Farmed countryside is people’s traditional picture of rural England –
a landscape of fields and farm
buildings dotted with villages, hamlets, woodlands and open space. Over the next 20 years farming
will remain the spine of much of the countryside, but not farming as we have known it. There will be
two big stories: new economic opportunities for farming and the diversification of land management.
Opportunities
New opportunities will be created by a growing global market for food, changes in
the market for
agricultural products (including perhaps non-food crops for energy and industry) and new
technologies. But farmers will need to adapt and not all will be able to. Some will throw in the towel
and the present exodus from farming is likely to continue.
Farming will survive, but many farmers will go under. CAP reform will expose farmers
to
international competition, with those producing basic commodities the most vulnerable.
Supermarkets and food processors will exert even greater control over producers, driving down
prices. At the same time, they will increasingly switch to lower cost suppliers in Eastern Europe. A
growing customised economy will increase demand for specialist and regional foods. Environmental
concerns will continue to impact through both regulation and consumer behaviour. New technology
will create new markets, and by 2020 advances in biotechnology could be sparking a new
agricultural revolution.
How will farming respond to these changes?
- Agriculture will increasingly become
a ‘new economy’ industry –based on knowledge and
networks. Even more than today, it will rely on scientific research and technology development
to provide more economically and environmentally sustainable production systems. Adequate
funding of agricultural research and extension will, therefore, be crucial, and there are serious
questions as to whether current and planned funding levels are sufficient.
- Farmers will be forced to become
more consumer focused. Initially, larger-scale farmers will
push for ever increasing economies of scale, but in the longer term, many will shift from volume
to quality, moving up- market and differentiating their products, whether organic, high welfare,
rare breed or local. They will find it easier to widen margins in this way than to struggle
continually to cut costs.
As many are already doing, they will tap into networks and rely on the sophisticated
management
of knowledge. Successful smaller- scale farmers will add value or sell directly to local and niche
markets, and for many, farming will be just one source of income.
A twin-track pattern of agriculture will, therefore, emerge: on the one hand, highly
capitalised,
highly mechanised, highly specialised, large- scale, often orientated to world markets; on the other
hand, smaller-scale, high value- added, and focused on local and niche markets.
Diversification
Over the next 20 years land use will diversify. Rural development will include farming,
but will be
extended to encompass many other enterprises and goals, including tourism and recreation,
environmental protection and enhancement of biodiversity, and the generation of green energy (eg.
through windpower and biofuels).
CAP reform will encourage this diversification, with CAP funds becoming increasingly
available for
measures that focus less on agriculture and more on developing the rural economy as a whole and
on promoting sustainability. CAP reform will gradually replace farming for subsidy with farming for
the market. There may, however, be public resistance to environmental subsidies, especially to
preserve remote sites that no-one visits or even can visit, while Treasury grants to match CAP
funds may decline. Further, EU enlargement, will make the UK increasingly ineligible for financial
support.
Food production will no longer dominate many parts of rural England –
and this will make the
countryside seem quite different in places. By 2020, the idea that the countryside equals farming
may be well and truly buried. A new look countryside will emerge, encompassing different scales of
production and environmental management, with possibly some land abandonment.
