Six years since the Referendum on the EU, Brexit remains almost as divisive and uncertain as ever.  But one thing that many Brexiteers and Remainers were united on was the opportunity to reform the outdated, expensive and unpopular Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).  Everyone had their own reason to dislike this huge and complex beast.  Farmers loathed its bureaucracy and inflexibility.  Treasury officials gulped at the size of the bill.  Environmentalists were appalled at the huge damage to wildlife that was at least partly driven by the regime over many decades.

The government’s vision for a new, post Brexit approach to agriculture was first set out in its paper the Future of Food, Farming and the Environment in 2018.   It included proposals for a new Environmental Land Management Scheme (or ELMS) promising greater simplicity, a fairer system, more reliance on environmental outcomes and crucially, a strong focus on public money for public goods. Under the new scheme, Basic Payments would be phased out between 2021 and 2027.  These payments made up 88% of subsidies and have been allocated to landowners on the basis how much land they own.

To an environmentalist at least, it all sounded very promising!  Some elements, such as the new Landscape Recovery Scheme, certainly sound exciting, although little is known of the detail.  But as high level rhetoric has become translated into policy details, increasing concern has been voiced from all sides.  The Sustainable Farm Incentive (SFI) – the base level of the scheme that it was hoped would be available to all farmers and help them transition to more sustainable land management practices – is unambitious, unclear and unappealing as the payment levels are far too low.  It’s hard to see how the SFI as currently set out would lead to any changes in practice, even if farmers were to take it up.

First the old CAP system did little to incentivise efficient food production. Nearly 90% of the subsidies were simply paid on the basis of land ownership, and all the recipient had to do was to maintain the land “in good agricultural condition” and comply with the extremely weakly enforced “cross compliance” regulations. Good agricultural condition could be translated as cutting an uncultivated field once per year – hardly the answer to feeding the hungry nation.     

Secondly, the CAP system was economically inefficient and grossly unfair.  Small, struggling farms got a measly share of the subsidies, while the largest landowners, who often needed it least, got the most.  According to research by Greenpeace, one in five of the biggest recipients of farm subsidies are listed in the Sunday Times Rich List.  Surely this money would be better spent helping some of the smaller family farms, of which we have such a high proportion in the South West?

Thirdly, the old system failed to deliver for nature or carbon.  While the Stewardship Scheme had some good points and undoubtedly helped drive significant areas of land into better management, it has become increasingly inflexible, is inaccessible to many farmers and made up barely 10% of the funding available.  We have seen wildlife continue to decline throughout the life of the CAP, and intensive agriculture is widely acknowledged to be the single greatest driver in nature’s decline globally.

Finally, the old system was bad for the taxpayer.  The total cost to the public purse was around £3 billion every year.  If we want efficient food production, a healthy and resilient farming sector and nature in recovery, there will be a cost of course. But it is doubtful if anything more than a small proportion of the huge sum related to CAP payments has been helping with any of this.  And in the meantime, our rivers remain the most polluted in Europe, our soils have lost up to 60% of their carbon and soil erosion in the UK was estimated to cost £1.2 billion annually in 2010. 

Surely we can do better.  It is ELMS’s increasing similarity to the old CAP regime that is the problem, not its more progressive features. Instead of reverting to the bad old ways, we should be focusing our efforts on the new.  We should be putting pressure on the government to raise its ambitions for ELMS and ensure that all farms are able to access sufficient support to help them convert their practices to regenerate soils, restore river health and sequester carbon.  We need to be pushing for the roll out of new technologies that would help grow food more efficiently on the limited land we have, leaving more space for nature and other uses. 

It is of course essential that we address the rising cost of food and its impact on the hardest hit communities, and farming will always have a central role to play in this.  But we need come up with more creative and innovative solutions than simply reverting to an outdated system.  And we should be redoubling our efforts to tackle food waste, poor diets and other factors which are just as crippling for poorer communities.

At a time of extreme uncertainty, change can feel like the last thing anyone wants.  But it is often the time when it is most needed.  They may not be hitting the headlines like they were six months ago, but the climate and ecological crises have not gone away.  We have a golden opportunity to shift to a new system that is fairer for farmers, better for consumers and will help heal the planet.  Let’s not throw it away by falling for simplistic, misleading messages or short-term political expediency.