An interesting piece by Professor Iain Fraser in the Food Research Collaboration blog Food Voices on 12 December 2018 on ‘De-linking final Basic Payments from Farming’:
‘In September 2018 the Government published a new Agriculture Bill. It marks a profound change in the design, delivery and rationale of agricultural policy in the UK. It is proposed that farming can only expect to obtain public financial support for the production of public goods, such as the provision of biodiversity, improving soil management and quality, and planting of trees. There is a great deal of emphasis on the environment and the delivery of the promises that have recently been made in the 25 Year Environment Plan. As a result, the most striking aspect of the Bill is the minimal amount of actual agriculture policy in any traditional sense.
What this means for agricultural and rural policy in the UK is that the support payments currently made to farmers under Pillar I of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the form of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) will be removed. These payments are substantial – significantly greater than £200 per hectare in 2017. Although these payments are “decoupled” from historical levels of agricultural production it is difficult to defend them as anything other than a subsidy to farming.’ …
…Read the complete article here.