Credible production plan is required

Sir, – Jim Crumley (It was a close vote in Colorado – but the grey wolf is finally coming back home, Courier, November 10) asserts that “few landowners and farmers think in the long term. Fewer still are willing to acknowledge that nature may know more than they do about land management.”

Nature might well know more than farmers and landowners about land management. However, to argue nature must take its course, without any human intervention, is irresponsible

when there are 67 million people in the UK to feed, clothe, heat and otherwise provide for.

What is the grand plan for providing for them if we hand over land management to nature alone? And who will carry the can when it all goes horribly wrong?

The nature of modern farming and land management are the result of society’s expectations as a whole, and can only be changed sustainably by lowering the human population or becoming less consumerorientated in our outlook.

Realistically, these things can only happen gradually, and

methods of land management can only change gradually.

Currently we produce 64% of our own food needs in the UK and we cannot meet our current timber needs.

Producing even less and importing even more would have a negative environmental impact overall, and is unsustainable in the long term.

Conservation and sustainability is recognised as important by the vast majority of farmers and landowners.

But, in the absence of any credible alternative plan, must take place in tandem with more productive land use when there are so many people to provide for.

Thomas Steuart Fothringham. Murthly and Strathbraan Estates, Murthly, Perth.