Entering agri-schemes will be simpler and quicker

PRINCE Charles has urged policymakers to incentivise mixed farming systems in an effort to reverse agriculture’s ‘devastating effect on the rural environment’.

Speaking to the conference via a video link, the Prince of Wales said intensive farming had been brought about by ‘perverse incentives’ and had led to the destruction of natural capital, soil fertility and habitats including wetlands and wildflower meadows.

“One cannot blame the farmers for their part in this process since they have been merely been responding to the incentives provided to them,” he said. “But at long last it now appears that agricultural policymakers are waking up to the impending ecological crisis.”

New incentives could enable farmers to return to mixed farming practices ‘involving a crop rotation with fertility building phase and grazing ruminants, working in balance with arable crops’.

“I have a feeling more and more people would be in favour of the introduction of incentives to make such a change possible alongside greater encouragement for more local production and consumption patterns based on knowing the story behind one’s food,” he said. “Despite all the challenges, such a move could provide much needed long-term benefits for the planet, for public health and for local communities.”

Such a change ‘would constitute the greatest farming evolution in more than a century’, he said.

However, with the British farming industry’s capacity for marketing and innovation he said he felt sure the industry could rise to the challenge.