Sir,
Your portrayal of post-Brexit farm policy (‘Farming: Into the Promised Land’, 28 March) bears little resemblance to the reality experienced by most farmers. Setting aside The Economist’s consistent Ricardian contention that food production is best offshored, the current situation in England is not a model; it is a warning.
Your analysis overlooks a crucial shift: under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, subsidies underpinned farm viability, accounting for around 60% of profits and buffering volatile markets (and never so volatile as today). England’s replacement – paying farmers only for ‘income forgone’ in delivering environmental benefits – covers costs but not livelihoods, leaving a structural gap in most farm finances while the true value of those ‘public goods’ remains unpriced.
Worse, the support budget has been frozen since 2014 in real terms (having been set for an entirely different purpose) and was exhausted by March 2025, excluding around half of farms. Private investment in nature has been extremely limited despite government aspiration. The result is visible: in 2024-25, a record 6,365 farm businesses closed their gates.
At a time of geopolitical and climatic instability, neglecting the economic foundations of food and farming is a risky experiment. A resilient farming sector is not a luxury, but a necessity — for food security, the rural economy and the environment.
Joe Stanley, ARAgS MRASE
Head of Sustainable Farming
The Allerton Project