The Government's proposed new Land Use Framework could threaten agricultural resilience and food security, experts have warned.
The reforms could also lead to significantly higher loss of agricultural land in some regions such as the South West, according to researchers at the University of Exeter's Centre for Rural Policy Research.
The response says: "The balancing of priorities for food production, nature recovery, climate mitigation and adaptation, infrastructure and economic development are a critical policy issue of our time and need to be addressed at the national level. We are concerned, however, that an overly national focus may lead to regional disparities and injustices in terms of how the benefits and disadvantages of land-use change play out."
Researchers say a detailed analysis has not been undertaken on the food provisioning capacity of the proposed area and distribution of land remaining primarily in agricultural production.
The evidence provided by the Government so far does not substantiate expectations that a reduced area of land can continue to provide the same amount of food (if not more) than the current agricultural land base. It also does not consider the effects of climate change and extreme weather on future food security and resilience.
The response suggests that government should provide a sub-national breakdown of predicted land-use change so that the disparities and potential injustices can be identified, discussed and addressed. To minimise the regional imbalances associated with these changes the Government should consider routes for protecting (a proportion) of good quality agricultural land at the regional rather than national level.
The framework, the response suggests, could have done more to investigate the potential for co-delivering food and environmental objectives through approaches such as agroecology and nature friendly farming. Consolidating food production and environmental protection in specific areas of the country makes sense on one hand. The response warns, however, that separating out food and environmental objectives at the national level could lead to large areas devoid of farming and large areas devoid of wildlife.
