With demands on the public purse being extremely high, should politicians be doing more to fund and facilitate bottom-up land management solutions such as Farmer Clusters which are proven to deliver more bang for the conservation buck?

My solitary four-hour drive home from Oxford to Aberystwyth marked the end of a week engaged in conversation about future land management in the UK. This started at the Royal Welsh Show and ended at the Game Fair at Blenheim Palace. In a reflective mood, I recalled a time, not long ago, when both these major countryside shows were untroubled by today’s undercurrent of anxiety about imposed policy change which is bound to have a profound impact on the livelihoods, culture, and heritage within our rural communities. As I left the dual carriageway at Abergavenny heading for the narrower winding roads of Mid Wales, it struck me that our rural communities are also facing some hard miles ahead. 

The most striking element of both shows was the impressive practitioner knowledge and expertise held by the farmers, keepers, and land managers within our rural communities. Sadly, this valuable resource, built on an intimate understanding of the land they manage, is frequently overlooked in a world of top-down policy making. Whilst it can be argued that Brexit brought considerable economic risks to UK agricultural, few would disagree that it also offered us a chance to reset funding models specifically tailored to farming in the UK, rather than the “one size fits all” excessively bureaucratic approach of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. 

Farming in the UK is unusually diverse due to our varied geography. With delivery of rural policy being ceded to the devolved governments of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the opportunity exists for further refining of agri-funding models on a regional basis to accommodate these differences. This is a good thing, but are there even better ways of getting more bang for the conservation buck?