Government risks defeating its own environmental objectives - warns CLA

Some of the most fragile and precious landscapes in the South West could be put at risk by a proposed reform to the Common Agricultural Policy which would see support payments split from land - according to a leading expert on the CAP. Prof. Allan Buckwell, chief economist with the Country Land and Business Association, spoke at this week's Royal Bath & West Show about CAP. His message was that the challenge is not to scrap CAP or wipe away support mechanisms altogether - but to agree its changed function in the 21st Century, and reform its instruments and methods of delivery.

The proposal is to decouple subsidies from food production and link them instead to environmental services - such as the protection of the environment, the landscape and specific habitats. The CLA says its supports the idea that agricultural subsidies should no longer distort commodity markets. But the Association says the public will want to know that they are being paid for a justifiable cause, namely creating the beautiful landscape, protecting vital natural resources and stimulating viable rural communities

The CLA has joined forces with conservation groups, such as the RSPB, to express concern about the potentially disastrous impact of the reforms on landscapes, habitats and communities and to try to convince the UK Government to oppose one major aspect of reform.

"Our quarrel is not with the process of reform, or, indeed with the shift of support from production to environment - we positively welcome that. Our deep concern is with the extraordinary proposal to break the link between support payments and the land which gave rise to them - and to give ownership instead to whoever was may be farming the land a few years ago. At an arbitrary point in time."

Prof. Buckwell, who was the opening speaker at the annual CLA/FPDSavills annual European breakfast seminar at the Bath & West Show, says that the public support for land managers can only continue to be justified if there is reciprocal social, economic or environmental benefit. The idea that entitlements would be a marketable commodity that could be sold without land would break that tie. A market in such 'freewheeling assets' would, he says, be driven by the "fast buck mentality". It might bring short-term benefits to a handful, but it would remove the element of public accountability over the benefits cross-compliance seeks to provide - and it would remove the ability of any successive tenant or occupier of the same piece of land to continue to provide those benefits.

"Payments should be linked to the land which gave rise to them, paid to the occupier of that land, and not traded separately from it. Imagine trying to maintain the rural environment and the habitat of some of this region's special landscapes, from the AONBs of the Cotswolds and the Wessex Downs to the ESA's of the Somerset Levels and the Blackdown Hills without public support mechanisms. Gone because the previous occupier has decided to cash them in. But it is those landscapes which form such a vital and integral part of the South West's economy, they draw the tourist, the new business - even the commuter - and that is why we must ensure that they will continue to be managed under a scheme which remains economically viable," he said.

Prof. Buckwell warned that decoupling support from agricultural commodities is only the first step of the reform, only half the story. The second step is to recouple supports to these other purposes.
" The desire for short-term gains from transferability by a few outgoing tenants will have damaged the long term interests of the wider countryside and the availability of land and capital investment for those who want to stay farming. It is more likely to discourage restructuring within the industry rather than encourage it. This seems a potentially disastrous approach to adopt," he said.

Paul Millard South West Marketing & Communications Manager on 07831 674 345