Candidates for Tory leadership have been urged to deliver on a key Brexit promise to abandon “impoverishing” EU policies that have reportedly exacerbated the food crisis and led to skyrocketing costs. According to a new YouGov poll, a majority of Conservative voters (52 percent) support British farmers’ demand that the UK abandon the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a key Brexit promise.
The CAP is an EU subsidy scheme that UK farmers and experts believe has fostered poor farming practices, reducing productivity and pushing farmers further away from reaching net-zero targets.
As part of the government’s Brexit promises, the CAP was to be replaced by the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS), which pays farmers more fairly and incentivizes them to care for the environment, animal welfare and pollution levels.
The survey, commissioned by Green Alliance, found that 52 percent of 2019 Conservative voters and 49 percent of 2019 Liberal Democrat voters support a subsidy system based on environmental and animal welfare improvements.
By contrast, only 11 percent of Conservative and Labor voters and 12 percent of Liberal Democrat voters are in favor of keeping the EU subsidy system.
Given that it was a key Brexit pledge, 51 percent of Leave voters and 52 percent of those over 65 also support subsidy reforms.
But despite strong support for the policy, the UK has paused the rollout of ELMS, as shown by the recent White Paper on Food Strategy
In April, farmers from across the UK wrote to Environment Secretary George Eustice, demanding that ELMS be implemented immediately.
Critics, including the Nature Friendly Farming Network, challenge the government’s assumption that food production and climate-friendly farming must compromise, saying output can still be increased through environmental reforms.”
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If output is boosted by the introduction of the ELMS, this increase in production could help lower food costs as the annual grocery bill is set to rise by £380 this year as food price inflation hits a new 13-year high.
Dustin Benton, Policy Director at Green Alliance said: “Voters across the country support agrarian reforms that support nature – they want a revitalized countryside with space for nature to thrive, with payments to remove carbon and create habitats.
“They don’t want to go back to a plan that we inherited from the EU and that even the EU dumped.
“The results of this poll should prompt the government to expand its most ambitious ELM, landscape restoration and local wildlife restoration programs so that farmers and land managers can benefit from nature restoration”
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Anthony Curwen, chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network in England, said: “These data show broad support from all sides for reforming our farming sector to make it more environmentally friendly.
“There does not have to be a trade-off between different priorities in agriculture; we can increase output while being effective stewards of the land.
“The government needs to understand this and live up to its reform promise sold to farmers in 2016.”