Farmer Responses to Brexit: Intentions to deliver more “public goods for public money” – Briefing Note 2
The UK’s proposed withdrawal from the European Union presents uncertainties and opportunities regarding future agricultural support and increased emphasis on “public money for public goods”. This briefing note, written by colleagues at SRUC and the James Hutton Institute, outlines the results of a 2018 survey of 2,494 farmers, crofters and smallholders on their intentions to engage in agri-environmental provision.
Findings reveal that over 50 per cent of farmers plan no changes to the levels of agri-environmental provision on their holding in the succeeding five years, whilst between approximately 14 and 27 per cent of farmers plan to increase provide greater “public goods for public money” through increased areas of agri-environmental, forestry, small-scale woodland and renewable energy production.
The impact of Brexit was found to be low on the stated intentions of farmers to change their level of the activity type on farms, with the exception of agri-environmental activities, where 12% of farmers indicated they intended to increase this activity, compared to 3% or 4% for the other activities.
This briefing note can be downloaded in full below, and any questions or comments get in touch with us via our contact pages, or email Professor Andrew Barnes (andrew.barnes@sruc.ac.uk) or Jenny McMillan (jenny.mcmillan@sruc.ac.uk)
This work was funded under the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme under the Rural Industries work package, specifically the Resilience of rural economies to key external drivers (RD 2.4.1) and How rural economies can adapt to key external drivers (RD 2.4.2) work.