As Green MEP for the farming region of the South West I proposed shifting farm support towards environmental goals after Brexit and so I welcome the fact that the government has taken this approach.
The 70% of our land that is farmed should be a haven for our increasingly depleted wildlife as well as operating as a carbon sink, absorbing the CO2 that is driving the climate emergency.
But it is unrealistic to expect farmers to do this without adequate time to plan and in the face of threatened competition from the country with the worst farming standards in the world: the USA.
And it is unfair to reduce their financial support by half at a time when Brexit threatens to undermine their export markets.
While nobody wants public money to go to subsidy farmers and large, wealthy landowners, without continued support for the family farmers of South West England we will see a takeover by the corporate big boys and the devastation of the landscape we all love.
Molly Scott Cato
Stroud
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