1. THE IMPLICATIONS OF BREXIT ON
BRITISH AGRICULTURAL POLICY
Landscapes for Life
24th November 2016

2. AGENDA
• The CAP & its legacy
• The economic implications of Pillar 1
• Pillar 2 & agri-environmental schemes
• Public money for public goods
• The 25-year natural environment plan
• What could go wrong
• Conclusions

3. THE CAP AND ITS LEGACY
• Why the CAP was created
• The disasters of the 1970s and the destruction of the landscape
• The great intensification debate
• Continual declines & the State of Nature report
Status quo is not sustainable – and therefore it will not be
sustained

4. THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF
PILLAR 1
• Most of the £3 billion subsidies
• Agriculture is only 0.7% of GDP
• Decoupled for production
• Capitalised in land prices
• Makes entry very difficult
Lots of money for little public good
Does not solve the threat of tariffs problem

5. PILLAR 2 AND AGRI-ENVIRONMENTAL
SCHEMES
• Weak regulation
• Weak targeting
• Creates agricultural apartheid between intensive land and
environmental bits
• Does not maximise biodiversity
• Not tailored to wildlife corridors
• Too often results in “agricultural roads” around fields
• Cross-compliance, not enforced
Little money, spent inefficiently for the environment

6. PUBLIC MONEY FOR PUBLIC GOODS
• The key rationale for supporting subsidies
• Requires wider landscape and land use planning
• Upland areas – reduce intensity, and increase landscape,
recreational and biodiversity values
• Does not need to go direct to farmers
• Could go via National Parks, AONBs, and catchment system
operators (see Helm –
Catchment management, abstraction and flooding, Natural Capital Paper 1, Feb 2016)
• Could be channelled through a public Nature Fund

7. THE 25-YEAR ENVIRONMENT PLAN
• Natural capital provides the conceptual framework
• 25 year plan identifies the areas of greatest public good
• Pioneers test out the opportunities
• ONS provides the numbers
• NCC provide the advice

8. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
• The NFU-preferred post BREXIT outcome – self sufficiency
• Return to production subsidies – more intensification
• Relax pesticides and herbicides constraint – more pollution
NFU argues “no intensification” since 1990 & points at pheasant
& wood pigeon populations which have increased… on BBC
Farming Today…
Not the time to go back to the past…

9. CONCLUSIONS
• Big opportunity, big risks
• Natural capital is the way to think about the problem
• 25 year plan is the framework
• And time is very short & lobbying is intense!

10. FOR INFORMATION
Natural Capital Network
Paper 1.
Catchment
management,
abstraction and
flooding
Dieter Helm
Feb 2015
Natural Capital Network
Paper 2.
In defence of the
green belt
Dieter Helm
April 2015
Natural Capital Network
Paper 3.
Flood defence: Time
for a radical rethink
Dieter Helm
Jan 2016
Natural Capital Network
Paper 4.
Green Bonds for
Natural Capital –
some issues
Dieter Helm
Jun 2016

11. BOOK