The London Prat

The Basic Payment Scheme, ELMS, Tenant Farmers, and the Question of What the British Countryside Is Actually For The British Countryside: A Policy Landscape As Contested As Its Physical OneThe British countryside covers approximately two-thirds of England's land area. The ownership of British land is among the most concentrated of any comparable democracy: approximately half of England is owned by approximately 25,000 landowners. Guy Shrubsole's 2019 book Who Owns England? documented this concentration using Land Registry and FOI data. This ownership distribution is the necessary context for understanding every agricultural policy debate: who benefits from subsidies, who can afford to enter farming, and who has political influence to shape the policies governing what farming is incentivised to do.Basic Payment Scheme and ELMSThe EU Basic Payment Scheme provided approximately £250 per hectare annually, costing approximately £3.5 billion annually, distributed essentially for owning land. Large estates received hundreds of thousands in annual subsidy for owning land. Post-Brexit, the government replaced it with the Environmental Land Management Scheme, paying for environmental public goods: improved water quality, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, soil health. The principle is sound environmental economics. The implementation has left many farmers uncertain while ELMS payment rates are developed, and available payments are for many farms substantially lower than the Basic Payment Scheme provided.Tenant Farmers and RewildingApproximately 35% of agricultural land is farmed by tenant farmers who do not own what they farm. Landlords attracted by land capital appreciation have declined to renew tenancies or offered shorter terms preventing long-term investment. The Tenant Farmers Association has documented declining tenancy lengths and increasing terminations. Rewilding projects including Knepp Estate have demonstrated significant biodiversity recovery, carbon sequestration, and water retention benefits. George Monbiot's Regenesis (2022) argues for fundamental agricultural land use reform. The farming lobby's response — rewilding threatens food security and rural livelihoods — is partly legitimate and partly the institutional defence of environmentally costly practices. The balance requires genuine trade-offs that neither pure rewilding advocacy nor pure agricultural protectionism fully acknowledges.Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!Approximately half of England is owned by approximately 25,000 landowners. The EU Basic Payment Scheme provided approximately £3.5 billion annually; the post-Brexit ELMS pays for environmental public goods. Approximately 35% of agricultural land is farmed by tenant farmers whose security of tenure has declined. Agricultural property relief exempts agricultural land from inheritance tax; the Starmer government proposed limiting it above £1 million. Rewilding projects including Knepp Estate have demonstrated significant biodiversity recovery.

Tag: land reform

The British Countryside: Agricultural Policy, Land Ownership, the NFU, Rewilding, and the Politics of Who Owns England

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