Give each active UK farmer £5,000, says Global Justice
Staff Writer |
A report released at the Oxford Real Farming Conference has called for a "new deal" to help struggling UK farmers and saving over £1 billion a year.
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The report by the New Economics Foundation and Global Justice Now offers a progressive solution to questions around post-Brexit agriculture policy, proposing to redirect the £3 billion that currently goes to UK farmers each year from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The groups behind the report suggest that there is a "Broad consensus that this policy has been a disaster on multiple fronts."
Subsidy funds in their current guise are only guaranteed in Britain until 2020, and farming minister George Eustice has suggested that after this time they will be removed or parred back.
Funds will be possibly linked to environmental performance or issued as part of grant schemes to support young farmers or enable farmers to buy technical equipment to boost production.
New Economics Foundation and Global Justice Now advocate:
Giving each active farmer with over 1ha of land a universal payment of £5,000, which they say would redistribute available agriculture funds and level the playing field.
The current finding regime awards large amounts to large landowners with virtually no strings attached. This would also reduce the overall spend on farm funding.
Offering grants for medium-scale, regional infrastructure, including processing facilities and local business development programmes to allow local supply chains to be strengthened and maintained, while supporting new business models and small-scale producers.
Offering extra funds for farmers and landowners providing specific public goods. They said decisions on which public goods to prioritise and how to allocate the budget should be devolved to regions, which would set 10-year frameworks based on local knowledge.
These public goods could include soil carbon storage and climate change mitigation, better animal welfare or flood prevention. ■