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Just as social programmes have not done much to solve poverty, environmental programmes are likely to provide little lasting benefit for the countryside. (830 Words)

Society's concern for the environment is undeniably a positive product of affluence. One only has to compare developing and developed economies, high and low income neighbourhoods and the urban landscape in the 19th and 21st centuries to come to this conclusion.

This income related interest in the environment is very logical. If one is striving to feed, clothe and protect oneself and family, concern about the environment is very distant. Surely such middle order priorities as social justice, health and education follow soon after the essentials have been taken care of. And beyond these societies can turn their attentions to recreation, the environment and such.

The same holds for individuals. The legendry environmental interest of the affluent landed gentry in the eighteenth century are evident today in the landscapes they created, currently being recycled as theme parks, golf courses and convention centres. Comparison between the countryside in the 1930's and the 1970's also provides an equally vivid illustration of farming priorities; in the former case survival and the latter enhancement of the countryside.

To make an environmentally positive impressions on the countryside, a farmer needs both the means to invest and a positive vision of the future, appreciating benefits are anything but instant. The utility of this combination in preserving Britain's countryside has served it well in the past. While much of Britain's urban landscape which has been laid waste in a matter of decades, the countryside has been conserved by farming for centuries and in some cases millenniums.

It is to be expected that a well keep countryside inevitably leaves the impression of prosperity. Conversely urban blight suggests poverty.

The challenge that the British government now faces is its political imperative to reduce the cost of support of agriculture, while at the same time sustaining, for its urban electorate, the countryside environment which is in essence the product of prosperity. Paradoxically it is the resentment of this apparent prosperity in the past, seen to be created at government expense, that is the political motivation.

A further challenge for the government is that it is attempting to do this at a time of undeniable farming poverty, a time when the cash flow for environmental maintenance has dried up and, as importantly, the visions for the future have been eroded.

The chosen strategy is to divert funds which would otherwise be spent rewarding economic activity to paying for politically determined environmental objectives.

But the effectiveness and efficiency of this strategy as recommended in the Report of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food, published in January, has to be questioned.

As farmers are to be compensated under these programmes, specific requirements will need to be carefully defined. Whether these requirements can be established with sensitivity for a wide variety of environmental needs is open to question. At best they will be defined in terms of the status quo, at worst by urban and probably romantic perceptions. The cost of administering such programmes will be a significant burden.

Any flexibility in terms of compromise between productivity and conservation is likely to be lost. Farming will tend to be frozen in time, exactly when farmers are being urged to be more competitive and innovative.

Sustaining the environment will implicitly be segregated from farming in the minds of farmers. Longer term conservational considerations will be lost as farmers adjust their practices to meet the immediate requirements of government programmes.

A further challenge arises from the changing structure of agriculture. In recent years the ownership of land has increasingly been split from operational aspects. Farming is a capital intensive activity. By separating real estate ownership from operation as is common elsewhere in the economy, it is possible for people to enter the industry with relatively little capital.

In terms of the environment, however, this creates a challenge as operational concerns in conservation are lost with reduced security. And as government environmental programmes target owners, operators are only indirectly implicated.

In essence paying farmers to conserve the environment prostitutes the issue. It is like paying people to pick up litter. It provides very immediate results but has little lasting effect unless perpetuated, in which case the incentive to bin the litter is destroyed.

If there is hope for the environmental future of the countryside under the government's current vision, it probably comes from subtle changes in land ownership. Fully a quarter of all land sales are reported to be to amenity buyers, people buying for other than agriculture purposes. This phenomenon is the product of relative affluence of the rest of the economy.

These new buyers, refugees from the urban environment, probably have the resources and the desire to preserve the countryside. This new order of landed gentry may yet be able to achieve lasting environmental benefits in the manner of their nineteenth century counterparts.

February 21, 2002