The new President of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has told a conference of 500 industry leaders that landowners must prepare for a changing world in which less of their land will be used for traditional farming.
The CLA represents over 30,000 landowners, farmers and rural businesses across England and Wales – including the Isle of Wight – who together manage more than 10million acres of rural land.
It says that the nation will need farmers to produce more high quality food, more smartly, using less land so as to dedicate more of the countryside to other uses such as natural resource protection, a landscape for everyone to continue to enjoy, and building appropriate homes.
CLA President Tim Breitmeyer said:
“Leaving the EU will be a defining moment for farming. Farmers will not have the luxury of being able to carry on doing the same thing year-in-year-out as they have done before.
“It will soon be time for every landowning farmer to make choices about whether their land is delivering the best income opportunities, whether they need to farm differently, or use the land for other purposes.
“Farming is vital to our future prosperity as a nation. Producing enough high-quality food is our overriding purpose, but we have to be smart. Technology and scientific advances allow us to farm in new ways, to examine closely field by field where our land is and is not productive, to use chemicals more efficiently and manage breeding and welfare better than ever before.”
The CLA has this week published its Redefining Farming report, exploring how landowning farm businesses are adapting for the future.
Tim Breitmeyer added:
“Government policy will play a major role in how the farming sector harnesses the opportunities of Brexit. Exiting the Common Agricultural Policy is an opportunity to direct more investment into making farming more productive and profitable. It is also a chance to transform the business opportunities for farmers and landowners to derive a fair income for vital work that benefits the public, from addressing climate change and encouraging biodiversity to managing the landscape.”
