If we were to redesign the farm financial support system so that, instead of encouraging agro-industrial approaches, it required recipients to practise the sort of agro-ecological methods advocated by Felicity Lawrence (Hyperintensive farming will never feed the world, 3 October), we would be able to re-conceptualise it as not a “subsidy” or “welfare payment” (Letters, same day) but a management fee for essential ecological services. After Brexit, we will in principle have the opportunity to do this. But will Mrs May and Mrs Leadsom see things this way?
Richard Middleton
Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway
• In the early postwar years, Monsanto’s William Rand claimed that the chemical industry was a form of alchemy, unmatched in its dynamic power and therefore entitled to protection from criticism of its products’ potential dangers. Willard Dow, of Dow Chemicals, regarded the industry’s critics as “traitors to civilisation” and “economic parasites destined to destroy themselves”.
Continue reading…
Source: Guardian Environment