The corn bunting has suffered one of the most severe declines of any UK farmland bird, becoming locally extinct across much of Britain as the mixed farming systems it depends on have been replaced by intensive monocultures.
Corn bunting welfare has collapsed with the conversion of traditional mixed farming to specialist arable or intensive livestock systems. The loss of spring-sown crops, overwinter stubbles, and diverse weed communities has eliminated the seed food on which adults and chicks depend. The species now exists in viable numbers only in isolated strongholds in eastern England and parts of Scotland, where traditional farming practices partially survive.