IN TODAY’S Farm Gate podcast, The one with George Eustice, the former Secretary of State responded to questions about the greatest challenges from his time as Defra minister and Defra Secretary of State. He was also asked whether he regretted any of his decisions.
Mr Eustice said “The one thing I potentially regret is not just striking down and finishing off BPS [Basic Payment Scheme] in one fell swoop so that people really knew there was no turning the clock back.”
Mr Eustice said that as Defra minister he had “argued for a staged reduction in BPS and a staged roll out of the new schemes because this provided more security should something go wrong.”
However, this created a challenge with the National Farmers’ Union. “One of the problems that arose from this was that lobby groups like the NFU continued to argue relentlessly for the status quo and cling onto a subsidy for land owners rather than a payment for delivery of public goods.”
When asked if there was a failure of leadership at the NFU, Mr Eustice says “I would have preferred it if the NFU had said, look we can see the logic in the direction of travel and we want to support you in designing it.”
While farmers, including NFU members, provided technical expertise in co-design groups and contribute to discussions, the NFU’s campaigning was unhelpful, he says. “In terms of their campaigning stance it was often aimed at stalling or delaying the roll out of the scheme.
However, Mr Eustice says that NGO attitudes towards farmers were also a challenge. “It was a perpetual problem and I’m not sure what the answer is. Whatever we announced – if the green NGOs welcomed it, the NFU would assume that the farmers had been done over in some way, even though farmers might be a key beneficiary from the policy – and likewise if we ever did anything that farmers welcomed, then the green NGOs would assume that we were trashing the environment.
“It was very hard to get past this polarised dichotomy – a perception that farming and the environment were incompatible with one another.
“Central to my mission was to reject that – and to say that actually sustainable, profitable agriculture and recovery for the environment and species abundance were two sides of the same coin.”
It was different however when it came to soil. “They used to get it when it comes to soil – if you talk about soil health, that’s a universal language that both farmers understand and that green NGOs understand as well.”
Mr Eustice also repeated his belief that Defra must maintain a direction of travel in favour of more regenerative forms of agriculture.
Last week, speaking to 8.9ha TV News, Mr Eustice spoke of a “big debate raging in Defra.” He said “There’s a school of thought from some scientists that if you want to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions and help the planet then you basically need to have livestock that are reared very intensively and killed as quickly as possible so that they emit less methane.
“It’s a big debate that’s going on. I know where I stand on that – no we shouldn’t be having ever-more intensive systems and trying to kill animals as quickly as possible – we actually should go back to something more extensive and pasture-based livestock I think has got a really important role to deliver some of our environmental outcomes.”