Brexit presents a chance to transform how we care for the countryside
SIR – Although I am not a fan of Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, I welcome his statement that agricultural subsidies following our exit from the EU will be based on stewardship as well as food production (report, July 22).
As a rambler, I have become increasingly frustrated by the curtailing of access to our countryside through poorly maintained paths and stiles and crops planted across rights of way. I hope that, under Mr Gove’s new vision, landowners are paid to keep footpaths open for us all. Steve Thomas
Northwich, Cheshire
SIR – I farm 100 acres, of which 65 acres are arable land.
EU rules dictate that I grow three crops on that one field – which, of course, is totally uneconomical. Let us hope that Brexit gets rid of this nonsense, and sees greater support for the small farmer. Richard Beaugie
Ashford, Kent SIR – There is no conflict in a policy that is designed to transform the environment while securing the food we need.
Arable farming has largely suppressed the power of natural systems and destroyed, through chemical saturation, the microbial and fungal contents of our soils. The nitrates poured on to the land to make up for this loss of natural fertility are poisoning our water. Slug pellets kill both slugs and their predators, such as hedgehogs and beetles.
Figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs state that 51 per cent of the profits in arable farming are from public investment, so Mr Gove is right to secure public goods for public money. Let us now work together to reduce food waste and produce food sustainably, so that the legacy of Brexit may be the restoration of British soils to benefit future generations. Merrick Denton-thompson
President, Landscape Institute Upham, Hampshire SIR – Geoff Read (Letters, July 22) is absolutely right to stress the importance of farming subsidies in maintaining “food security at reasonable prices”.
However, it is not only the tendency to prioritise conservation over food production which threatens that goal.
Successive governments of every political hue have weakened the protections afforded to farming land under planning policies. It is now easier than ever for developers to obtain permission to build on prime agricultural land. Since much farmland is not situated in designated Green Belt areas, ministers’ repeated promises to protect the Green Belt from development are meaningless in this context.
Undoubtedly there is a housing crisis in this country; but it would be nice if ministers and their advisers could draft rules which force developers to prioritise “brownfield” sites and protect prime agricultural land. John Waine
Nuneaton, Warwickshire