Murrin formed a fund that will own 370, 000 acres of South African farmland by midyear, with plans to increase productivity through improved farming methods.
Conventional farming methods using conventional fertilisers are adding active nitrogen to the soil, which tends to move to other places - lakes, rivers, seas, the air.
Indigenous farmer Juan Bautista Itza Mai has been working the fields for more than half a century, using the same farming methods as his ancestors.
Niall Blackie, representing Mr Jones, suggested that investment in the plans would introduce modern farming methods which would help to eliminate problems with odour and flies.
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Levels of key nutrients, such as phosphate and nitrate, are highest in the Midlands, East and South of the country where population density is highest and farming methods the most intense.
Some of this use arises because of intensive farming methods: keeping animals shut up in pens or battery sheds makes them more prone to disease, which leads farmers to use antibiotics.
Despite the increase in the volume of meat, sugar, corn and soy products, these farming methods have resulted in health risks due to the increased use of antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides.
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On tiny plots, and often poor-quality soil, without modern equipment or farming methods, and sometimes beset by land disputes, many peasant farmers struggle to feed their family and grow just a little extra to sell in the village market.
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In an effort to stick to its locals-know-best philosophy, sometimes Spark even funds projects that it has misgivings about, like a potato cultivation effort in the northern Rwandan village of Nyabageni, where a group of 80 families wanted to use insecticides instead of organic farming methods (chemical insecticides are common in Rwanda, says Lesh).
People who have worked to preserve traditional farming and cooking methods worldwide have been awarded prizes in Italy.
All the scientific evidence suggests that these are harmless to people and no more harmful to the environment than more traditional methods of farming.
The vexed question of whether organic farming offers significant benefits over conventional methods has been raging on for years.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and farming groups are to bid for funding for demonstration farms that will highlight less damaging methods.
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