There is so much written already and so much discussion about how farming and the environment will feature in a post Brexit world but are all the conversations taking place in different rooms?
I have just been looking up the information on the Greener UK about the lobbying being done by this group for securing environmental protection after we leave the UK. The alliance of 'green NGOs' has a long list of worthy contributors and subscribers but I could have guessed most of them.
In a separate room are the farming lobby organisations keen to make sure that they don't face the sort of rules that make it impossible to farm and make a profit in future. They are well known too.
Both groups include a significant proportion of organisations funded principally by membership subscriptions. Others make their money oiling the wheels of their respective organisations; selling products to farming on the one hand or advising those who implement environmental policies on the other. There is a lack of objective and dispassionate comment. Scientific consensus is often absent and academics too suffer from conflicts on interest.
Surely this is a debate that is important enough for all to work together because there is more at stake than just farming and the environment. Why, for example, are we to have a Government paper on the environment separate from any paper on agriculture? Why is there not a paper on food? This is a crucially important time for both farming and the environment; for communities and individuals; for food; for landscape and for urban and rural places. They all need each other- these are often symbiotic relationships.
Let us hope that, for activity in rural areas, Government recognise that it is not just DEFRA that is involved. Yes they are in one room but in other rooms are DH (Health); DCMS (digital connectivity); BEIS (business); CLG (planning); DFT (rural transport); DEEU (exiting the EU) and DIT (trade).
This is why it will be interesting to have the subject studied by a group that are not sponsored by a Government Department nor by membership bodies and includes those who work in the health sector- surely the unspoken voice in a debate about what we eat, where it comes from and what it costs. The recently announced Food, Farming and Countryside Commission working under the auspices of the RSA is attempting to do that and it will be interesting to see the results of the two year study that is just starting.
