BEHIND THE HEADLINES: OUR HOPES AND FEARS FOR 2019

2019 promises to be a year of unprecedented change for the countryside, with Brexit, food prices and environmental regulation dominating the landscape. Mark Rowe asks influential figures for their forecasts as to how things will play out

Influential figures forecast how the countryside will fare in 2019.

MARTIN HARPER Conservation director, RSPB

What are your hopes for 2019? Exiting the EU means reshaping our relationship with our continental neighbours while continuing to try and save the environment that connects us. However, this means we have a chance to reimagine our agriculture policy in ways that enable our farmers to restore the nature that once flourished in our fields and rivers, while maintaining a thriving food and rural economy. What are your fears or worries? This is the final year to galvanise action before world leaders meet in Beijing to assess progress in halting global nature loss and setting new ambitions for the coming decade.

What single thing would you most like to see happen? We will be releasing our third State of

Nature report, in conjunction with our partners. This groundbreaking research is likely to show that our country’s nature remains in trouble. But it will also tell us what must be done to put nature back into people’s lives and the places it needs to be, providing the link to positive physical and mental health that we know the countryside delivers.

MARK LLOYD Chief executive, Angling Trust & Fish Legal

What are your hopes for 2019? I hope governments will finally get a grip on water policy in England and Wales. Abstraction reform was promised in 2011, but is now postponed until the 2020s. Legislation to require weir owners to make them passable to fish has been delayed for over a decade. Funding for the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales has been cut by more than 50 per cent and there has been a lack of political will to take enforcement action against the minority of farmers who cause the majority of pollution in the countryside. I would like to see a Fisheries Bill that puts sustainable fisheries management and recreational angling at the heart of policy. What are your fears or worries? I am concerned that the paralysis currently gripping our Government, as they stare into the headlights of Brexit, will continue. What single thing would you most like to see happen? An acknowledgement that restoring the ecological functions of our freshwater and marine environments is vital for wildlife, people and the economy to survive and thrive.

MATT SHARDLOW Chief executive, Buglife

What are your hopes for 2019? That public concern about declining bee numbers translates into political steps to restore pollinator habitats across the countryside. Also, that Brexit does not massively harm our nature and environment laws, pesticide safety or our ability to hold decision makers to account. What are your fears or worries? Steep pollinator declines are a severe risk to food supplies. The neonicotinoid insecticide ban was good news, but I fear further slumps in bug numbers. Worse still, corporate interests now see this as an opportunity to replace wild pollination, by shipping around lorry loads of honeybees, genetically modifying bees to make them immune to insecticides and building robotic bees. What single thing would you most like to see happen? The new Environment Act is the biggest opportunity for English wildlife. Ensuring other species can thrive requires targets shared across society, coordinated activity and sufficient resources. I hope we get a strong Environment Act that embeds binding targets for reversing the decline of biodiversity and restoring a network of habitats, such as ‘B-Lines’ for pollinators.

HENRI GREIG Farmer

What are your hopes for 2019? A continued increase in people’s appreciation of the direct link between their physical and mental health and the food they are eating, and that more people will seek out the healthiest and most wholesome food they can buy, to stay as healthy as they can, at a time when the NHS is overstretched. What are your fears or worries? That the potential opportunities offered by Brexit – to encourage improved low-input and rotational farming practices and increase the availability of sustainable and nutritious artisan food through SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) – are lost, through a poor deal or no deal, through a lack of vision by policy makers or through inappropriate regulation designed for industrial processing. What single thing would you most like to see happen? Young people choosing to work in the countryside growing food, grasping the opportunities that better connectivity can offer to create alternative sources of income from their farming enterprises. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) actively working in partnership with food businesses so that consumers have the choice to buy food they can trust.

“I hope we get a strong Environment Act that embeds binding targets for reversing the decline of biodiversity and restoring habitats” Matt Shardlow

MINETTE BATTERS President, National Farmers Union

What are your hopes for 2019? Our departure from the EU will have inevitable and immediate impacts. The British farming industry looks to a future where the production of safe, traceable and affordable food goes hand-in-hand with caring for the environment, and where farm businesses can flourish in a new trading environment. What are your fears or worries? It is absolutely essential that we reach a withdrawal deal. Our ability to export animal products to the EU is dependent on this, and if the Government fails in this task, farmers around the UK face an immediate trade embargo. With 60 per cent of our exports going to EU countries, this would put severe strain on livelihoods and businesses. Beyond 29 March, if a deal is struck, farmers and growers need stability as we transition from EU regulation. This will be a critical period as we wait to hear whether a free and frictionless trading relationship with the EU has been agreed. What single thing would you most like to see happen? The Agriculture Bill 2017–19 marks another of the many changes facing farming as a new system of support is implemented. As the bill makes its way through Parliament, we hope it becomes fully fit for purpose with food production at its core.

ADAM SMITH Director, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust Scotland

What are your hopes for 2019? More birds, more corn. We live in a crowded island where food security and the demand for fuel and fibre could become even more important this year. There is more research and practical knowledge available now about the best management for our lapwings, bees and soils. I hope our nation’s land managers, who must deliver barley, sheep and grouse, further integrate practices that will also enhance the environment and ultimately their businesses’ bottom line. What are your fears or worries? That a political focus on nature in nature reserves, timber from forests and food from the fields will not address the population declines of the curlew or pollinators. Many farmers and fieldsports enthusiasts already manage land in support of their businesses and the environment. Yet, public policy could fail to spot the opportunities to work with these skilled practitioners. What single thing would you most like to see happen? There are over 200,000 hectares of land being collaboratively managed for environmental and farming goods in England; ‘Farmer Clusters’ are a GWCT success story. I hope this practitionerled approach is increasingly supported in policy and practice across the UK, and comes to encompass moorlands and woodlands as well as farms.

SEAN RICKARD Food and farming economist

What are your hopes for 2019? The coming year threatens to be one of unprecedented uncertainty for UK farmers. Even Brexit, given the promise of a “meaningful” parliamentary vote, is unresolved. Uncertainty impedes investment, and like all businesses, farms must invest to survive and prosper. What are your fears or worries? Doubt regarding future trading relationships will limit desperately needed investment in high-tech solutions to combat a poor record of productivity and competitiveness. Farms, facing the prospect of the loss of tariff protection against countries such as the United States – where production costs are about 20 per cent lower – are unlikely to commit the necessary long-term funds. My fear is 2019 will mark the start of a decade of decline for agriculture. What single thing would you most like to see happen? My hope – for the sake of a diverse, regionally balanced agricultural industry, providing much-needed employment in rural areas – is that the country will be given the opportunity to reverse its narrow vote to leave the EU.

CHARLOTTE SMITH Presenter, Farming Today/ Countryfile

What are your hopes for 2019? My hopes are simple, and unlikely: that we can stop talking about Brexit all the time and have a nice predictable year. So much of the Brexit deal and the subsequent trade deals are unknown as I write this that it’s almost impossible to work out exactly what the impact will be on the people who grow food and the people who eat it. As we leave the EU, we leave the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) behind and embrace a new approach to a domestic agricultural policy; it’s an understatement to say there will be a lot of change. What are your fears or worries? My fear is that instead of continuing to discuss and question the best policies, the best adaptations, the best ways forward, people just shout at each other. I’m not pretending it’s easy to balance the needs of all wildlife with the needs of all farmers and the needs of all consumers, but yelling won’t help. What single thing would you most like to see happen? I’d like the weather to be boring: no snow, no drought, no floods, just boring.

“It is absolutely essential we reach a withdrawal deal. Our ability to export animal products to the EU is dependent on this” Minette Batters