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It has long been apparent that the current British government given the opportunity would close down agriculture in the same manner as previous British governments ended the agony of big shipbuilding, steel and coal. But agriculture is more awkward. (1020 Words)

"Farming and Food: A Sustainable Future," the first of three post foot and mouth reports on English agriculture, did not dispel this perception. Its 30-page summary of recommendations may have been designed to contain something to please everybody, but nobody in the industry can be happy with the general tone of the report.

It is about a year since the hostilities between the government and farmers first really came to the surface when the Prime Minister was uncharacteristically booed and hissed when he outlined the government's agricultural strategy at the National Farmers Union's annual conference. Such was the perceived gap between these governmental objectives and reality that he was regarded as at best ignorant and worst callous.

This was understandable in the context that farms incomes at the time were lower than they had been since the 1930's and the Prime Minister called for agriculture not only to be more competitive but also to bear the cost of urban dwellers' amenity expectations of the country side.

With the foot and mouth outbreak following a few weeks later, which the government, and particularly the Prime Minister, are widely perceived to have mishandled, things went from bad to worse. And when the government announced, in lieu of a public inquiry, three high profile studies relating to the state of agriculture to be undertaken, there was a glimmer of hope that the government might be having second thoughts.

The remit given to the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food, the first to report last month, was "to advise the Government on how we can create a sustainable, competitive and diverse farming and food sector..." And the commission did very little to challenge this patronizing tone which was a carry over from the government's agricultural strategy.

The report will not make popular reading in the countryside, will provide no new direction, and can be criticized on a number of counts. But it is almost certainly an important document as it seems to lay out an urban perception of the challenge with agriculture. As perceptions are reality in politics, for the moment the document presents a pretext for all kinds of government activity. And with 30 pages of recommendations, there is plenty to select from even if the report stresses that recommendations should not be cherry picked.

Probably the most astute observation of the report was that "the real reason why the present situation is so dysfunctional is that farming has become detached from the rest of the economy and the environment." In trying to explain why this was, the report trotted out a long list of internationally prevalent and long-standing farm and food issues none of which, with the possible exception of a strong currency, were explicitly British in nature.

The reason for the "dysfunctionality" is, of course, no secret but something that could not really be part of a government report. Specifically, the failure of the government to maintain a level playing field in terms of the European context in which British agriculture competes. The cost of doing this is seen by government as excessive.

There is, of course, nothing new about governments making this kind of decision. The British shipbuilding, coal and steel industries have had their tap of public funding turned off in the past with predicable results. But with agriculture things are a little more unpredictable for the government.

In the first place the main agricultural tap is located in Brussels and the British government has limited control of it, or indeed over how the funds that flow to British farmers are allocated. In truth it has enough influence to make things very uncomfortable for British farmers, as it has demonstrated.

And it further makes clear to farmers at every opportunity that it plans to get the European Union's (EU) Common Agricultural Policy controls changed so that it can apply the tap more effectively. But whether it will have much success in persuading the other 14 member states of the EU is open to question.

Secondly, when you close the gate of shipyard, steel works or colliery, the disused plant is not that much more unsightly than when it was used. And in any events these sites were not valued by society for more than the economic benefits they produced.

In the case of farming the future of the countryside is at stake. The character of the British countryside which society is supposed to value so highly was crafted by its agricultural use over hundreds and even thousands of years, and as importantly by farmers' visions for the future over many generations. Farmers' ability to craft the countryside has already been drastically reduced and visions for the future all but destroyed.

The government, therefore, has reason to be concerned. It has all sorts of plans to regulate this natural process in diverse situations and with limited experience with such attempts at control. Further, in most instances it will be relying on farmers who it has so thoroughly alienated to do the job for them.

Finally when closing conventional industries, government was able to deal with a handful of decision makers, basically management and the unions, and influence the timing of events to fit political agendas - election timetables. While as a group the hundreds of thousands of farmers as individuals represent less of a bargaining challenge for government, getting a closing deal will never be possible. Without some kind of control over timing, the exercise is politically an extremely risky one.

The reality is that the government probably appreciates all this and in the final analysis is posturing, which is nothing new. Farmers and the countryside will undoubtedly suffer unnecessarily so that the government at the end of the day will be able to say it did try. Agriculture is, from a political perspective, awkward. If it was otherwise, solutions would abound.

February 5, 2002