Mark Pope is an arable farmer on a Crown Estate farm near Taunton in Somerset. He is the first chairman of the NFU’s new Environment Forum.
He writes:
I’d challenge anyone who says ‘farmers don’t do enough for the environment” to go into the countryside, look around them and see how farmers have moulded the British landscape over hundreds of years.
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We are not perfect but I believe we do a fantastic job in protecting our natural resources and producing the nation’s food.
Now we need to get the balance right to protect the landscape for the next generation but also allow for growth in production.
I believe the balance has tipped too far towards just caring for the environment. If we can re-adjust that balance and use the tools we now have available to us, such as precision farming and nutrient mapping, I see no reason why we can’t produce more but impact less.
As climate change impacts on us more, food security will become a bigger issue and simply importing our food will not be an option.
One of the major issues the NFU’s Environment Forum will tackle is flood management. We need a clear policy from upper catchment to the sea. We need to look at the bigger picture and use the expertise of NFU advisers to look to where we can turn flooding to an advantage. For example, water storage with reservoirs - can we find a way to get funding for flooding and maybe use this this to help with reservoir storage.
The new Countryside Stewardship scheme is about to be brought in and I want to make sure that farmers get rewarded for the work they do beyond food production. As an industry we need to find better ways of measuring our success -and providing evidence to back it up - so we have got some real success stories to talk about.
The General Election is just around the corner and it looks highly probable that we will have another coalition in Government. If we get the right combination, and are allowed to farm for the market, then I believe we can strike a strong balance between environment and production. If we get the wrong combination I believe farming and the environment could both suffer.
What is for sure is that the new Environment Forum has plenty of work to do. As things progress I will keep you posted on our progress.