Memorandum submitted by Campaign to Protect
Rural England (CPRE) (CAP 28)
INTRODUCTION
1. CPRE broadly welcomes the paper "A
vision for the Common Agricultural Policy" (the CAP Vision
paper). It has concentrated minds as never before, on the scale,
complexity and importance of the issues of farming, production
from land and the benefits and costs of comprehensive, deliberate
land management. In this respect, the debate has been taken beyond
the valuable work achieved by the Curry Commission. We also warmly
welcome the explicit acknowledgement in the paper of the public
benefit to be derived from securing attractive landscapes. But
the CAP Vision paper is also highly ambiguous over the long-term
future of support for land management and the securing of public
goods. In the same way, the future of landscape and wildlife policy
and the success of Natural England are also cast into doubt.
2. CPRE is concerned with the landscapes
and habitats of rural England, the overarching question of farming
and other production from open land, and the public benefits derived
from these. We place great importance on the pattern of land use,
landscape and habitat which retains long-established landscape
characteristics and features and which gives regional or local
identity. The 159 Landscape Character Areas of England are largely
determined in this way. The huge influence of human activity on
land over millennia also means that most wildlife depends on habitats
which have also been farmed and managed landscapes.
3. Further reform of the CAP should be regarded
as an opportunity to re-affirm the part of farming and land management
in the quality of all our lives and to take stock of the huge
value of continuity of good farming practice. It is also the right
time to make a determined effort to move away from environmentally
damaging farming processes and look for possible new ways to harness
benign land management for the public good.
4. The CAP Vision paper requires all those
with an interest in farming and its associated effects to address
some critical questions which are at the heart of the future of
land management in England:
— Should the United Kingdom pursue
policies which are directly intended to retain a farming industry,
and particularly a livestock sector, even if the short term economic
case cannot be made for direct support as the CAP Vision document
suggests?
— How resilient are the various
farming sectors to the challenge of liberalised markets and an
end to Pillar 1 financial support? What is the critical mass of
farm businesses, skilled farmers and the range of technical support
(such as large animal veterinary practices and crop advisory services)
required in order to retain a widespread distribution of both
arable and livestock businesses across the country?
— Is it possible to separate an
objective to manage the majority of land across the country as
recognisable, accessible landscape and viable habitat from the
case for retaining the capacity, knowledge and skills to farm
in the long term?
— What is the full range of environmental
services offered by farming and the value of these services? What
is the extent of environmental damage caused by farming? What
is the cost of securing the former and preventing the latter?
Which is likely to be the most cost effective way to achieve these
objectives?
— What is the Government's real
long term intention in driving forward further CAP reform: to
replace an unacceptable and inefficient support system with one
which is well-designed, sustainable and delivering public goods
on a very broad scale? Or to make substantial permanent cuts in
expenditure with reliance only on regulation to achieve some limited
environmental standards?
— What will be the likely effects
of the dismantling of trade barriers and the ending of direct
farm support on the farmers and rural communities of developing
countries? Is there any real intention to guarantee that the environmental
and social costs to English agriculture, environment and society
lead to genuine improvements in the condition of the agriculture,
environment and society of developing countries?
— Do we value the existence of
a responsible, comprehensive and productive land management system
enough to develop a range of policies which sustain this system
in a politically acceptable way?
5. CPRE believes that securing answers to
these questions is fundamental to the national interest. In the
answers will lie the future of our countryside. Further CAP reform
should not be undertaken until there is a broad consensus on the
likely effects of such reform, agreement on what we value about
the countryside and how we shall retain what we value in the long
term. In our view, the Government is under an obligation to lead
this debate, and build a new foundation for farming and environmental
land management in the future.
6. CPRE has a long and effective track record
in driving forward the agenda for reform of the CAP and turning
this policy framework into a force for good. We are the only Non-Governmental
Organisation which has a remit for the whole landscape and the
inter-relationship between rural and urban society, including
public enjoyment. The fact that we are not a landowner or land
managing organisation, we consider greatly adds to the clarity
of our analysis.
7. Further reform of CAP could be a great
opportunity. But equally, it could help destroy the system which
puts to good use the vast majority of the land surface of England
and with it, much of its cultural significance, wildlife and distinctive
character. We might lose the function of much farmland in England,
some of our few remaining societal links to land and the ability
to manage and use it productively.
8. There is a prevailing climate of uncertainty
about the future of farming in England. The motivation of different
parts of the Government in driving forward further reform is unclear.
In these circumstances, it is essential to foster a state of mutual
trust between the wide range of affected interest groups. This
can only be achieved by accurate and uncoded communication. CPRE
welcomes the CAP Vision document insofar as it has this objective
and sets out to achieve it. But because of the ambiguity of much
of the report, CPRE warmly welcomes this inquiry by the EFRA Committee.
9. We address the issues raised by the CAP
Vision paper under the headings suggested by the Committee.
FOOD SECURITY
10. CPRE understands the tensions inherent
in the pursuit of food and commodity production, landscape character,
wildlife habitat and public enjoyment of farmed land. Skilled,
productive farming has wrought the superb range of landscapes,
upland and lowland which we enjoy as a nation. But great intensification,
drainage, the ill-advised use of some persistent pesticides and
far greater efficiency in farm practices and farm layout have
also destroyed much of this character, habitat and the pleasure
derived from it by the public. Before the CAP was established,
national agricultural policies which damaged the environment were
pursued explicitly in the name of food security. During the last
15 years, a gradual shift in funding, regulation and objectives
on the part of Government, farmers and environmental NGOs has
started to slow and in some cases reverse the damage with very
little reduction in efficiency. Welcome animal welfare obligations
have, in particular, imposed increased costs on the livestock
sector.
11. We regard the ability to produce a wide
diversity of food, other commodities and some energy crops to
be a major national strategic asset. We recognise the great advances
in farming practices and the potential for co-existence of modern
farming and greatly improved landscapes and wildlife populations.
Much effort has been expended by LEAF, FWAG and others to achieve
this reconciliation of production and environmental value. CPRE
considers that it is worth building on this knowledge in the future.
12. The onset of climate change means far
more uncertainty than ever before over the viability and productivity
of farm land everywhere in the world. Competitive advantage may
one day come to our relatively temperate climate and rich soils
in the event that growing conditions deteriorate in major commodity
and food producing parts of the world. Even if climate change
is less severe than most people anticipate, there are likely to
be very serious shortages of water for agriculture in many parts
of the world in the near future. Our own relatively efficient
use of water in food production will become a more valuable factor
in world food production. We should not lose such opportunity
by allowing the severe contraction of farming in the short term.
Furthermore, it is reasonable, in our view, to regard as significant
the strategic ability to produce substantial quantities of our
own food at some time in the future, even if conventional methods
of discounting give very little value to opportunities more than
20 years' away.
13. Some argue that the new cross compliance
rules, in force since January 2005, are enough to keep English
farmland in a useable condition in the longer term. Good Agricultural
and Environmental Condition (GAEC) requirements, in order for
farmers to qualify for the new Single Payment (Pillar 1) will
keep fields open. But GAEC is of little value without the retention
of the capacity and skill to farm the land and produce from it.
Land kept in a basic GAEC condition will be of questionable environmental
value, too. Occasionally topped fallow land will rarely develop
into valuable habitat, and it will fail to have the lustre of
productively managed land, so important in creating attractive
landscape character. Absence of excessive fertiliser and pesticide
inputs will be the main benefit, but this will not in itself secure
vulnerable species recovery or even necessarily ensure the recovery
of formerly common species. The necessary skill and experience
in habitat management of English Nature, the National Trust, the
Woodland Trust and others bears testament to this.
14. If GAEC is to mean the retention of
distinctive grazed, harvested and cultivated plant communities,
then the standards of GAEC will have to rise. In many cases, retaining
semi-natural habitats, the capacity to produce food and other
commodities, and the skills and knowledge to achieve sustainable
farming, are mutually dependent. If the new demands of protecting
water resources and managing the volumes, velocity and quality
of water flows are added, we have a portfolio of activities which
will require financial support, but which will contribute hugely
to the viability of development and the quality of life. To this
we must also add the need to ensure the resilience of habitats
under pressure from climate change. This will be made much more
likely by the careful expansion and targeting of agri-environment
expenditure and the gradual relocation of species as climatic
conditions shift. This amounts to need for a land management policy
which harnesses the existing skills base and investment pattern
to achieve it.
15. There is no need to achieve maximum
production from farmland in the foreseeable future, but there
is a need, in our view, to keep the system of farming viable and
stable. The protection of productive land from development is
an essential part of this process. The existing planning mechanism
protecting Best and Most Versatile Land (BMV) is now weaker, since
the publication of Planning Policy Statement 7, Sustainable Development
in Rural Areas in 2004. The Agricultural Land Classification System
on which BMV is based also took no account of climate change.
CPRE considers that there is an urgent need for a new system which
protects land from development and which includes the calculation
of the potential of land to produce food, fuel and other commodities
in changing climatic conditions.
POSSIBLE ENVIRONMENTAL
CONSEQUENCES OF
THE PROPOSALS
16. CPRE believes that it is impossible
to disengage the future of farming from the future of the character
of English landscapes or the future of most of our wildlife habitats.
The Scott Report (Report of the Committee on Land Utilisation
in Rural Areas, 1942) still has some resonance today. There are
likely to be some exceptions to this, but they are unlikely to
be predominant. In some cases the future of the productive use
of land in England may mean new crops, and new management methods.
Some of these should be positively welcomed. The productive landscapes
of bio-energy production could in certain circumstances introduce
a range of landscape patterns which are attractive, and provide
good habitat as well as establishing a new link between the public
and the way the land is managed. Examples might include the experience
of buses passing through a landscape of bio-oilfields from which
their fuel is refined, or of walking through the coppice which
heats the local school. Intensively managed poplar plantations,
when mature, are well-known as excellent habitat for that rare
and beautiful bird, the golden oriole. Not all bio-energy crops
will be so easily accommodated into the English landscape, however,
especially those which are not native, such as miscanthus or coppice
crops grown intensively without regard for their appearance or
wildlife value.
17. The dedication of more land primarily
for public amenity, on the edge of towns and cities, for example,
will still require a management regime, often as intense as conventional
farm management. Farmers could be well placed to deliver this
considerably more efficiently than other contractors. The integration
of sensitively designed new public woodland into farm management
and farm businesses could ensure permanent good quality management,
with the costs of management reduced and a burden removed from
local authorities. In rare cases, probably in a few remote, large
tracts of uplands and coastal lowlands, a carefully planned reduction
in the intensity of management (sometimes referred to as "rewilding")
may be appropriate, to secure more diverse wildlife populations
and a different texture of landscape. The cost of managing such
land and considerably reducing the conventional production income
from it, will need to be borne by government or local authority
funds. Nonetheless, to retain recognisable English landscapes
and native wild species, the management of much land will need
to be similar in important respects to that which is currently
practiced.
18. This does not mean that all existing
management and cropping should be encouraged or retained. There
is room for much improvement and some of this improvement will
be expensive. Much remains to be done, particularly in terms of
the recovery of wildlife dependent on farmland: the recent report
The State of Britain's Larger Moths by Butterfly Conservation
makes the case for urgent further change in agricultural practices.
Even more recent national butterfly survey results tell the same
story. It has been calculated that to meet its existing biodiversity
targets, the Government may need to spend approximately double
the existing annual agri-environment expenditure of £340
million. That figure takes no account of landscape or access-oriented
work undertaken by Natural England in the future.
19. But it would be mistaken, in our view,
to imagine the successful conserving of our iconic landscapes
and native species without substantial continuity of familiar
crops and practices. By this we mean the mix of permanent, grazed
pastures, arable and grass crops, broad-leaved woodlands, orchards
and permanent boundaries of woody plants (hedges), stone walls
and streams. This applies to our so-called "ordinary"
landscapes as well as our National Parks, Areas of Outstanding
Natural Beauty (AONB) and Sites of Special Scientific Interest
(SSSIs). The very welcome signing of the European Landscape Convention
(ELC) in late February 2006 by the United Kingdom Government acknowledges
the importance of systems which sustain landscapes whether of
national significance or not. Future farming policy will need
to take the principles and objectives of the ELC into account.
20. Landscape and farming are almost entirely
interlinked, including both existing farming practice and effects
of farming practice in the past. These often overlap, for example
in the case of moorland and heath which are largely result of
Bronze Age farming practice and climate change since, or the continuing
distribution of trees in field systems originally managed for
building timber and fire wood. Much farmland still contains features
long since `redundant' in their original role, but now valued
for all sorts of other reasons.
21. The cultural and recreational value
of accessible, managed landscape abundant with wildlife is huge,
as is the management of archaeological and historic sites, the
result of centuries of temperate, stable climate and continuity
of land management.
22. The productive use of land largely determines
its character and the habitats found within it. More than most
other countries, our wildlife, the character of landscape and
our farmers coexist in the same place. The damage done to wildlife
and landscape by farming during the last 60 years should not blind
us to this fundamental truth.
23. English Nature (EN) recently presented
its report Target 2010. EN stresses the need for continued
adequate funding if the PSA target of 95% of SSSIs in favourable
or recovering condition is to be met. It is clear that EN will
depend to a considerable degree on paying for good farm management
to meet and then to sustain this quality of management. In the
longer term, the viability of SSSI management will depend on particular,
often traditional farming practices, avoiding either over-intensive
or too little management.
24. If the wider benefits of good management
of SSSIs are to be enjoyed, much land adjoining SSSIs will similarly
need to be sympathetically managed on a permanent basis. In order
that wild species are able to disperse across wider areas, extend
their range and replenish their populations, both SSSIs and much
more extensive areas of similar, but less high quality habitat
will need to be farmed into the indefinite future. This is already
beginning to be acknowledged by EN in their own report. The management
of Winmarleigh Moss SSSI in Lancashire, Spurn National Nature
Reserve in East Yorkshire and Sutton Combe SSSI in Dorset are
all good examples.
25. Thus a credible strategy for biodiversity
in England relies on continued farming of a skilled and supported
nature, both lowland and upland, on heath, pasture, marsh and
moorland. Those farmers who "provide the service" of
managing SSSIs for the most part do not farm SSSIs alone. They
also farm undesignated land. Their ability to deliver their conservation
activity depends on the continued viability of their farm businesses.
It will be important, to secure and establish improvements in
wildlife populations, for many farmers to extend their traditional
management over wider areas. The success of farming for wildlife
will, therefore, depend on the survival of a substantial number
of farmers remaining in business, farming in a traditional and
often uncompetitive way, in strictly economic terms.
26. It will not be possible to reverse the
damage done by the intensification of farming after 1947 by simply
ending support payments. This is a false hope that should not
to be used to justify the eventual ending of support of some kind
for farmers. Much of the damage can be undone, but this requires
long-term, skilled management on a scale only feasible with a
network of farmers and regular, skilled contractors. Habitats
which remain are by and large dependent on management based on
production too, though often at a level of intensity too low to
be profitable without additional support.
27. CPRE accepts that the provision of many
public goods through land management renders much farmland unviable
as productive farmland in strictly economic terms. This situation
is likely to become more common in the future. It is vital, therefore,
to take account of the wider public benefits. By way of illustration,
English Nature mentioned at the launch of Target 2010, an approximate
figure of 370 million visits per year to SSSIs. Roughly 50% of
all SSSIs are open access land. The calculation of the public
benefit of continued traditional management of SSSIs and land
surrounding them is urgently required.
28. The demands on land management to maintain
landscapes with distinct character may sometimes be less onerous
than those required to maintain some specific farmland habitats.
This is because the specific demands of some species will be more
complex than the broad visual appeal of patterns of vegetation,
for example. But the cost of working with traditional, often ancient
patterns and scales of fields with traditional boundaries, on
land which might well be either abandoned, intensified or developed
if left purely to market opportunities will still be high. We
do not know what that cost might be. CPRE and the National Farmers'
Union intend to publish research later this year which attempts
to calculate how much the routine management of landscapes, not
in pursuit of agri-environment grants, might be worth in purely
financial terms. What determines the character of landscapes varies
considerably, as does what is still extant of a traditional farm
landscape after 60 years of intensification, modernisation and
development.
29. It is crucial to any analysis of farming
policy to remember that great damage to the environment was caused
by agricultural policies long before the CAP was established.
There is nothing inherent in a post-CAP policy which is more environmentally
benign. A consideration often overlooked is the cost in money
and time of reversing environmental damage caused during the long
period after 1939, when farmland was subject to policies aimed
at greatly increasing production with little or no consideration
of the consequences for landscape, habitats and archaeology. Huge
sums of money and great efforts were spent on intensifying production
in ways which removed landscape character and biodiversity, simultaneously
often diminishing and curtailing public access at the same time.
CPRE suggests that the case for undoing some of the damage of
previous policies and restoring wider public benefits from farmland
should be considered in the calculation of the cost of ending
direct support for farmers. This restitution could be described
as a one-off endowment of the public realm. Such a policy would
also have great value in contributing to better management of
soil and water quality.
THE DEFRA FIVE
YEAR STRATEGY
30. It is instructive to test the objectives
of DEFRA's Five Year Strategy against the CAP Vision paper. CPRE
considers that for the achievement of the strategy's objectives
to be worth pursuing, they will also need to be secured in the
longer term. One objective, the reduction of diffuse water pollution
from agriculture, might, in some circumstances, be more easily
achieved should agriculture contract substantially. But many others,
including the encouragement of sustainable behaviour in young
people, sustainable procurement, helping farmers produce sustainable
products and improving the quality of SSSIs, will all require
a healthy farming industry with the resources to experiment, take
risks and develop new ways of working.
HOW WOULD
ENGLAND'S
RURAL ECONOMY
FARE UNDER
THE CHANGES
PROPOSED IN
THE REPORT?
31. The CAP Vision paper rightly recognises
that a period of transition will be important, whatever the direction
of agricultural and land management policy in the future. But
in the judgement of CPRE, such a transition will be profoundly
traumatic for many farmers, for many reasons, and will require
very careful planning.
32. For more than 50 years, farmers were
exhorted to become more productive, to embrace every means to
expand and intensify. Patterns of land ownership, capital investment,
the development of technical expertise and husbandry by farmers
and their employees were driven in a single direction. For 10
years since the early 1990s, there has been a phase of compensation
for income foregone with only marginal effects on most farmers'
businesses. Although this system has now been expanded and is
now, in part, available to all farmers, the uncertainty over the
future both after 2008 and more profoundly, after 2013 is the
prevailing sentiment.
33. CPRE understands that approximately
£9 billion is invested in farming borrowed from the City.
This investment cycle is crucial. Some farmers will be at risk
from a significant change in support levels, even if this takes
place over a number of years. There is a serious risk that capital
investment in farm buildings and machinery will slump if farmers
are unable to plan their capital investment responsibly. CPRE
has anecdotal evidence of this from farms owned by other charities
with which it works. The confidence of farm workers and agricultural
contractors to be committed to the industry is similarly under
threat. It is often said that the much quoted statistic that the
average age of farmers, at 59, has remained that way for many
years. But CPRE is not satisfied with hearsay, and it is unacceptable
that there is no better official understanding of the age profile
of the farming community. We suggest that the experience of the
Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI) would be valuable
evidence in understanding the true state of morale amongst farmers
and their families. No group in society is well served by feeling
unwanted, sidelined or ignored. Whether it is true or not that
this is the case, the fact that much of the farming community
perceives this is doing harm to the resilience and enterprise
of farmers. Fear of investment and absence of long-term planning
are also taking their toll on the businesses that service farmers,
with consequent reductions in earnings and employment. The increasing
power of the supermarkets adds further to the caution in the industry
and the narrowing of margins which allow for investment.
34. Decline in farmer confidence and farm
support services works both ways: the decline in vets makes it
more and more difficult to be a responsible livestock farmer,
while the decline in livestock farming makes it unviable for vet
practices to maintain this service, to the detriment of those
who still need the service. CPRE has evidence from the British
Veterinary Association of the decline in large animal vet services
in Essex, for example. In south east Essex, at least four practices
have withdrawn their large animal service in the last four months.
One vet has told us that his practice continues to offer these
services, but now has to cover an increasingly large geographical
area. A recent local meeting to discuss this problem attracted
60 farmers. This vet says "We survive for the moment, but
for just how long?" The same problem exists in other sectors.
Many livestock farmers in Suffolk and Norfolk are reliant on one
abattoir on the border between the two counties. If this business
closes, these livestock farms will be severely threatened, together
with the local food processing, distribution and retail sector.
THE IMPACT
OF CAP REFORM
ON DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
35. There is an increasingly vocal case
for the removal of support payments for English farmers based
on the moral argument that such expenditure directly harms the
livelihoods of farming communities in developing countries. CPRE
would welcome the decoupling of land management in England from
damage to the local rural economies of developing countries as
is implied in paragraph 1.11 of the CAP Vision paper. Should radical
reform of the CAP take place, it would be possible to establish
a support system for farming in England which rewarded farmers
for the successful "export" of our native landscape
in terms of both domestic and international tourism. This is something
which is unlikely to be regarded as a priority for those intent
on removing trade distortions.
36. But we should not be ignorant of the
serious consequences of merely exporting environmental damage
to other parts of the world, many of which have far greater biodiversity
to lose than England, or the consequences of increased carbon
emissions from the expansion of long distance food export. Both
modes of transport and the methods of agriculture need to be carefully
appraised for their carbon performance. Furthermore, the urbanisation
of the developing world is proceeding very rapidly in many of
the countries most able to compete in agricultural trade. It is
unclear whether the decoupling of agricultural support from the
damage to developing rural economies will be a lasting or effective
legacy. We should not, therefore, contemplate the abandonment
of much traditional English farming in the unfounded hope that
traditional sustainable agriculture in poorer countries will benefit.
For this argument to hold water, there would have to be targeting
of support for small-scale farmers in developing countries, which
is contrary to the likely outcome of opening up global markets.
THE WIDER
DEBATE ON
THE FUTURE
FINANCING OF
THE CAP
37. The CAP Vision paper acknowledges that
"EU agriculture does not exist in isolation" (1.31,
page 16). The paper goes on to suggest that the EU could "take
the opportunity of its own reforms to secure reductions in trade
distorting support and protection policies of other developed
countries in order to maximise the benefits for all"
(our italics). CPRE agrees strongly that EU agriculture will be
increasingly subject to wider influences and pressures. But for
that reason, it is inexplicable that the CAP Vision paper thinks
it adequate to let the issue rest with the admirable but inadequate
sentiment that follows. Unless English agriculture is to be abandoned
to market forces in markets distorted strongly to its disadvantage,
there are only two possible conclusions: either that support payments
for environmental goods will be universally available and high
enough to keep farmers in business thanks to their land management
work; or that the liberalising and support reduction process will
only take place on a strictly reciprocal basis. It would be entirely
unacceptable to CPRE and also reckless, if English agriculture
were sacrificed for gains in other fields of international policy.
38. There are several reasons for this.
First, CPRE strongly believes that our farming industry is an
immensely valuable national asset, with strategic, technical,
environmental and societal importance far beyond the short-term
calculation of contribution to national prosperity from food and
commodity production.
39. Secondly, the significant contraction
of agriculture in England and the collapse of certain parts of
the industry, would have far more destructive consequences than
in many other countries. This is because of the intimate association
over millennia of the productive use of land, wildlife habitat
and the character of the landscape, by comparison with places
in the world where productive agricultural land and biodiverse
wilderness are much more segregated. Examples include Canada,
the USA and the formerly collectivised farmland of some central
European countries. The serious decline of farming in England
would do far more than simply reduce inputs and the area under
cultivation or grazing. Networks of semi-natural landscapes (our
farmland), with combinations of management to which the majority
of native species have adapted, would be lost. The variation across
the country, expressed in the style, scale, age and pattern of
field boundaries, woodland, farm buildings, livestock, crops and
soil, would be suppressed or allowed to degenerate. The three
processes most likely to damage locally distinctive landscapes
and habitats on a very wide scale are abandonment of farming,
ruthless rationalising of farming techniques to cut costs, and
renewed and increased intensity of farming. All three are very
likely if farming contracts significantly in England.
40. Thirdly, as so much of England is dependent
on farming for managing and maintaining its character and wildlife
habitat, so is it dependent on farming for its marketability for
visitors and tourists. The economic interests of rural settlements
and market towns would be very severely affected if they were
surrounded by landscapes increasingly polarising between dereliction
and intensification. The overall proposition of visiting England
could suffer too and with it, the fortunes of the tourism industry.
The views of Visit Britain on the value of agricultural activity
to the tourism industry would be useful to hear. Accelerating
suburban development would also be much more likely as diversification
away from farming became more urgent still.
41. Fourthly, successful rural diversification
depends on a wider canvass of agricultural activity, which keeps
the countryside distinctive and cared for. Ironically, it is likely
that if farming were to decline significantly, the proposition
of rural location could become less marketable. This would not
be surprising: successful urban communities are rarely derelict
or overwhelmingly dominated by commercial interests.
42. For CPRE, the reciprocal and synchronised
removal of trade distorting measures both within the EU and with
the rest of the world is a sine qua non.
A NEW FOUNDATION
FOR FARMING
AND THE
MANAGEMENT OF
ENGLAND'S
NATURAL RESOURCES
43. CPRE concludes that the interdependence
of farming, landscape character, wildlife habitat and the protection
of natural resources requires an emphatic commitment by Government,
the farming community and the environmental NGOs to a future foundation
for the support of land management which is not merely sustainable
but contributes very substantially to the quality of life of this
country. For the time being, the capacity, skills and expertise
exist to achieve this. But the economic cost of providing these
services should be acknowledged and supported. We agree that the
present system is not acceptable in the long term. But we do not
accept that the public benefits that farmers, other land managers,
environmental NGOs, and Natural England could provide can be bought
for much smaller sums than the present CAP budget. Nor do we agree
that society should accept a much scaled down level of funding
for much more limited objectives. Such a view ignores the great
opportunities which could lie ahead. We return to our opening
questions. If they are addressed effectively, it will be possible
to establish the true cost of the land management activity society
should enjoy.
44. Like many other organisations, CPRE
supports the medium term objective of establishing a new fund
for land management. But unlike some organisations, we do not
reject the role of wisely managed regulation, which has a valuable
role to play in achieving environmental quality. Nor do we believe
that the farming community should be regarded as peripheral to
the achievement of sustainable land management. On the contrary,
we regard it as central to securing this objective. We need to
recognise that farming should play a hybrid role, as niche producer,
a producer of commodities to high environmental and animal welfare
standards and as a supplier of a much wider range of environmental
benefits for the public as a whole.
45. This new approach to funding land management
should include a rigorous analysis of the special circumstances
of upland farming which has a recent history of special support.
Clearly, the farming of hill land should not be regarded as uncontestable
public good in its own right. But the many environmental and societal
services that hill farming may provide need to be thoroughly measured,
understood and supported where this is justified by the evidence.
Where this is not justifiable, other ways of achieving public
benefits on hill land through management should be encouraged
instead. Careful consideration of possible long-term effects of
alternative options will be necessary. This should be done in
full consultation with those directly affected by such change.
Recent experience from the Spanish Pyrenees suggests that the
abandonment of upland farming and the ensuing growth of secondary
woodland has done great damage to the efficiency of reservoirs
designed when a farmed catchment yielded much more run off into
the valleys. Many English reservoirs established below traditionally
grazed uplands could suffer the same fate if upland farming collapsed.
Conversely, where flooding is an issue below upland slopes, the
expansion of secondary woodland on uplands might help to reduce
dangerously high levels of run off. Overall, the retention and
management of water is likely to become a vital role of upland
as well as flood plain farmers in particular.
46. CPRE looks forward to a new system for
funding land management which rewards farmers positively for the
management of features and husbandry which yield public benefits.
Individual elements in the landscape, such as ancient trees, archaeological
remains, wetlands, field boundaries, traditional buildings and
remnant farming systems which are inefficient in producing crops
or livestock, but very efficient in producing wildlife or landscape
character, should attract positive payment which covers more than
the cost of management. This will acknowledge and pay for the
benefit derived for society, while allowing farmers to secure
some return from selling the fruits of farming in an open market.
CONCLUSIONS
47. The competition of so many different
interests within the EU means that it is vital that the Government
speaks with a clear voice and articulates powerfully the case
for continued support for land management, largely through farming.
It should not be deflected by short-term budgetary considerations.
To succeed, it needs to have command of the facts, many of which
are unknown or at best, poorly understood. It needs to give the
long-term security of effective and productive land management
the high priority it deserves. We need to know the capacity of
existing structures and organisations to take on a greatly expanded
Pillar 2 and to plan carefully for the expansion of the mechanisms
needed to achieve this efficiently and accountably.
48. In the short term, the Government needs
to commit itself to retaining the level of Pillar 2 expenditure
needed to honour existing Environmental Stewardship proposals.
If this requires a higher level of voluntary modulation, that
should be deployed. The Treasury should match-fund this modulated
sum in full.
49. In the medium term, the Government should
secure the evidence it needs to make responsible and informed
judgements on the effects of further CAP reform, the services
farming provides and the likely resilience of farming and its
associated systems in the face of major changes in support. It
should secure firm reciprocal commitments from our trading partners
to liberalising reforms. The legislation needed to allow a new
system of land management payments which is not based on compensation
for income foregone should be planned and taken through Parliament.
50. In the long term, and in time for 2013,
a new fund should be established, together with any necessary
new delivery processes. It should be of a scale equal to the opportunities
that exist. Such a fund should allow us to secure and extend the
substantial public benefits which could be derived from effective
land management. It should the valuable network of farmers and
their support services which this country is fortunate to have.
February 2006
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