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THE UK countryside could change out of all recognition and we may not be able to provide enough food to feed ourselves or the rest of the world unless budgets to support the provision of agricultural and environmental goods are maintained, warns CLA, the rural economy expert.

Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, president of the Country, Land and Business Association, whose members own and manage half the rural land in England and Wales, told the Defra conference "Farming for the Future" that the UK is at a crucial turning point.

"The majority of the English countryside is managed by private sector farmers and foresters. A correspondingly large proportion of landscape, biodiversity and resource protection is in the care of these land managers. However, we cannot maintain the landscape we all know and love or deliver the environmental goods - wildlife, recreational facilities and the competitiveness of the rural economy - unless the EU increases the funding aligned to providing these services.

"This cannot be done if the UK government does not change its declared strategy of slashing the EU budget in the future."

The CLA president told an audience of industry leaders, including the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, that climate change is intensifying the environmental security challenge and the world's food security challenge.

"The public's environmental demands have risen but environmental legislation - such as the birds, habitats, nitrates, waste, water framework and soils directives - designed to bring about higher standards, is in place but is not delivering because of insufficient funds.

"Citizens want the services, but consumers will not pay for them through their supermarket bills.

"If we see the collapse of the livestock industry and more land ploughed up for arable crops or if we see land abandonment in some upland areas which support certain habitats, then the countryside that we all enjoy could disappear before our eyes," he said.

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