Post-Brexit policies for a resilient arable farming sector in England

Vigani, M., Urquhart, J., Black, J. E., Berry, R., Dwyer, J. and Rose, D. C. (2021) Post-Brexit policies for a resilient arable farming sector in England. Eurochoices, 20 (1). pp. 55-61. ISSN 1478-0917 doi: 10.1111/1746-692X.12255

Abstract/Summary

With the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union and increasing pressures from climate change, English arable farming resilience is in a fragile position. Most Brexit impact assessments have focused on quantitative analysis, however here we take a qualitative approach to assess how future trade agreements could impact the resilience of the UK arable farming system. We discuss the main strategies that are currently taken by English arable farmers to improve resilience using evidence from a large‐scale survey in the East of England. Using information from a multi‐stakeholder workshop, we look at arable farming resilience in three forms characteristic of the farming system; namely, robustness, adaptability and transformability and how these relate to and are potentially influenced by three different Brexit trade scenarios. Stakeholders’ recommendations suggest that a ‘hard’ no‐deal scenario will require policies for social protection of farmers in more vulnerable rural areas, while in a ‘softer’ scenario a ‘public money for public goods’ policy could be implemented effectively by learning from previous environmental schemes. Nevertheless, resilience can be enhanced only by addressing structural and policy issues, such as generational renewal, advice and extension, tenancy duration limits and smarter PPP regulations, regardless of what post‐Brexit deal with the EU finally emerges.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/89959
Identification Number/DOI	10.1111/1746-692X.12255
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Agri-Food Economics & Marketing
Publisher	Wiley-Blackwell
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