Your editorial “The future of food and the farming revolution” (4 August) discusses a speech by the director of the National Trust, whose main role is protecting British heritage. That Brexit provides an opportunity to reform agricultural policy is reasonable, but many of the problems outlined were not solely due to failures of the common agricultural policy (CAP). For example, the lack of improved productivity from British farms is largely due to low farm-gate prices that make it hard to justify investment in new techniques. This is exacerbated by the arbitrary management of supermarket contracts. The use of immigrant labour has more to do with rural housing and employment policy, restrictions on the traditional Travellers’ way of life, and lack of employment in eastern Europe, than with the CAP. Neither was CAP responsible for the horse-meat scandal, which was caused by reaction to low prices in the processing industry. Pollution of water courses, due to loss of nutrients, represents an economic disaster for farms, and is caused either by severe weather, or by incompetent management. Management problems have been made worse by the closure of agricultural colleges and the Agricultural Advisory Service.
Butterfly populations are still in decline in spite of the diversion of subsidies into environmental schemes. The lack of planning for individual farms, and the lack of before and after ecological surveys on individual farms, are major contributors to this. While there have been some successes, much of the publicity appears to be green-washing by companies practising uniform management over several different habitats.
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Source: Guardian Environment