EC agricultural policy and the environment

EC agricultural policy and the environment Land use implications in the UK

Guy M. Robinson

The European Community’s Common Agricultural Policy has helped produce a high degree of stress on the environment. Legislation introduced in the late 1980s reflected a growing awareness of this fact, but a review of the main measures shows that they have merely had minor effects on the results of the support policy in the UK. A new political alignment involving producer and consumer groups and the ‘green’ movement is needed to formulate a more environmentally minded approach to agriculture. However, proposals to reduce subsidies will not be successful unless farm businesses can remain profitable. Dr Guy M. Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh, EX8 9XP, UK. ‘For a description of the operation of the CAP’s guidance and guarantee sections, see I.R. Bowler, Agriculture Under fhe Common Agricultural Policy: A Geography, Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK, 1985. ‘See for example G. Cox and M. Winter, ‘Agriculture and conservation in Britain: a policy community under siege’, in G. Cox, P. Lowe and M. Winter, eds. Agriculture, People and Policies, Allen & Unwin, London, 1986, pp 181-215; P. Lowe, G. Cox, M. MacEwan, T. O’Riordan and M. Winter, Countryside Conf/icfs: The Politics of Forestry and Conservafion, Farming, Gower/Maurice Temple Smith, Aldershot, UK, 1986; C.A. Potter, ‘The environmental effects of CAP reform’, Countryside Planning Yearbook, Vol 7, 1986, pp 7688. 3For example, R. Body, Agriculture: The Triumph and the Shame, Maurice Temple Smith, London, 1982; H. Clout, A Rural Policy for the EC?, Methuen, London, continued on page 96

0264-8377/91/020095-13

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Community (EC) contains several inherent contradictions. In general these have been described in terms of conflicts between the CAP’s guarantee section, with its price support system, and its much smaller guidance section geared to improving farm structures and encouraging farmers to within the often oppospursue desirable farming practices. ’ Contained ing aims of these two sections is the conflict between the agricultural support policies on the one hand, encouraging production in such a way as to create environmental disbenefits or diseconomies, and, on the other, policies intended to curb environmental destruction. Although this conflict has attracted increased attention during the past decade,* this article argues that several new pieces of legislation in the late 1980s signify both changing attitudes to the ecologically destructive character of many modern farming methods and important implications for land use changes in the UK.

CAP and environmental

disbenefits

Some of the more environmentally destructive characteristics of modern farming and their close links to the CAP have been recognized for some time. Although developing environmental problems were apparent in UK agriculture before entry to the EC, the ‘engine of destruction’ within the CAP has been recognized and criticized especially during the past decade.3 It is an issue that has aroused great passion and has generated some trenchant critiques from both politicians and academics, with complaints of the high cost of a system ‘which has created inefficiencies, injustice, overproduction and environmental damage’.’ One of the main criticisms of the CAP is that it has encouraged agriculture to shift from a system based at farm and local community level to one dominated and controlled by other elements of the agroindustrial sector. In particular, these elements have been agribusinesses” associated with input supply, output processing and distribution. The growth of agribusiness has accompanied and reinforced a focus upon industrial-type production based upon economic efficiency, profit maximization and maximum use of technological

0 1991 Butterworth-Heinemann

Ltd

95

inputs. The wholesale environmental consequences that have flowed from this are easy to demonstrate (see Table I). They represent what Butte1 has described as ‘the cnvironrnental contradictions ctf agriculture’, or an agriculture that is antithetical to widespread, sustained functioning in ecological terms.“ The environmental problems associated with modern farming methods conijnued from page 95 1984; C. Pye-Smith and R. North, ‘ftre Coufff~side We Wanf: A manifesto for the Year 2#OU, Green Books, Hartland, UK, f 987; M. Shoard, The fheit offhe Counrvside, Maurice Temoie Smith, London, 1980. 4J.K. Bowers and P. Cheshire, Agriculfure, the Coun~~sjde and Land Use: An Economic Critique, Methuen, London, 1983. “For definitions of ‘agribusiness’ see B.H. Kinsey, Agribusiness and Rural Enterprise, Groom Helm, London, 1987. @F.tl. Buttel. ‘Socioloov and the environment: the winding r&d toward human ~~~e~~a~~o~a~So&i1 Science ecology’, Jourffai. Voi 38, No 3, 1986, pp 337-356. ‘I.D. Hodge, ‘Rural development and the environment: a review’, Town P/a~ning Review, Vol 57, f 988, pp 17sf86. ?ee for example countryside CommisNew Agr;cultura~ Landscapes: sion, Issues, Objectives and Action, Countryside Commission, London, 1977; G.M. Robinson, West Midlands Farming, 1840s to 1970s: Agricultural Change in the Period Between the Corn Laws and the Common ~arkef, Occasional Publications, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridae, Na 15, 1983. DP 114-120. “I. ?Xrrtis, ‘Reflections on management agreements for ~nse~a~on of Exmoor moorland’, journal of A~~o~~~~ral &5170mics, Vol 34, 1982, pp 397-406. “‘P. W&hem. S.N. Youna, I.W. Brownand D.A. Roberts, ‘The EEC Less Favoured Areas Directive: implementation and impact on upland land use in the UK’, Land Use Policy, Vol 3, 1986, pp 205-212; P. Walhern, S.N. Young, LW. Brown and D.A. Roberts ‘Recent upland use change and agricultural policy in Clwyd, North Wales’, Applied Geography, Vol 8, 1988, pp 14?163. “See W.F. Blakemore, ‘Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathv and scrapie: potential human hazards’; Outlook & AgricLtlture. Vol 18. Fdo 4, 1989, up 165-l 68: R. North and f. Gorman, ~~jckengate: An lndepeffdent Analysjs of the Salmonei~a in Eoos Scare. Institute of Economic Affairs H&h and Welfare Unit, London, 1990. ‘2See for example O.P. Dwivedi, ‘Political science and the environment’, Intemafional Social Science Joumai, Voi 38, No 3, 1986, pp 377-390; M.F. Troughton, ’ “Concern with environment” as an issue in planning for agriculture in Developed Countries’, paper presented to IGU Commission on Changing Rural Systems, Conference on Limits to Rural Land Use, Amsterdam, 1989.

96

include

‘the destruction

of unrepresentative

ecosystems and

indivjd~~a~ species, the toss of amenity of the iandscapc, nitrate pollution of water supplies, eutr~pl~icati~)n of water-courses, nuisance from intensive livestock production and straw burning, and soil erosion’.7 The most severe problems have been fett in the eastern parts of the UK, and especially the cereal-growing areas of East Anglia and the SouthEast. It is here that economies of scale within industriat agriculture have been most apparent, ~~r~~i~ici1~~both larger ho!dings and larger field sizes. One measurable result has been the destruction of hedgerows in order to create the larger fielcls” and the loss of other well loved c(~rnp~~nents of the rural landscape: hedgerow trees, woods, downlands and wetlands. However, it is important to recognize too that pressure upon farmers to alter their farming systems in favour of higher and higher pro~~uctjvity has also affected those in the uplands. For example, surveys of the heather ln~~~rlailds of the N~~ti~~n~~l Parks have shown how they have been steadily destroyed during the last two decades. On ExmtJor there has been deep p~~u~~~in~ and addition of lime and nitrogenous fertilizers to improve soils prior to replanting with sheep’s fescue and bent grass.” The uplands also provide an illustr~~tiol~ of how various individual policies within the CAP, even from the CAP’s guidance section, can have adverse environmental consequences. In the Welsh uplands there has been a reduction in rough grazing related to the increased numbers of sheep brought about by the headagc payments available under the Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) scheme. The LFAs were designed to help overcome imbatances prr>duced by l~r~f~~v[~u~.ab~e envir~?~ll~ent~il endowment and the greater scope fen benefits to be ~~cquired from the price support system in the It~lands. However. they have enccturagccf excessive sheep stocking rates, beyond the cnrrying capacity of the semi-natural vegetation of the rcrugh gr;tGngs. as farmers have sought ttr make grant-zrided inlpr~~~el~lents to their rough grazing under grasslnnd conversion projects. This has brought increases in the area of improved pastures but at the cspcnsc of dwarf shrub vegetation and open moorlnnd. “) The environmental

disbenefits

have

more

recently

been

seen tcr

extend to the quality of produce from industrial farming. ” Scares over the presence nf salrn~~~?~ll~~ in chicken and certain types of cheese and the spread of bovine s~~on~jf(~rrn encep~l~~~~~p~~t~~y (‘mild cow disease’) have provoked increased calls for a different type (71‘ e~/~~iu~~ti~)nof agriculture. ie beyond a narrow cconctmic viewpoint. I2 Such calls have been made within the European Parliament periodicdly in the 198tk, and they have dso been transk~ted into legislation affecting the CAP, dbeit tending to favour treatments of the effects rtf farmers’ responses to price support rather than a direct restriction of this support. These measures can be examined in terms of their means of operation; one set can be described as ‘envir~ntn~nt~~l’ in character and 21smaller set as restricting price support. The implementation of these measures in the LJK illustrates their inherent contrndictions.

LAND

USE POLICY

April 1391

Table 1. Examples the UK, 1945-90. _-

of habitat destruction

in

AL X lost or damaged

Lowland meadows Chalk downlands Lowland bogs Lowland marshes Limestone pavements Lowiand heaths Upland woodlands Ancient woodlands

Environmental

82 79 60 51 43 39 28 25

Source: T. O’Riordan, ‘Agriculture and environmental protection’, Geography Review, Vol 1, No 1, 1987, p 36.

e 0

l

er’, Public Administration, Vol65, 1987, pp 277-294; Department of the Environment, Development Involving Agriculturat Land, Depa~ment Draft Circular, Department of the Environment, London, 1987. ‘%tatement by the Minister of Agriculture at the Great Yorkshire Show, Harrogate, UK, 11 July 1989.

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

asd set-aside

The Ministry of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food (MAFF) launched a f2.5 million package in 1987 in England and Wales to encourage farm diversification through alternative uses of farmland and especially the expansion of ‘environmentally friendly’ farming. This package and additional proposals from the Dep~~rtment of Environmeilt (DOE) were known as the ALURE scheme (Alternative Land lise and Rural Economy) and were seen by many as one of a series of measures implying a definite break with the long-established pre-eminence of policies supporting increased production. The ALURE scheme contains four principal policy proposals:

l

13A. Blowers, ‘Transition or transformation? Environmental policy under Thatch-

URE

measures

f10 milli~~n per ~~nnurn to encourage the devel~~pment of on-farm woodlands; farmers to be offered variable payments to reflect the loss of income from land planted with woodland; an addition~ll f3 million per annum to be given towards the expansion of the traditional private sector forestry programme; f7 million to be allocated to the doubling of the numbur of Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ES&) introduced originally under the 1986 Agriculture Act; $3 million per annum to encourage diversification of farm businesses through the provision of grants for estal?lishment of on-farm ancillary businesses.

These proposals represent the promotion of ‘extensif~cati~n’ in forming and therefore an attempt to curb production. However, farmers have argued that insufficient grants are available under the scheme, and some have seen the proposals from the DOE as likely to encourage building development on good farmland as they reduce MAFF’s input to planning controls.“’ The DOE’S proposals are to consider the pro~~oti(~n of economic activity as well as protection of the countryside when deciding on applications for planning permission affecting agricultural land, in other words a possible reversal of previous presumptions against development on land in agricultural use. In the year after the ALURE proposals an EC scheme to reduce surplus production was agreed in February 1988, as Regulation 1094188 for set-aside of arable land and the extensification and conversion of farm production, with member states instructed to introduce the scheme for the 1988189 crop year. C(~mpensation to farmers adopting the extensification measures was to be based on crop and yield details for 1987188, with varying rates according to the nature of these details. In the UK the scheme was launched in June 1988, with payments of up to f200 per ha for farmers agreeing to set aside 20% or more of their arable land by taking it out of production for at least five years (see the Appendix for details). However, one irony of the scheme is that it can be argued that it does not represent a new environmental or ecological evaluation of agriculture, but is simply a sound economic measure. AlthoLlgh in 1989190 set-aside will cost $1 I million in the UK (of which 42% will be paid from central EC funds), there will be a theoretical saving of up to f30 million on intervention purchase, storage and disposal of surplus grain.lJ In their initial evaluation of the ALURE scheme, Cloke and ~c~ughlin argued that only a small group of entrepreneurial farmers

97

% of farmers registering for set-aside in 1988

x?.oo 1.50-1.99 1.00-1.49 0.50-0.99 0.25-0.49 co.25

Figure 1. Percentage of farmers registering for set-aside in 1988.

‘5Paul Cloke and Brian McLaughlin, ‘Politics of the alternative land use and rural economy (ALURE) proposals in the UK: crossroads or blind alley?‘, Land Use PO/~cy, Vol 6, No 3, July 1989, pp 235-248.

would be likely to take up measures in the ALURE package.” If their argumerits are correct then one interpretation of the initial pattern of uptake of set-aside (Figures 1 and 2) is that farmers already wishing to take land out of intensive arable production have used set-aside as a grant-aided means of so doing. The highest concentrations of set-aside have occurred away from the most intensive and large-scale grainproducing regions. Instead it has been parts of the Home Counties where initial take-up has been greatest, probably in areas where the % of tilloge registered far set-aside in 1988 >2.00 1.50-1.99 1.00-1.49 0.50-0.99 0.25-0.49 PO25

Figure 2. Percentage of tillage registered for set-aside in 1988.

98

LAND USE POLICY

April 199

EC agricultural policy and the environment

of maintaining intensive cereal cultivation have brought difficulties because of the high rates of purchased inputs required on land which has traditionally supported mixed systems of production. ” By Easter 1989 1816 farmers in England and Wales had opted to take land out of production under the set-aside scheme, representing over 40 000 ha of arable land being set aside. In addition 24 000 farmers had registered for possible future set-aside, accounting for a possible 2.6 million ha that could become part of the scheme. In the first year of operation the majority (91”/,) of the land registered for set-aside was intended for permanent (79%) and rotational (12%) fallow. Only 7”& was registered for non-agricultural use (eg golf courses and riding schools) and the remaining 2% for woodland. These proportions support the contention that the scheme is being used primarily by farmers who are regarding set-aside, at least initially, as a means of resting land temporarily from intensive cultivation. Further credence to this argument is given by reference to the average area set aside per farmer. In 18 counties the average area set aside per farm was under 25 ha, perhaps representing only two or three fields. In the lowlands only Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire recorded acreages in excess of SO ha per farm.” Experience from the USA suggests that set-aside has only a limited effect on reducing farm surpluses. Often the land set aside has not been the most productive and therefore has a more limited effect on production than hoped. Subsidized set-aside may be supporting land use changes that farmers were intending to carry out anyway, and farmers may indulge in other practices which nullify the intentions of set-aside, such as retiring their least productive land first, intensifying production on their remaining land, using retired land for other crops or bringing additional land into production.” In Belgium an environmental subsidy was introduced to operate in conjunction with the set-aside scheme so that environmental improvements could accompany the removal of land from intensive agricultural production. However, in the UK MAFF have rejected this approach so that a more limited scheme has been developed in which the Countryside Commission and Nature Conservancy Council will offer a Countryside Premium for set-aside land. Farmers will be rewarded for taking prescribed options for land set aside as permanent fallow and for providing increased public access to land. Initially this Premium is offered in seven selected counties where applications for the Premium had been received for 15% of land set aside by mid-1990.‘” costs

‘%ee also B.W. Ilbery, ‘Adoption of the arable set-aside scheme in England’, Geoarwhv. Vol76. No 1, 1990. pi 6973. 17MiFF News Release, i6 February 1989. ‘*llbery, op tit, Ref 16; J.R. Bohland, ‘Rural America’, in P.L. Knox, E.H. Bartels, B. Holcomb, J.R. Bohland and R.J. Johnston, eds, The United States: A Contemporary Human Geography, Longman, Harlow, UK, and John Wiley, New York, NY, 1988, pp 151-188. 19A.J. Lambert, ‘New EC initiatives seek to allieviate environmental repercussions of Britain’s agricultural policy’, Geographical Magazine, Vol 62, No 5, 1990, pp 32-36. The seven counties are those where most land was set aside in 1988/89: Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Suffolk.

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

Farm

forestry

Farmers taking set-aside can opt to put their woodland via either of two grants introduced promoting farm forestry.

set-aside land under in 1988 as a way of

The Farm Woodland Scheme (FWS). This was part of the Farm Land and Rural Development Act, passed in October 19X8. The scheme, to operate over a three-year period, is intended to bring about the afforestation of 36 000 ha (30 million trees) on land previously under arable and grassland. Hence this is another measure in which productive farmland is converted to a less intensive use. In this case the aim is to establish woodland as a ‘normal’ part of commercial agriculture through relatively small-scale grant encouragement. For lowland farms f190 per

99

EC agricultural policy and the environment

Figure 3. Number of applications for the Farm Woodland Scheme, 19881 89.

*OMAFF News Release, 16 February 1989, plus additional information supplied by MAFF. Although the scheme is a positive way of utilizing farmland without adding to food surpluses, Shaw points out that the increased area under woodland in East Anglia as a result of the FWS represents less than 0.05% of farmland in the region. See J.M. Shaw, ‘Regional lectures on “The Future Countryside”: a vision for East Anglia’, Royal Society of Arts Journal, Vol 137, 1989, pp 723-734. “This is a proposal from the Countryside Commission to establish 12 ‘community forests’ on the fringes of industrial areas in England and Wales. Each block of new forest will cover between 10 000 and 16 000 ha and will cost about f25 million. They would add 10% to the existing forested area and would cater specifically for recreation and environmental education.

100

J ha is offered under the FWS, with smaller grants available in the LFAs. The payments are intended to bridge the gap between tree planting and the first income received from the timber. After 10 months there had been 994 applications to take up the FWS within the whole of the UK (72% in England), representing 6926 ha (63% in England) or 7 ha per application. The distribution of the proposed afforestation in England showed the greatest acreages in East Anglia and a large swathe of central England from Cambridgeshire to Avon (Figure 3). In the initial grant applications oak, ash and beech were the most popular species to be planted.2” The Woodland Gratzt Scheme (WGS). Following the 1988 Budget, existing tree planting grants were replaced by new ones operated by the Forestry Commission which were especially intended to encourage broadleaves. This scheme will operate in tandem with the FWS to stimulate the growing of timber on farms. This aim may be strengthened by a further measure announced in late 1989 to establish new lowland forests.2’ Conservution

grants

One of the ways in which the government

has promoted

a greater

LAND USE POLICY

desire

April 1991

EC agricultural

policy and the environment

for certain new types of farming practice has been through the establishment of grants to encourage their adoption. This has a long history within UK agriculture, with grants to assist liming and ploughing up of of these incentives into the grassland in the 1930s. 22 The extension general area of conservation measures is illustrated by the Farm and Conservation Grants Scheme (FCGS) introduced in February 19X9. This gives capital grants for both pollution control and various other conservation measures including repairs using traditional materials, orchard replanting, construction of stone walls, stiles, footbridges and hedges, fencing to protect ancient woodland and moorland from livestock damage. For pollution control fS0 million has been allocated to meet 50% of the cost of individual control projects. This emphasis upon pollution control reflects mounting concern over the increased use of fertilizer as part of the drive towards greater output. In the UK the application of chemical fertilizer increased by 41% between 1971 and 1985,2” prompting worries about the effects of its runoff from fields into watercourses. In addition, the greater use of silage and slurry on farms has added to concern over pollution of watercourses. Runoff from silage is 200 times more polluting than domestic sewage, while the comparable figure for slurry is 100 times. In the first two months of the FCGS there were over 400 applications for capital grants to assist with the cost of slurry and silage effluent tanks.24 Even a timely story on the popular radio serial ‘The Archers’ about slurry discharge into a river was used as a reminder to farmers that a problem existed and needed to be watched carefully. However, the FCGS has not eased anxiety about the damage to flora and fauna caused by agricultural chemicals. Instead, concern voiced within the European Commission has focused attention upon the damaging effects of nitrogenous fertilizers, and in particular the need for their application to be reduced in order to limit nitrate concentrations in watercourses. Nitrate

“G.M. Robinson, Agricultural Change: Geographical Studies of EMish Agriculture, North British Publishing, Edinburgh, UK, 1988. KID 147-l 50. 23Figure sibplied by the World Bank. 24MAFF News Release. 6 Februarv 1989. 25Agricultural Departments of England and Wales, Nitrate Sensitive Areas Scheme, HMSO, London, 1989. 26EC Drinking Water Directive 80/778 of 1980. See J. Conrad, ‘Nitrate debate and nitrate policy in FR Germany’, Land Use Policy, Vol 5, No 2, April 1988, pp 207218.

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

Sensitive

Areas (NSAs)

In anticipation of the enforcement of EC standards for nitrate concentration in watercourses, in 1989 the UK government proposed the establishment of 12 Nitrate Sensitive Areas (Figure 4a) as part of the Water Bill (Section 112).2” In these NSAs, to be in operation at the end of 1990, 216 per acre is to be offered to farmers to apply a series of measures designed to reduce the application of fertilizers and animal manure. These measures include the modification of cropping patterns, with an additional El00 per acre for converting arable to unfertilized and ungrazed grassland, and the growing of cover crops rather than the maintenance of bare land which is more liable to leaching. In April 1990 the government allocated an additional f7.5 million to provide further incentives to farmers in the designated NSAs to reduce the levels of nitrates reaching water supplies. An EC Directive has suggested that World Health Organization (WHO) standards for drinking water should be applied throughout the EC, so that nitrate concentrations in surface or underground watercourses should not exceed 50 parts per million (ppm).‘” If they do so, the area drained by the watercourse should be declared a ‘vulnerable zone’ in which restrictions on farming would be applied in order to reduce the input of nitrates. Fears have been expressed that, if these standards are applied, many UK water supplies from rivers and surface sources would exceed the critical level at some time during the year, 101

EC agricultural policy and the environment

b

Slieve Croob

Somerset-

---/Valley

Y 7

Elsie

0 L

Figure 4. (a) Nitrate

Sensitive

Areas;

27House of Lords, European Communities Committee, Sixteenth Report, Session 1988-89: Nitrate in Water, House of Lords Paper 73-1, HMSO, London, 1989. “For details of the plough-up campaign see E.H. Whetham, British Farming, 193849, Thomas Nelson, London, 1952; R.G. Stapledon and W. Davies, Ley Farming, Faber & Faber, London, 1948; I.R. Bowler, Government and Agriculture: A Spatial Perspective, Longman, London, 1979. 29The quantity of nitrogen applied to agricultural land from chemical fertilizers and animal manures is small compared with the amount of nitrogen stored in the topsoil itself. Whereas arable soils may receive 15&400 kg of nitrogen per ha from fertilizers, they commonly contain as much as 300&6000 kg of nitrogen per ha and for grassland up to 9000 kg per ha. See Nitrate Co-ordinating Group, Nitrate in Water, HMSO, London, 1986, para 2.16.

102

km

160

West Dnnl..;+k

0 t

I

(b) Environmentally

South Downs

Sensitive

km

160 I

Areas.

especially in autumn and winter when runoffs is greatest. For example, a House of Lords Select Committee considering the EC Directive referred to the possibility of a resultant fall in arable production of fl billion per annum if chemical inputs to farmland were reduced in order to achieve compliance with the desired nitrate levels.27 This problem of nitrate pollution of watercourses is not straightforward and, as with many environmental issues, cause and effect mechanisms and controls are not simple. There are strong arguments asserting that high general levels of nitrate concentration in watercourses in parts of lowland England are not attributable to current farming practices. Therefore modification of those practices will not necessarily bring about a rapid decrease of nitrate concentrations to below the EC standard. The implications of this argument are that it is the long-term build-up of nitrates that has contributed to high concentrations which have then been exacerbated by the increased use of chemicals on farms during the past two decades. Thus farming practices in the 1940s and 1950s may be responsible for the start of a cycle of high nitrate concentrations to which current practices are adding. If this is so, the plough-up campaign during the 1940s may have been the initiator of some of the pollution now attracting such attention.2x The ploughing up of grassland on a large scale could have resulted in an acceleration of the decomposition of organic material in the soil, with nitrates then gradually leaching over a long period of time. *’ This slow leaching would be most likely to occur in areas with permeable soils overlying chalk and limestone aquifers, as

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

EC agricultural policy and the environment

in large parts of eastern and southern England, and also on the sandstones of the English Midlands. These areas also have large areas of spring-sown crops, with much uncropped land in autumn, favouring additional leaching. The further factor of less rainfall in these areas than in the western half of the country may contribute to less dilution of nitrates. The newly privatized water companies in the UK already face an initial bill of over f740 million to comply with EC rules to rid freshwater areas of algal blooms by carrying out extra sewage treatment. By spring 1990 the National Rivers Authority had identified 53 waters containing algal blooms, 37 of which were in the Anglian Water region which includes the Norfolk Broads. While some of the blooms may reflect the increase of chemicals in runoff from farmland, a significant amount of eutrophication may also be due to rising levels of nitrogen and phosphorus from sewage effluents. However, another growing problem, that of the parasite Cryptosporidium, which can cause diarrhoea, has been introduced to water supplies from livestock slurry washed into streams and lakes. Given that the immediate attainment of EC standards may not be achieved simply by reducing current inputs of chemical fertilizers, the UK may be severely affected by any penalty for non-compliance with the standards. Given their different agricultural systems, geology and climate, many other parts of the EC are unlikely to have such problems in meeting the desired target. The most likely exceptions to this generalization are parts of the Paris Basin and areas of highly intensive farming where substantial reductions in the use of fertilizers and animal manures may be required. This has already been proved in the Netherlands where legislation has facilitated some reductions of animal manures which were causing polluting runoff.‘” Environmentally

30H .N van Lier, ‘Land-use planning on its way to environmental planning’, in M. Whitby and J. Ollerenshaw, eds, Land Use and the European Environment, Belhaven Press, London, 1989, pp 89-107. 3’C. Potter, ‘Environmentally Sensitive Areas in England and Wales: an experiment in countryside management’, Land Use Policy, Vol 5, No 3, July 1988, pp 301-313. 32MAFF News Release, 27 June 1989. 33See for example W.H. Adams, ‘Sites of Special Scientific Interest and habitat protection: implications of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981’, Area, Vol 16, 1984, pp 273-280; W.H. Adams, Nature’s Place: Conservation Sites and Countryside Change, Allen & Unwin, London, 1986. 34R.K. Turner, ‘Wetlands conservation: economics and ethics’, in D. Collard, D. Pearce and D. Ulph, eds, Economics, Growth and Sustainable Environments, Macmillan, London, 1987, pp 121-159; T. O’Riordan, ‘Halvergate: the politics of policy change’, in A. Gilg, ed, Countryside Planning Yearbook, Vol 6, Geobooks, Norwich, UK, 1985.

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

Sensitive

Areas

(ESAs)

One of the series of measures introduced by the EC to promote extensification in agriculture was that of the ESAs - areas in which less intensive farming could be encouraged.” This has been taken up most widely in the UK, though not specifically with the aim of reducing output from the lowlands. The first ESAs were designated in 1986, with more added in 1987 to create a total of 17 (Figure 4b). Within the designated areas farmers may agree to adopt ‘environmentally friendly’ farming practices for all or part of their farms and receive payment for SO doing over a five-year period. Payments vary according to the type of farming and the physical character of the ESA. By mid-1989 agreements had been reached for 110 000 ha of farmland, representing just less than one-eighth of the agricultural area within the ESAS.‘~ This indicates the voluntary nature of the scheme, and gives room for the same criticism as those levelled at the voluntary management agreements produced following the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act.“” Under the Act voluntary agreements could be formulated with farmers in which farmers agreed not to pursue practices likely to be destructive to Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) on their land. Payments to farmers as part of the agreement effectively represented compensation for forgoing profits. However, the degree of protection afforded did not always prove sufficient, as demonstrated when extra legislation had to be introduced to provide additional protection in the Norfolk Broads.“4

103

Furm Diversificdon

Scheme

This scheme, introduced in January 1988, gives grants to farmers to cover 25% of the cost of capital investments up to f3S 000 on a range of “non-intensive’ activities. The scheme recognizes the high degree of non-agricultural income on farms and seeks to encourage the development of income-generating activities on the farm, eg farm-based tourism, pony trekking, stables and farm shops. However, grants are available only to farmers who spend at least half their time on farming and obtain half their income from the farm. After nine months’ operation there had been over 1000 applic~Ints for grants totalling in excess of f2 million:” Further diversification has been encouraged since August 1988 under the Farm Land and Rural Development Act, which provides grants for feasibility studies and marketing costs of new on-farm

activities.

Revisions of the price support policy Buiigefury stahi1izer.s

“%formation

supplied by MAFF. ?3peech made by the Minister of Agriculture at the Great Yorkshire Show, Harrogate, UK, 11 July 1989. 37FA0 The State of Food and Agriculture, 1989, iA0, Rome, 1989, pp 60-61.

104

Although the wide range of measures considered above are directed at promoting farming practices more favourabie to the environment, they do not address the fundamental controlling force of the CAP: the price support system and its direct relationship with ecologically destructive practices. However, since 1984 certain modifications have been introduced that affect the price support system, perhaps the most significant taking the form of budgetary stabilizers which are specifically intended to encourage farmers to transfer out of products which are in surplus into others where there is evidence that the EC does not have enough of its own. The crops most affected by this in the UK have been wheat and oilseed rape, with the intention of restricting output to 160 million tonnes per annum and 4.5 million tonnes per annum respectively. The mechanism by which budgetary stahitizers operate is the introduction of a ceiling on the amount of a particular product which may receive full EC support by way of an agreed intervention price, the price at which the EC ‘buys in’ when the price of the product falls below the desired target price. Without the cushion of favourable intervention prices it is hoped that farmers will curb their output and look for ‘better’ alternatives. There is some evidence that the stabilizers are having an effect on the two main products affected by this legislation: grain and beef. For example, the amount of cereals in storage in the UK fell from 6 million tonnes in 1985 to 640 000 tonnes in May 1989, and beef fell from 85 000 tonnes to 18 000 tonnes during the same period. The number of storehouses of surplus farm produce in the UK fell from 618 in 198.5 to 145 in 1989, bringing a saving of f45 million in 1989.3h Thus there was a strong economic argument for reducing the surpluses and encouraging the search for alternative products. Overall, from 1984 to 1987 the amount of price support for beef and cereals was reduced by 23%.37 However, cereal production in the EC increased slightly in 1988, thereby exceeding the level of production at which guaranteed prices would be reduced. Further limitations on agricultural production are likely in the 199Os, as presaged by votes in the European Parliament to curb agricultural spending. Further proposals, for other aspects of production, relate to redefinitions of ‘small’ for cereal producers as a means of limiting

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

exemptions from proposed price penalties for overproducti~~n. Since the expansion of the EC in 1973 its in~~ivi~~u~llmember states have been able and they have therefore ranged to define the size of smallhoidings, considerably, eg 40 ha in Denmark and 100 ha in the UK. An EC-wide definition of 20 ha has been suggested, which would mean that very few UK farmers would be eligible for exemption. Despite these and other measures designed specifically to alleviate environmental disbenefits, it is important to realize that the CAP is essentially unreformed. Moreover in England and Wales only 3% of the total f1200 million spent by MAFF in 19X9190 went on ‘measures which specifically support environment~~lly friendly farming’.“s Although surpluses have been reduced there is still ~vcrpr~~~iucti~~n of cereals, beef, milk, butter, sugar and wine, and the European C~)mrnissi~~n is OJliy than proposing to ‘freeze’ support prices at ~9~9/90 levels rather introducing any significant reductions. Milk quotas Preceding the introduction of budgetary stabilizers, the use of milk quotas from 1984 has also tackled the problem of overproduction. amongst dairy producers. the quotas Although creating problems resulted in a 12.5% decrease in milk production within the EC between 1984 and 1988. Their effect upon butter stocks within the EC was also significant, with a fall from the ln~ixirnunl of 1.3 million tonnes in store in August 19% to 860 (~~~0tonnes by late 1989. The skimmed-milk ‘lake’ actually disappeared during 1988, aided by subsidized sales to the USSR and to animal-feed manufacturers? The system of milk quotas operates partly through a more flexible price support policy which includes a co-responsibility levy on producers. A production limit is set for each farmer or dairy; if a producer exceeds the limit, he/she must pay a levy on the overproduction equal to lOO%, of the target price. In the UK the milk quotas reduced the size of the national dairy herd by 15% from 1984 to 1989 and the production of milk by 18% while increasing output per producer by 3%. However. buying and selling quotas has become a rn~~ltimilli(~n pound business, with 42% of dairy farmers in England and Wales involved in the lease or transfer of their milk quotas in 1988189. The quotas have had the effect of maintaining the milk price paid to producers and hence have made quotas a sought-after commodity.

Conclusions

38Councilfor the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), Paradise Destruction: How Europe’s Farm Policies Are Destroying Countryside, CPRE, London, 1990. 39FA0, op tit, Ref 37, pp 60-61.

LAND USE POLICY

the

April 1991

Driven by economic goals and technological advances, the CAP has helped to promote a high degree of environmental stress. There has been a strong tendency for this to be regarded as an inevitable by-product of the system, and relatively little has been done to control the critical mechanisms of support policy which have stimulated the production of environmental disbenefits. There are strong grounds for arguing that the measures introduced in the late 1980s to alleviate environmental stress resulting from agricultural activity are essentially ‘tinkering’ with the results of the support policy rather than actually representing attempts to undermine it. Whilst they do show a growing awareness amongst policy makers of conflicts between agriculture and the environment, it cannot yet be said

105

EC agricultural

policy and the environment

4oSee H. Siebert, Economics of the Environment: Theory and Policy, SpringerVerlag, Berlin. 4’See for example Ft. Wolf, ed, Organic Farming: Yesterday and Tomorrow’s Agriculture, Rodale Press, Emmaus, PA, 1977. 42Troughton, op tit, Ref 12. 43For example, J. Barlow, ‘Landowners, property-ownership and the rural locality’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol 10, 1986, pp 309-329; R.J. Johnston, Environmental Problems: Nature, Economy and the State, Belhaven Press, London, 1989; H. Newby, C. Bell, D. Rose and P. Saunders, Property, faternalism and Power: C/ass anb Cbntrol in Rural E&and. Hutchinson, London, 1978; M. Shokd, This Land Is Our Land, Maurice Temple Smith, London, 1987. ‘%.B. Hill and J.A. Ramsay, ‘Limitations of the energy approach in defining priorities in agriculture’, paper presented to the and Agriculture Conference, Energy Washington, DC, 1976.

106

that they constitute a new ecological or environmental approach to assessing the agricultural system. The important policy changes that occurred following the European Council meeting of February 1988 introduced limits on agricultural spending legally binding throughout the EC. These limits, especially in the form of budgetary stabilizers and production quotas, imply some slowing in the drive towards increased agricultural output, but are largely an economic measure rather than a recognition of the favourable ecological consequences that reduced agricultural intensification may have. There are some arguments that imply that industrial agriculture is essentially self-destructive and that increased environmental disbenefits will ultimately lead to falling output followed by de-intensification.4” However, this may be a longer-term prospect than that of changing agricultural policies to favour less intensive farming. Such policies could undoubtedly be brought about by political realignments bringing together producer and consumer groups, with the ‘green’ movement within Europe perhaps increasingly promoting types of farming that are more environmentally acceptable.4’ For academics, and geographers in particular, Troughton suggests that the prospect of more ‘environmentally friendly’ policy also demands new research foci, especially upon the issue of ecological sustainability. 42 There are many as p ects of this to be examined, perhaps the most critical with respect to farming being the changing structure and operation of agriculture at the farm level, farm incomes, the nature and cost of food produced by different systems, and the nature of links between farming, food processing and retailing. There are already several good examples of this work, but a more specific ecological evaluation of different types of less-intensive farming system is required. At present the dominant trend within agriculture is still towards the creation of environmental stress requiring additional technical and/or economic expenditure by farmers. Promotion of greater care for the environment by farmers will require both reduced price support and a more equitable distribution of guarantees and guidance for the development of farm forestry, new and unconventional products, value-added systems and farm-based tourism. In effect, a new philosophy is required which might entail completely re-evaluating the logic of public subsidies to farming and a high protective tariff around the EC. Such ideas have been effectively discounted to date by the spectre of falling land prices that would probably result, plus the diminished returns for agriculture and its satellite industires. Nevertheless, possible benefits to consumers and the environment may eventually bring about different priorities, provided that the powerful farm and landowning lobby can be prevented from maintaining its present role of a strongly conservative factor in preserving the policy status quo.4’ For those favouring the development of farming systems more in harmony with the environment the aim must be for ‘production for use and permanence’ rather than for ‘profit and power’,44 though whether this means an extension of organic farming or other forms of less-intensive production is not clear. It is certain, though, that in the 1990s the issue of the extent of policy support for agriculture within the EC will provide strong, even acrimonious debate. Reduced price support essentially conflicts with a philosophy that has prevailed in the EC since the Community’s inception, and

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

EC agricultural

45’Business brief: Kiwi farmers lose their crutches’, Economist, 18 January 1986, pp 6(r61.

policy

and the environment

the rejection of that philosophy cannot come without great upheaval to the farming community. The best demonstration of this has come from the one country in the developed world that has substantially reduced agricultural support: New Zealand. There it was decided that successive governments had been mistaken in encouraging farmers first to increase production to a level where substantial surpluses were created and then asking them to curb production following reduced returns from agricultural exports.J5 There are few signs as yet though that the wholesale removal of farm supports is going to be part of any EC agenda. Finally, it must also be recognized that proposals to reduce price subsidies in order to promote more environmentally beneficial farming are unlikely to be successful unless farm businesses can remain profitable.

Appendix The UK’s set-aside scheme 1. Participating farmers are to set aside 20% or more of designated arable crops for five years (with an option to withdraw after three years). Designated crops include cereals, peas and beans harvested in dried form for human or animal consumption, sugar beet, hops, oilseed rape, linseed and fresh vegetables. 2. Land set aside must be maintained as fallow with a green cover crop, or put to woodland or used for designated non-agricultural purposes (eg farm-based tourism, keeping

LAND USE POLICY

April 1991

horses, providing educational facilities). The green cover crop may not be used for grazing livestock or production of fodder crops. Horses may be

grazed on land set aside. 3. A lower rate of compensation is payable within the Less Favoured Areas (LFAs). Compensation varies with the type of land conversion carried out (for permanent fallow on non-LFA land: f200 per ha; rotational fallow: f180 per ha; non-agricultural use: flS0 per ha; woodland: f200 per ha).

4. Farmers wishing to convert land to woodland can take advantage of MAFF’s Farm Woodland Scheme, which operates over a longer period. 5. Application of pesticides and fertilizers on land set aside is generally permitted, but payments for ‘environmentally friendly practices’ are not included in the scheme. 6. Set-aside payments are based on the 1987&S crop year. Source:

B.W. Ilbery, ‘Adoption of the arable set-aside scheme in England’, Geography,

Vol 76, No 1, 1990, pp

69-73.

107