New ground

Too much Brexit planning in Whitehall feels like damage limitation, rather than a positive attempt to embrace a post-eu future. So it is refreshing to hear Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, setting out how a key UK sector can adapt and thrive when the UK is in a position to set policy for its own needs, rather than those of others.

For 40 years, decision-making about farming has been a matter for the EU and underpinned by a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) structured principally for the benefit of French farmers. The system no longer encourages overproduction, as was once the case, but pays for stewardship of the land. Mr Gove has now reassured farmers that subsidies costing about £3 billion annually would remain in place until at least 2022, the expected date of the next general election and three years after Britain leaves the EU. These payments would be linked to a requirement on farmers to plant woodland, boost wildlife, improve drainage and revive wild-flower meadows.

A proper policy for the future must be a balance between preserving the environment and encouraging food production. The countryside is not an “eco-museum” but a place of work. Our much-loved landscape is a product of the different types of farming around the country, from the sheep-grazed uplands of Wales and Yorkshire to the lush dairy farms of Devon.

Tensions between a cheap food approach relying heavily on imports on the one hand, and the requirements of food security and the environment on the other, have been suppressed while policy has been decided in Brussels. Resolving them for the benefit of both farmers and consumers will be one of the great challenges of Brexit.