Futures Forum: Brexit: and Countryside Matters
Futures Forum: Brexit: and rural policy
Futures Forum: Brexit: and pesticides
Futures Forum: Brexit: and how best to encourage healthy rural communities and and opportunities for economic growth in the post Brexit countryside
Futures Forum: Brexit: and the implications for Devon’s Wildlife
The Environment Secretary has been addressing these issues:
Farmers will be paid to make the countryside look beautiful after Brexit says Michael Gove
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Christopher Hope, chief political correspondent 21 JULY 2017 • 4:37PM
Farmers will be paid for delivering benefits for nature and the countryside after Brexit instead of receiving subsidies for the amount of land they farm, Michael Gove has indicated. Under the Europe-wide Common Agricultural Policy UK farmers receive around £3 billion a year in subsidies, mostly linked to the amount of land they farm.
The Government has pledged to maintain levels of funding up to 2022, but Mr Gove said ministers could only go on "generously supporting farmers" in the face of other demands on spending if the environmental benefits were clear.
In his first major speech as Environment Secretary, Mr Gove said reform of the system was needed, with payments for woodland creation, habitat protection, caring for treasured landscapes and higher animal welfare.
Mr Gove said: "The Common Agricultural Policy rewards size of land-holding ahead of good environmental practice, all too often puts resources in the hands of the already wealthy rather than into the common good of our shared natural environment, and encourages patterns of land use which are wasteful of natural resources."
He said the UK should take the opportunity presented by leaving the EU to reward farmers for environmental protection.
Investigations by Greenpeace's Energydesk have revealed that one in five of the biggest recipients of European farming subsidies in Britain are billionaires and millionaires on the Sunday Times Rich List. Environmentalists want to see reform of the system to boost nature and protect UK wildlife.
The Country Land and Business Association, which represents 30,000 landowners, farmers and rural businesses in England and Wales, has backed a move away from subsidies that simply pay people based on how much land they farm.
As the UK leaves the EU, the subsidy regime should be replaced with "land management contracts" - business contracts to manage land in ways that deliver public benefits, the CLA said. Farmers would receive payments for delivering services such as storing carbon, managing water quality, connecting habitats, reducing flood risk or protecting famous beauty spots and important landscapes.
Mr Gove also said that the UK will not weaken environmental or animal welfare standards to secure a trade deal with the US after Brexit.
Mr Gove said he "deeply regrets" President Donald Trump's approach to the Paris Agreement on climate change, which the US president has announced he will pull out of.
"International co-operation to deal with climate change is critical if we're to safeguard our planet's future, and the world's second-biggest generator of carbon emissions can't simply walk out of the room when the heat is on," he said.
Asked whether striking a trade deal with the US could weaken those standards, he said: "I don't think we should compromise on environmental standards, or sustainability, or animal welfare, in pursuing freer trade. The future of Britain in trading terms is not taking part in a race to the bottom. It's competing in terms of quality."
Farmers will be paid to make the countryside look beautiful after Brexit says Michael Gove
See also:
Futures Forum: Brexit: and completing with industrial agriculture
Futures Forum: Brexit: and importing beef from cattle implanted with growth hormones, chlorine-washed chicken, and unlabelled genetically modified (GM) foods.
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