MORE than 44,000 responses have been received to the Government’s proposals for the future for food, farming and the environment once we leave the EU.

Throughout the 10-week consultation on the Health & Harmony document, Defra hosted 17 events nationwide.

Organisations such as the NFU and the National Trust held meetings too.

Between them,they talked to 1,250 representatives of the UK’s food, farming and environmental sectors about everything from the support we give to farmers and food producers to the broader direction of policy post-Brexit when it comes to the natural world.

Subject headings included public money for public goods, enhancing our environment, fulfilling our responsibility to animals, supporting rural communities and remote farming, changing regulatory culture, risk management and resilience, protecting crop, tree, plant and bee health and ensuring fairness in the supply chain.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said: “The consultation included proposals to redirect payments under the Common Agriculture Policy, which are based on the amount of land farmed, to a new system of paying farmers public money for public goods, principally their work to enhance the environment.

“It highlighted a number of public goods which could be supported, such as biodiversity, high animal welfare standards and improved soil health.”

A recent WWF poll, undertaken by Populus, found that 91 per cent of the UK public want to see farmers paid to protect nature.

The Government has already pledged to maintain the same cash total funding for the sector until the end of this parliament, including all EU and exchequer funding provided for farm support under both Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 of the current CAP.

The Government anticipates that once we’ve left the EU in March 2019, there will be a two-year ‘agricultural transition’ period in England, providing time for the new farming policy to be introduced and for farmers to embrace the new trading relationships and environmental land management system that entails.

Farming by numbers, in 2016:

l 70 per cent of the UK landscape devoted to farming.

l 76 per cent of food produced on home soil.

l £18bn generated by the export of UK food and drink.

l 500,000 people, or 1.5 per cent of the UK workforce, employed in agriculture.

l 3.1bn paid out under Pillar 1 of the Basic Payment Scheme.

l 0.8bn paid out under the Pillar 2 agri-environmental schemes.