Farmer fears over leaked environment plan

British farmers must not be unfairly disadvantaged by the government’s environmental ambitions for the countryside, says the NFU.

NFU vice-president Guy Smith issued the warning after the BBC obtained a leaked draft of the government’s forthcoming 25-year plan for the environment.

The plan was a Tory manifesto pledge but has been delayed because of Brexit – similar to a long-awaited and delayed 25-year plan for food and farming.

See also: Farmers ‘must do more for the environment’ – Leadsom

The BBC says the environment plan includes the goal of bringing back birds to a countryside depleted of them under EU agricultural policy.

New woodlands

It also suggests “new woodlands ought to be planted on the least productive agricultural land – mainly in the uplands”.

Mr Smith said farmers already looked after the landscape, soil, water and air.

It was important the environment plan didn’t end up imposing unnecessary conditions on the sector, which would result in the UK importing more food rather than producing it at home.

“If you constrain or curtail food production through badly designed regulation, you merely suck in more imports,” Mr Smith told the Today programme on Radio 4.

“We would argue that they may well come from parts of the world where environmental standards are lower,” added Mr Smith.

“If you reforest vast tracts of British farmland, the net effect is probably to wipe out greater amounts of rain forest in other parts of the world.

“Overall, the net effect is a negative, so this needs to be thought through.”

‘Lightweight’ plan

If policies were not properly considered, the government could unwittingly impose more regulation on farmers – especially if they were rushed through.

Catherine Weller, head of biodiversity at Client Earth, described the 25-year plan as “pretty lightweight and very vague on detail”.

The aspiration of living in a healthy environment and beautiful landscape was a good one but the government had not set out how it would achieve its aims.

“There aren’t targets set out in this leaked draft – that it means we won’t be able to hold the government accountable to whether they achieve them or not.”