Post Brexit: Driving forward the Rural Economy

In the coming year, the countryside across the United Kingdom will experience an unparalleled period of change. As we prepare to leave the EU, Britain faces an opportunity to completely reform the pivotal support system which determines food production, rural communities and natural environment.

Earlier this year Michael Gove announced plans which would replace EU CAP subsidies after Brexit. UK Farmers are currently paid part of a £3bn subsidy based on how much land they own, and Gove has guaranteed that farmers will continue to receive subsidies from the

Government at the current EU level until the 2022 election.

But from 2022 farmers will instead be paid for “public goods” like boosting access to the countryside, protecting the environment or improving it. The largest of the subsidies will be curbed, with a maximum cap or a sliding scale of reductions.

However, the EFRA Committee has criticised the Government’s post-Brexit agricultural policies for having a “notable lack of detail”. With less than a year until Brexit, there have been no specific details on how farmers will be supported in the future. EFRA has called for Ministers to ring-fence

any cash saved from cutting direct payments for the rural economy and environment, to ensure promises on funding after 2022 are guaranteed.

The CLA has also stated that while it welcomes the ambition of DEFRA’s consultation to construct a funding model built on using public money to pay for public goods, there has been no detailed analysis of the impact that withdrawing direct payments will have. They responded by publishing detailed recommendations within a Land Management Contract, aiming to give farmers a menu of ways to manage their land to deliver public benefits.

Many have also highlighted the worrying lack of importance placed on food produce in the Government’s plans to allocate farm payments post Brexit. Since April, when Gove admitted his department had not addressed food production enough in their post-Brexit proposals, he has insisted that food is at the heart of British farming and “It would be impossible to sustain everything we value in rural Britain without thriving food production”. CLA President Tim Breitmeyer highlights that “If the scheme does not make good business sense and is not designed to work alongside profitable food production, the opportunity will be lost”.

There is a clear need for post-Brexit farming policy to sustain a balance between environmental protection and food production to drive the rural economy in the longterm, which Michael Gove has so far failed to propose. There are plenty of positives in the post-Brexit farming agenda, but without details of timing and funding it is difficult to be confident in the Government’s ability to safeguard the future for farms in Britain.