Thread by @herdyshepherd1

So this is what I think about the policy announcement

There is quite a lot of hope in it (and the people working on it behind the scenes are good) - but it is shrouded in vagueness

It seems to be based on a vision that is deeply flawed and likely to fail

Namely to get British farming to a point where it isn’t subsidised in 7 years

Why is that likely to fail?

Because we compete with trade rivals that almost all subsidise their agriculture - the EU through the CAP and the USA through federal crop insurance etc etc

So we would be asking our highly regulated and constrained (by historic and scale etc) farmers to compete at a massive disadvantage with farmers in places like Iowa

This will create massive downward price pressure - and less to great intensification in British farming

The scheme even wants to grant aid this process for some bizarre reason

At least 30% of British farmers won’t be in the schemes - according the document

Many others will only be partly in for hedgerows or whatever

So a lot of farmland is going to be driven to be less good for nature

There is no (?) mention of food security, raising standards or regenerative agriculture in the docs

So the schemes themselves might be great - we simply can’t judge yet - but this allied to free trade policy and unwillingness to address corporate domination of the food system will create an even more ruthless food and farming system

I think we have to look at all the pressures on agriculture and be clear what we want farmers to do on our behalf

Cheapest food in the world or good and productive land stewards

If it’s that latter, and it should be then we can’t just tweak round a bad system with schemes

This Goverment thinks we can have cheapest food in the world, no subsidies and amazing environmental works

It is a fantasy and ducks the tough choices

It’s like saying ‘we are going to throw you off a cliff in seven years time... but don’t worry, we will teach you how to fly first’

None of this means the scheme itself will be awful - I think it has a chance of being good

It is quite likely that we will have cheaper food in the future through this, more and more of it imported from other places with less regulation and awful ecological practices... and we will have a few small areas that the Guardian loves for nature

It is a dreadful philosophy

And there is a massive financial hole as the old payments are withdrawn and not directly replaced by new ones

It seems as if a great many farmers will get a massive pay cut in this period - which perhaps doesn’t matter except those pressures will make the environment worse...

And the model initially at least is still going to be based on an ‘income foregone’ basis

So instead of earning the market rate for carbon sequestration - I will get simply what I have lost from low value livestock farming in their metrics...

This matters because we will be talking about farmers delivering ‘public goods’ like carbon - but denying them the chance to earn a decent living providing them

The difference can be massive for good land management - the difference between making a profit and going bankrupt

So we need answers and answers quick - or this is a shambles and a con

I will withhold that cynical judgment - and try and wait patiently for the good folks in Whitehall to develop this to make it more credible in the coming weeks

As a footnote:

Most people have become confused and think agricultural policy and subsidies completely shape farming and landscapes

It’s only a bit of the picture - food markets and downward farm gate prices, trade policies and technological change are also key variables