Food, Farming and Rural Affairs: Terms of Reference

The countryside and our rural towns and villages are some of our greatest assets. They offer inspiration and inspire affection for very many people. Wherever people live, including our cities and suburbs, the magnificent variety of the countryside makes a very significant contribution to the quality of life.

The natural resources we can win from the land, the produce through farming and forestry, the water, minerals and aggregates are also precious assets, together with the skills of those who manage natural resources, production and associated activity.

Most of the landscapes of the British Isles have been settled and farmed for millennia.

Consequently, the countryside is an intricate fabric where rich wildlife habitats, a diverse historic environment, productive farmland and forestry, long established settlements, rich archaeology and more recent developments are woven together: people, plants, animals and places. We also have a valuable marine inheritance, both in coastal waters and in the deep seas. From this resource we derive significant fisheries, as well as a wealth of wildlife, landscape and recreation, on our coasts and at sea.We have a long tradition of fishing and coastal communities and a more recent but very significant seaside holiday culture.

Because we value this combination so highly, it is crucial to understand how the countryside works, in terms of ecology, economics and society. It is equally crucial to understand its environmental limits, what it costs, how it is paid for and who is responsible for its continued well-being.
 

The Challenge

Everything in the countryside is not well, despite the great value we attach to it in so many ways. Our landscapes and the ecology of many habitats is under severe pressure, from fragmentation, disturbance, diffuse pollution and increasingly from climate change. The management of land is not always efficiently designed to contribute to the management of water, both for our use and to prevent flooding and soil erosion.

The farming and forestry economies face a new great uncertainty, increased competition and regulation and a weaker political position than for several generations. The fundamental value of being able to produce our own food and other commodities, including bioenergy, has inexplicably been ignored by Government. In some places, rural poverty is ugly in contrast to prevailing prosperity in the countryside and affordable housing scarce or unavailable.

Many rural traditions are subject to criticism and outside intervention where a clash of cultures leaves no-one satisfied and many disillusioned with the democratic process.

Many of our rural settlements and even towns can no longer provide the services and social activities we need to live or stay there without travelling miles by car. The countryside is also a corridor through which and over which we choose to travel, in everincreasing numbers, over ever-increasing distances and at an ever-increasing frequency and where, by courtesy of the airport, motorway and trunk road network, we distribute and store the things we later buy.

Our experience and enjoyment of the countryside is increasingly compromised by the environmental effects of expanding mobility. The productive capacity and skill of our farmers and growers benefits the majority of the population very little, despite significant financial support for farming paid for by all of us. The dysfunction of the food chain, including the ways we process, distribute and buy our food deprives society of the breadth of choice and quality of diet and experience which a prosperous country like ours should be able to enjoy.

We face similar challenges with the sustaining and enjoying of the fruits of the sea. The lack of connection between primary production, the quality of the environment and the health and quality of life experienced by people every day is a significant threat to society.

The world regards our countryside and its settlements with great admiration. We forget this at our peril. This country earns significant income from rural tourism, while our development of agricultural technology and ecological monitoring is of world class and often overlooked.

Our Task

The first task of the Rural Affairs policy group is to establish what we wish to retain of the asset of the countryside and everything it contains. Then we shall turn to those things we consider need to change, all the time bearing in mind the value of what we already have. We will not be so short-sighted as to trade off different parts of our great rural asset in order to find solutions.

We recognise that the countryside works best because of its integrity, not through a division of its various interests. And no wise analysis of the future of the countryside and its contribution to our quality of life can ignore the majority of people who live in towns and cities. Our urban population who care so much for it, pay so much towards it, will ultimately decide the political priority given to the countryside and its communities.

We will seek out best practice, analyse past failures of policy, and whenever possible, seek evidence from those who have insight, practical experience or expertise. Our aim is to draw on this bank of knowledge and analysis to prepare policy positions on as many of the aspects of rural affairs as we can in the time we have. The testing of our policy positions against different strands of thought within the team will be crucial.

To cover the very extensive field of this subject, we will work in a series of groups, each with a principal responsibility. These groups will address farming; food; rural communities and marine, coastal and fisheries. The interrelationship between these groups is evident and we will pursue strands of inquiry which work across the groups:

Vision

Our aim is to set out a series of co-ordinated policy positions. These can then be considered in the development of rural and marine policies for the next Conservative Government. They will be composed to secure a countryside which will make the maximum possible contribution to the quality of life of all the people who live in this country, through reconciling the three pillars of sustainability.

Our vision is of a countryside which continues to provide natural resources and ecological systems, allowing, in turn the productive use of land for food, commodities and bio-energy. This use will be compatible with a more secure footing for our habitats and their wildlife, particularly in an era of climate change.

The countryside will be secure from unintended and ill-judged loss and damage through unplanned development. The virtue of both open countryside and specially protected landscapes and habitats will be acknowledged and paid for, partly by the state and partly through private initiative and enterprise.

Those who live and work in the countryside will be encouraged to have confidence in their way of life and their role. They will be able to regard the interest in and concern for the countryside amongst the urban population as a positive contribution to their longterm well-being.

The history of settlement and endeavour in the countryside will be respected, and the shape of new development will draw on the best of design, both traditional and modern and an appreciation of the quality of landscapes and rural culture. The experience of urban life will be greatly enhanced by the enjoyment and experience of rural landscapes, communities and the wildlife that inhabits them.