On 19 October, the All Party Parliamentary Group for Agroecology hosted an event in Westminster. Farmer Anthony Curwen came along with representatives of the RSPB and shares his views below.
"As Manager of the Quex Park Estate, a country estate in Kent which farms intensively but also has delivered many environmental gains, I was invited to this meeting by the RSPB to make elected politicians aware of the various issues that need to be addressed.
At Quex Park we farm wheat, oilseed rape, field beans and potatoes as well as having a single suckler beef herd which is largely grass-fed on the marginal marshland ground. All the beef from this is slaughtered locally and sold through the Estate farm shop. We have also been involved with the environmental stewardship schemes since 2001, and are currently operating under the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme (HLS).
In addition we have undertaken a considerable amount of unfunded work which includes planting of over 5 miles of hedgerows and several thousand trees. A local wildlife group has identified 83 species of birds in the last calendar year which is an undoubted increase since the start of this century. However the farm consistently yields in the top 25% of farms nationally so it is also very successful in its role as food producer.
Since the referendum result to leave the EU, the future of farming and the environment in the UK has never been so uncertain. One fear is that post Brexit, trade deals may be done on a worldwide basis for the benefit of other industries, which significantly damages British agriculture and all the associated environmental benefits that should go with it. There was a whole collection of representatives concerned with this issue including the Soil Association, the Country Trust, The Woodland Trust and the Family Farmers Association.
The representations made to the gathering was that if this type of environmental work is to continue, funding for the industry is essential. I was privileged to meet a range of MPs and Peers, including Lord Gardiner, from Defra, and Rachael Maskell MP, the shadow secretary of state for Defra.
It is my personal view that farm size should not be an issue and if this was capped it could affect many of those who are doing such excellent environmental work. However I fully understand that for funding to be politically acceptable in the future, environmental benefits must be evident and visible.
There have been successes with the environmental stewardship schemes, but there have to be real improvements from what is currently delivered by the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) which is the largest part of agricultural support, with its cross-compliance and the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) requirements.
For the greatest overall benefit, the ecosystem services approach with its 4 structural components could be followed:
a) Provisioning (e.g production of food and water)b) Regulating (e.g control of disease and climate)c) Supporting (e.g crop pollination and nutrient cycles)d) Cultural (e.g recreational and cultural benefits, countryside)
The support system needs to demonstrably deliver these benefits. This may well mean that the Pillar 2 component (where agri-environment funding comes from) becomes much more pronounced, and the Pillar 1 equivalent (where the BPS payment comes from) needs to be diminished significantly.
The MPs, peers and spokespeople I met seemed fully appreciative of the need to support farming and the environment and took on board the points made above. They were actively engaged in discussion and most picked up quickly the critical points. The strapline I provided was that ‘farming and conservation have to be the same side of the same coin’, and this seemed to strike a chord.
It is so easy for the political classes and predominantly urban-based decision-makers to become divorced from countryside management with its essential joint function of food supply and environmental enhancement (not protection but enhancement), and it is my view that they will need reminding on a continual basis."