For years the image of farming as the beating heart of rural life has been fading. Industrialisation has moved livestock from fields into mega-sheds and enchanting landscapes have been transformed into vast monocultures, with soils deteriorating. Ever-bigger farms are more detached from the public and from nature. In fact there are 34,000 fewer farms than a decade ago.
Now, though, after June’s Brexit vote, we have a chance to revolutionise our farming sector. A big part of the problem is funding for farming. Public funds have rewarded size rather than innovation, consolidation over ambition. Under the inequitable Common Agricultural Policy, the largest 20 per cent of farms receive 80 per cent of the payment, according to estimates. Strikingly, the “grain barons” in six eastern counties