‘much, much more that is changing in our world than our relationship with the EU’. These included the unprecedented rate of increase in the world’s population, together with the worldwide migration from rural areas to cities. In addition, the growth of the global middle class was driving demand for more and better quality food. Mr Gove said that technological change was at what he described as ‘an inflection point’, citing developments in big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning. This meant that processes which would have required the intellect and effort of thousands of humans over many hours in the past could be accomplished automatically by digital means in seconds. Mr Gove warmed to his theme with the argument that these technological breakthroughs raised political and moral questions as we consider how we deal with the transformation of a huge range of existing jobs. He noted that ‘food in abundance, improved health, greater longevity: these are all goals to which our species has aspired since the first farmers waited for the first harvest ’. And these were not the only changes coming. Mr Gove noted that the global environment was affected as never before by the population growth and the consequent growth in demand for nutritious food, safe drinking water, comfortable housing, reliable energy and new consumer goods. He said, ‘Some in the farming industry say that what we need
most at the moment is certainty ’. But, Mr Gove went on to argue, ‘if we try to avoid change, hold the future at bay and throw up barriers to progress then we don’t stop change coming, we simply leave ourselves less equipped to deal with change as it arrives ’. If we want to preserve
what we cherish, namely a thriving agriculture sector, a healthy rural economy, beautiful landscapes, rich habitats for wildlife, a just society and a fair economy - then ‘we need to be able to shape change rather than seeking to resist it ’. Mr Gove went on to observe that the best way to deal with
change was to ‘develop adaptability ’. What we should, therefore be looking for in agriculture policy, indeed in all economic policy, was not what he called ‘an illusory fixity or a false sense of certainty which, by definition, future events we cannot foresee will always end up’. He said that what we should instead be seeking to cultivate was the resources, policies and people ‘that would allow us to adapt, evolve and embrace change as an ally’. At this point, Mr Gove opined that this was where he returned
to the theme of Brexit and, specifically, to the Leave Campaign’s theme of ‘taking back control ’. Yes, of course, Brexit meant change. Crucially, however, what Brexit meant was that the UK could, once more, decide how we shaped change and how we met the challenges ahead. Self-evidently, it meant that the UK no longer needed to follow the path dictated by the Common Agricultural Policy. The UK would have its own policies as regards food, agriculture, environment and economics, all shaped by our own collective interests. Mr Gove, rightly, observed that the CAP was designed, like so
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many aspects of the EU, for another world, the post-war period when memories of food shortages were ‘hauntingly powerful ’. He admitted that the CAP had evolved and, indeed, improved over time but, he said, it was still a fundamentally flawed design. And, in a first indication of government thinking, Mr Gove said that paying land owners for the amount of agricultural land they have was ‘unjust ’. He said it was inefficient and led to what he described as ‘perverse outcomes’. It gave the most from the public purse to those who already had the most private wealth. It bid up land prices which distorted the market, creating a barrier to entry for innovative new farmers and entrenching lower productivity. In addition, Mr Gove argued, it rewarded farmers for sticking to methods of production that were ‘resource-inefficient’, besides incentivising an approach to environmental stewardship which was all about mathematically precise field margins rather than ‘truly ecologically healthy landscapes’. Mr Gove proceeded to argue that the ways in which we provide
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Feed Compounder quarter page vertical 86 x
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financial support to farmers have been far too bureaucratic, not helped by the ‘ludicrous rules and red tape of the CAP’ that DEFRA was obliged to enforce, a contention that would be shared by many farmers as well as their suppliers. In support of this contention, he went on to point out that the Rural Payments Agency ‘has historically taken far too long to get money from Government to farmers’. Mr Gove went on to argue that a number of schemes such as Countryside Stewardship required simplification to the extent that any farmer could complete an application in a working day. Mr Gove said that related to the whole question of how we allocate support, DEFRA needed to change its approach to inspection. He said that ‘we inspect too often, too ineffectively and in far too many cases, for the wrong things’. At any moment, a farmer could be visited by a host of agencies with
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