Beyond our wildest dreams?

AGROMENES is usually firmly on the side of the Countryside Alliance (CA), but he has to caution against its chief executive Tim Bonner’s recent attack on rewilding. It’s a word that, this year, has entered the Oxford English Dictionary and it has obviously struck a chord with many who have the welfare of the countryside at heart. It may not be the term Agromenes would have chosen, as it can so easily be interpreted as uncompromising and critical. However, it has caught the imagination of a growing number who recognise the need to rethink the way we use our land.

For Mr Bonner to call the concept ‘toxic’ is to alienate many of his natural supporters. He would have been better advised to support such experiments and allow us to learn from them. To have joined the knee-jerk opponents strays too close to the side of unthinking rural reaction and that’s not the best place for the CA.

Inevitably, rewilding excites the hostility of the hidebound who see any questioning of present farming practices as an intolerable affront. Indeed, it was that spirit that caused the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) to blast a project called Summit to Sea that was promoted by a consortium of voluntary organisations in Wales. The consortium recognised that an alternative to the present farming structure was necessary, not least because the subsidies upon which sheep farming has depended are not going to be available for long outside the Common Agricultural Policy.

The members also understood that the Government’s commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 means planting millions more trees and reducing the amount of meat we eat. Add to that the market reality of a growing number of customers who opt for a largely plant-based diet and the sense in looking for alternatives, from which vulnerable farmers could choose, is obvious. ‘Choose’ is the operative word. No one was suggesting that people should be forced to join in the experiment. There were no strong-arm tactics, nor was there skulduggery by night. Instead, a group of NGOS set out to put their ideas into practice and had the financial support to make it a workable proposition.

The FUW’S reaction was entirely over the top. What on earth does it have to fear? If the experiment were a success, then it could be used to benefit their members. If it failed, then its opponents would be proved right and no harm would be done. To demonise the project and call it ‘toxic’ to the countryside only reinforces the views of those who believe that farmers are simply unwilling even to contemplate change. It is the modern parallel to the contemptuous way in which, until the 1980s, the then Ministry of Agriculture and the farming unions talked of Eve Balfour and the Soil Association. Today, organic production, concern for the fertility of the soil and a determination to recover biodiversity are mainstream attitudes and the anger at ‘muck and magic’ is a thing of the past.

Even the most enthusiastic of rewilders see it as a suitable answer for only about 4% of our land area. However, the learnings that we can glean from the imagination and experimentation that drive projects such as this could be applied on a much wider scale. The CA should be embracing those projects, encouraging their enthusiasts and welcoming all who care about rural Britain in an all-too-urban society. They should not provide a megaphone for those who see no need for change and who condemn all but the conventional. Those are the attitudes that undermine the future of farming and the CA should have none of them.

The learnings that we can glean from rewilding projects could be applied on a wider scale