Defra expert says policy needs a ‘re-imagination’

A glimpse into future farm policy after this country leaves Europe was this week provided by a top civil servant and his message to farmers was, at best, challenging.

Speaking at a conference in Edinburgh, Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific advisor at Defra, said that in looking to a future rural policy, there had to be three main components. These were the environment, food production and the social economy and how these would combine would require, in his words, a “re-imagination for the future.”

For a man who is at the hub of rural policy in his role at the main UK rural Government department, Professor Boyd did not mince his words on how he saw the present position in farming.

He described current farm policy and farm production as being both “broken and inefficient” and, as such, in need of radical reform.

Using statistics to demonstrate the current reliance on farm subsidies, he said it was essential that change took place from the

0 Professor Ian Boyd addresses an Edinburgh conference present position of rewarding inaction.

He quickly and decisively dismissed those who universally spoke positively about the future, saying there would be winners and losers when the change in policy was implemented.

And for those in the ‘losing’ category, he said the big question was how they would be compensated.

He admitted that farming in some sectors and geographical areas would continue to need support and that farmers had to have time to adjust to changed circumstances but added that moves had to be made to change unprofitable farming into the black.

Professor Boyd’s audience consisted of almost one hundred SRUC consultants, advisors and teaching staff and their counterparts from Teagasc, the Irish Rural development organisation where the primary aim wastolookathowalong term strategy for the rural economy could be established.

This was the first large scale meeting between the two rural support organisations and it follows Professor Wayne Powell, the principal of SRUC desire to see Scotland’s rural college play a role beyond the boundaries of this country.