Peter Gittins: Too much doublespeak from rural policymakers
Peter Gittins © Peter Gittins “Doublespeak” is a term rooted in George Orwell’s warnings about political language: words that sound reasonable and reassuring, but conceal, distort or soften what is really happening.
It feels increasingly relevant to agriculture as I find myself repeatedly struck by the gap between what is said about farming by policymakers and what is actually done to farmers.
See also: Peter Gittins: You can’t regulate what you don’t understand
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Farmers are told they are valued, that food security matters, and that government is working “with” the industry.
Indeed, Defra has spoken of a “cast iron commitment to food security”, while ministers state farming’s “primary purpose” is to “produce the food that feeds the nation” and promise to “work in partnership” with farmers.
“Labour is a party of the countryside.” And so on.
But the realities on the ground feel very different. Amid all the talk of “partnerships”, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) was presented as part of a managed transition.
Yet in March 2025, Defra abruptly announced it would stop accepting new applications. A ministerial statement later confirmed they had closed the scheme “without notice”, affecting thousands.
And what about the government’s claim that it wants to make processes “simpler, easier and faster” and that SFI would bring “less paperwork”.
The chopping and changing of schemes has made planning for many harder, not easier.
It talks about “supporting farms and businesses”, yet agricultural property relief and business property relief have been reformed in ways many family farms find destabilising.
The official line is that reliefs are being made “fairer”, but we know how destructive this will be.
So much for “food production”, too. If they wanted that truly to be the primary purpose of farming, policy should give producers confidence to invest. Why then cut support and increase uncertainty?
Meanwhile the Land Use Framework says housing, energy, nature recovery and food production are “not competing demands”. Anyone who works with land knows there are always trade-offs.
Perhaps most tellingly, even a recent Defra-commissioned and published uplands review found that farmers are “largely distrustful” of government bodies, seeing them as “punitive” and “controlling”.
No bloody wonder with all this government’s doublespeak.
