Berkeley Hill

The United Kingdom's Domestic Policy for Agriculture after Brexit

Summary The decision in June 2016 by the UK to leave the EU found government departments responsible for domestic agriculture without detailed plans for a post-Brexit national agricultural policy. In February 2017, the Secretary of State indicated five broad ‘priorities’ that largely continue the direction of previous domestic policy. While agricultural trade issues must remain unsettled for some years, consideration can be given now to the shape of UK post-Brexit domestic agricultural policy in each of the devolved administrations (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). This article considers from first principles the interventions that could justify public funding. Market failure lies behind the rationale for a range of actions that broadly correspond with current Rural Development Programmes, though not all elements are likely to survive scrutiny. Basic Payments are not seen as having any supporting rationale and should be withdrawn; the issue is how best to exit from them. The end result should be a policy that results in a British agriculture more attuned to the nations environmental objectives, more internationally competitive, more innovative, and capable of achieving these aims at a lower public cost, thereby freeing up resources for other pressing national purposes.

Uses and Benefits of FADN Information in the EU-28

The benefit from information contained in FADN results and those of national farm accounts surveys comes from the improvements that are made possible in decisions by public policymakers and by farmers. Direct valuation of these benefits is difficult and attention has to focus on publication of results and uses by EU central institutions, national governments and the private sector, especially farmers. FADN is used by the European Commission for the analysis and evaluation of economic policy relating to the agricultural sector comprising ‘commercial farms’ and results are published as statistics for both the EU and Member States. Almost all national governments use their results for similar public purposes but most also make them available for the provision of advice to farmers and benchmarking of their own performance. Member States differ in their views on whether the national survey would continue in the absence of the legal obligation to supply data to FADN. The Netherlands provides an example of data collection that is broader than is required for FADN and which enables a wide range of policies to be serviced, with a judgement by its government that it therefore represents good value for money.