If you had £200 to spend on food each year what would you spend it on? That is roughly how much each family of four spends on current subsidies for farmers and the food sector. Has anyone asked taxpayers how they want that money spent?

Clearly that would be a bit foolish without a decent discussion and information about what that money pays for now and what it could pay for.

After 2020, EU-designed farm support will end. This amounted to £3.2 billion in the UK in 2015. As the farm and food industry prepares for life after Brexit in terms of prices, trade and markets so too the way we as taxpayers support farming will need to change.

Some may think we should just remove all that support and treat the sector as any other. I don’t subscribe to that view. There is a strong case for support for the land based sector – from the need to ensure public ‘goods’ such as protected rural and natural environment, water, soil, (paying for afforestation to provide natural flood management for instance), through to supporting rural economies. Many argue we must also guarantee some food production so we don’t leech land and water from other parts of the world or become entirely dependent on the world market.

As markets fail to recognize many of these ‘goods’ we get from farming there is a case for intervention. But what should that intervention look like when we leave the EU and how much would it cost?

Seizing the opportunity to test new approaches would be ideal – a transitional phase where we maintain a level of support but undertake regional pilots that address nature, animal welfare, market and research questions.

Public benefits aside, as we are leaving the EU family and its Single Market and Customs Union, the level of support we give our farmers will come under significant World Trade Organisation scrutiny. And that means getting to grips with some of their terminology. The ‘green’ of my title refers to a way in which farm support is categorized according to how trade distorting it is. If it is not linked to production directly or it’s considered minimally distorting, it is allowed under a ‘green box’ status. More ‘coupled’ types of farm subsidy and support – which are linked to production and affect prices and trade – are given ‘blue’ and ‘amber’ status and are restricted.

This is a complex area – rife with politics and horse-trading – that the UK government, industry and others are beginning to grapple with after some years of neglect under the umbrella of EU trade negotiations and competence. The £3.2 billion (or more or less) will be under significant scrutiny alongside new tariff regimes which we will be negotiating.

Assessing the ways in which a government could support its farm sector (alongside regulation) has now become a live exercise. Some schemes focus on insurance mechanisms or Bonds to give farms protection from market shocks. Other proposals are for greater investment in local infrastructure, such as abattoirs, and in skills and training to prepare farmers for the challenges ahead, and possibly more investment in public sector food. The latter could deliver a triple win of increasing the market for high standard British produce, as well as healthier diets and reducing the burden of diet-related disease on the NHS. These could benefit rural livelihoods, communities, the economy and in the long term reduce taxpayer spend. Global Justice Now and nef have outlined a novel approach I’ve not seen elsewhere – the concept of a universal income for all farmers.

Many designs share a commonality in approach largely based on ‘public support for public goods’. Most proposals advocate ditching the current system of direct area payments and advocate linking payments to outcomes in some way – from an enhanced agri-environment scheme approach to tradable markets for services such as flood protection (DEFRA Minister George Eustace). People Need Nature outlined a framework for future support in A Pebble in the Pond, as have CPRE and the National Trust based on taxpayers paying public subsidy to farmers only for outcomes that the market won’t pay for but which are valued and needed by the public. They stress that any payment should be conditional on meeting demonstrably higher standards of wildlife, soil and water protection.

The Landworkers Alliance agree with ditching area payments but place stronger emphasis on securing healthy sustainable UK food supplies, jobs in farming and the smaller farm sector as well as democratizing decision making.

The big question is what outcomes does the public want? Sir Don Curry speaking at the recent Sustain AGM spoke of the Big Prize at the end of all this. What is it? I would feel happier if I felt we had time to discuss this and could involve all stakeholders – including customers and taxpayers – and good evidence on policy efficacy.

What about governance? We need strong regulations and priorities and direction set at national (devolved) level. But could more of the decisions be made at a local level? Sounds good but what are the risks? Who decides what nature is protected and how?  We need to be sure experts are to hand and that we don’t get outcomes suited to those who shout loudest or who have time to turn up at local meetings…

Workers rights must not be lost in designing a remedy. Some argue for shifting subsidies to the relatively unsupported fruit and vegetable sector to reduce the massive trade gap and fruit and vegetables, deliver healthier produce and, maybe, reduce the heavy environmental burdens of imports and meat consumption. Horticulture however requires considerable labour and as such has some of the worst record in low wages and gang master abuse often of migrant labour. Would subsidies ensure better wages or for mechanization and robots as the answer?

Or is a return to scale, for more local and regional markets, mixed farming and market gardens and a better return from the market place (which means regulation) a better solution? Could we pilot both and see which delivers the most public goods?

Good policy design needs the right input and needs testing. And the design process can be useful in itself. Whilst DEFRA needs to move quickly to set the framework for what future policy aims to do, the process of designing it must be transparent and involve all stakeholders. Sign up to the Sustain farming mailing list for more developments and debates in these areas.

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In the wake of Brexit our agricultural policy is suddenly up for grabs. This could be a chance for a ‘new deal’ for our food system – helping struggling small-scale farmers, restoring the environment, revitalising local economies and creating new jobs. Yet at the moment it appears that the agriculture and environment minister, Andrea Leadsom, prefers a ‘get big or get out’ approach that will continue to damage the planet.

Since 1973, the UK farming sector has been shaped by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its subsidies, but the original postwar purpose of CAP has long since been played out and there is a broad consensus that it has become a disaster on many fronts.

One of the biggest criticisms is that it hands wealthy landowners millions of pounds from public funds, while smaller farmers receive little or nothing. There are also strong environment criticisms, and attempts to bring environmental factors into CAP have been grossly inadequate. As a result, a system of large-scale industrial agriculture is rewarded while small-scale ecological methods are largely ignored.

Instead, a progressive subsidy system would ensure that public money is used for public goods. A report by Global Justice Now and the New Economics Foundation proposes a system that would:

1) Give each active farmer with at least one hectare of land a universal payment of £5,000

The payment would be conditional on a meaningful active farmer requirement, basic environmental stewardship such as prevention of soil erosion, animal welfare standards and some other minimum standards on a ‘do no harm’ basis. The amount is slightly higher than most farmers currently receive, and would be a significant redistribution, levelling the playing field. However this would actually save the taxpayer money because much less would go to large landowners.

2) Offer grants for medium-scale, regional infrastructure, including processing facilities and local business development programmes

This would allow local supply chains to be strengthened and maintained, while supporting new business models and small-scale producers.

3) Offer subsidies for the provision of specific public goods

Public goods could include environmental benefits around climate change, soil quality, landscape, wildlife and agricultural biodiversity. They could also include social benefits such as job creation and support for small-scale farmers, healthy good food, resilience, democratic accountability and support for local economies.

While the first element above incorporates ‘do no harm’ standards, this element would be for things that make an active, positive contribution. It could include restoring natural habitats, creating natural flood protection, preserving and passing on skills or knowledge that are important to our heritage, reducing local unemployment, increasing healthy eating, along with many other areas.

Decisions on which public goods to prioritise and how to allocate budget would be devolved to regions, thus also helping to support local democracy.

In contrast to this a recent speech by Leadsom made no firm commitment to continuing significant funding for agriculture beyond 2020. Instead, in the name of cutting red tape, she wants to cut the standards and regulations that help to protect our environment, food safety and public health – public goods that we should instead be strengthening.

In the past Leadsom has supported phasing out most support for farmers, something that New Zealand did in the 1980s. The effect there was a polarisation and emptying out of viable small and medium sized farming. The big players were able to compete but others either left farming or scaled down and took other jobs to support continued farming as a side enterprise. Loss of agricultural jobs was exacerbated. Faced with a drive to cut costs environmental concerns were dropped and the country is now facing increased problems with soil degradation and pollution from farming.

It is important to ensure that a new system of agricultural subsidies in the UK does not have unintended damaging impacts on the global south. Subsidies have long been controversial and particularly when linked to exports can undermine livelihoods in the global south. However complete removal of subsidies is unlikely to benefit small-scale family farmers in the global south – the experience of New Zealand illustrates how agribusiness moves in to take up any slack arising from loss of subsidies. More fundamentally, the majority of food that feeds the world is produced by small-scale farmers and is traded in local, regional and national markets, and there is widespread recognition of the importance of supporting domestic agriculture, both here and in the global south. Farming subsidies have a role to play, in a carefully designed, progressive system, although they cannot solve all problems on their own. A progressive subsidy system needs to be dovetailed with wider trade rules and aid policies. These are currently driving production towards a large-scale, intensive agribusiness model dependent on expensive technologies, chemicals, poor environmental practices and low wages for employees. We cannot simply use subsidies to correct that model – we need to change it.

The choices made at this point about the policies for the UK to follow, will be vital – for farmers, the environment and the public.

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