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Are we entering a new era of farming?

<span>Photograph: Chris Howes/Wild Places Photography/Alamy Stock Photo</span>
Photograph: Chris Howes/Wild Places Photography/Alamy Stock Photo

Christopher de Bellaigue makes quite a jump from the 1947 Agriculture Act and its guaranteed payments system to the EU arable area payments regime (Is this the future of farming?, 25 February). Once again under the “oven ready” new environmental land management proposals, farmers – as they mostly always have done – will be asked to farm under some sort of intrusive government regulation. In return for what?

There is no disagreement that farming is a risky enterprise, needing good forward planning and security, and with climate change this will get worse. Having farmed under the transitional arrangements, with arable area and hill subsidies still in place, some sort of transition will still be necessary and a fallback, either through tax regulations or a form of “agrilite” subsidy support mechanism, will help farmers in the transition.

Farming without direct support may produce a generation of growers prepared to farm intensively without subsidy and with their own nods to biodiversity, causing a denudation of hills and marginal land with the subsequent loss of rural communities.

All parts of the UK can benefit from more environmentally friendly farming practices, but to succeed the regulations must be less intrusive and not dilute much of the good work, done by the UK and EU in partnership, on reducing the input of agricultural chemicals, and on water and air quality
Chris Jones
(Nature reserve manager), Biddenham, Bedford

• Christopher de Bellaigue covers in depth many aspects of the problems we face in our management of the land. He mentions very briefly “mixed” farming which is using a rotational system whereby fertility removed by arable crops is returned by other crops such as turnips and grass leys used by grazing animals.

Thomas Coke invented the Norfolk four-course rotation and put it into practice on his Holkham estate in Norfolk. In 2015, over 140 years later, a similar updated six-course rotation was introduced on the same estate and the results in terms of increased yields etc have been remarkable.

As somebody who farmed in the era of chemical farming, I think it fair to say that many farmers, with much encouragement from the fertiliser and chemical giants, found there was no need to rotate and basically forgot how to farm. This has ultimately resulted in deterioration of soil structure, wildlife habitats, and water quality, and obviously cannot continue.

A return to a sustainable rotational system is not impossible, and the old farming chestnut “farm the land as though you are going to live forever and run the farm business as if you were going to die tomorrow” should be remembered.
Kevin Caveney
Wick, Glastonbury, Somerset

• Christopher de Bellaigue accurately sets out the facts which will ensure that British farming is about to enter a process of major change.

In doing so he points out that 71% of the land area of Britain is devoted to farming, yet this industry only produces 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. In a previous Guardian article (Lab-grown food will soon destroy farming – and save the planet, George Monbiot, 8 January) it was suggested that agriculture is a major source of GG emission. Would it not be better if we were to concentrate on reducing the 90% of greenhouse gas emissions that emanate from only 30% of the land area?
Richard Harvey
Oakham, Rutland

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