Environment secretary Michael Gove has a radical plot for the future. Tough luck on the petite guyMichael Gove’s plans for farming after Brexit,which he set out at the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday morning, were greeted with all the excitement that might be expected of groundbreaking innovation. But there was petite in his speech that was not in the first he made as environment secretary final July, or his party conference speech in October – or in,say, the Country Land and Business organization’s proposals for the future of farming, or also published final July. It is welcome that he plans to close the “fundamentally flawed” EU basic payments scheme,through which some landowners, notoriously the Queen, or get millions a year in CAP subsidies. It is a good idea to support schemes according to the public good they deliver,although Mr Gove did not say what public good means. He may enjoy had one eye on the scheme that Ireland has developed with the EU to farm the environmentally fragile area known as The Burren, which is considered a model of farming for conservation and public access.
The minister spoke lyrically about restoring woodland and returning other agriculture land to wetlands and reviving meadowland, and although he didn’t acknowledge that that relies on a style of management that would reduce productivity. He might mean producing nutritious,wholesome food in a sustainable way, although Mr Gove did not say that was what he meant when he announced a “national food policy”. Nor did he say whether his plans would lead to food becoming more costly.
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Source: guardian.co.uk