The Coastal Grazing Marshes are, first and foremost, a working landscape; important for farmers and farming businesses.  Agriculture has seen a lot of changes over the last 50 years.

The food crisis brought about by the Second World War led to changes in Government policy.  With an increase in agricultural intensification, the wet meadows and pastures began to disappear.  This process began in the 1950's and accelerated through the 60's and 70's.  This trend was not halted or slowed down by environmental schemes, as happened in other parts of the country.  The Environmentally Sensitive Area Scheme was not available in Lincolnshire and the Countryside Stewardship Scheme has had a poor uptake due to low payments.  As a consequence, a further 25% of grazing marsh was lost between 1990 and 2000.

The construction of flood relief channels after the 1953 east coast floods resulted in extensive drainage of large areas of marshland and these were then converted to arable crops.  Embanking of rivers led to the disappearance of the winter flood meadows around the smaller streams such as the Bain, the Great Eau and the With Beck.

Nowadays it is very hard for farmers to make a living by keeping livestock, yet cattle and sheep are essential to the survival of the grazing marsh.  More and more farmers are giving up outdoor livestock production and turning to more profitable arable crops, or moving out of farming altogether.  As a result, traditional farming skills are being lost and the number of young people entering farming is dropping.