In the wake of foot-and-mouth, we asked those involved in the countryside what the future holds

Alan Britten
Chairman, English Tourism Council

Tourism has always been thought of as fun, but it is far more than that. The prosperity of rural areas, even the survival of the countryside as we know it, depends as much on tourism as on farming. In recent years, the two have become inseparable. More than 60 per cent of farming establishments now include a significant element of tourism activity. It is a relationship based on mutual self-interest. Farmers want people to use their self-catering cottages, and people to buy their produce from farmers' markets; tourists want the feeling that they are visiting something which has a beating heart, not merely a theme park or a museum of the countryside. In the future, despite foot-and-mouth, tourism will grow. The huge demand for experiences that are distinctively different from the urban existence will ensure that rural communities are among the major beneficiaries. That presents us with two particular challenges. First, we need farming to recover its heart through help from tourism. Second, we need to ensure that the growth of tourism is wise growth, which brings income to rural communities without damaging their essential character.

Peter Faulkner
Senior Vice-President, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors

The RICS specialises in rural land and business management and, I believe, is well placed to implement a recovery programme and to advise on what should be done. First, we must ask what we want of our countryside. Do we want a living, working, financially self-sufficient community in which, as has traditionally been the case, farming is the mainstay of the economy? Farmers will respond if the economics are right, but the intense regulation to which UK farmers are subjected makes them uncompetitive on price terms with imports from countries with peasant farmers and little regulation. Thus the maintenance of a living, working countryside to be enjoyed by us all comes at a price, and we must identify the means of paying for it. One option is to abandon commercial food production to create a Ruro-Disney, in which the landscape is managed for public enjoyment and financed by tolls charged as people leave city limits. Extreme maybe, but a way must be found to finance an environment that plays host to a valuable tourist industry.

Zac Goldsmith
Editor, the Ecologist, www.theecologist.org

If farming is killed off, we will witness the twilight of intensive agribusiness. We will also see the suburbanisation of rural Britain, as endless houses are built on good farmland and the countryside becomes little more than a theme park for restless and polluted urbanites. That is the downside. But it is still possible to reverse these depressing trends. On the upside, facilitating, encouraging, even subsidising local production for local consumption would not only create and secure a great many jobs, it would revive the local economy, ensure fresh and healthy food that we can trust, and benefit the environment, into whose atmosphere so many emissions are discarded in the name of "efficient food".

I do not believe there is a greater custodian of our natural heritage than a farmer freed from the man-made constraints of a biased market and unscrupulous supermarkets. Enable the small farmer to survive, and watch the countryside flourish.

Roger Clarke
Chief Executive, Youth Hostel Association

When the last sheep and cattle have been shot, burnt and buried, how shall we build the peace? The British public has been remarkably supportive of the farmers. When the Maff bugle rang out, the footpaths fell silent. But the biggest losers have been the visitor and tourist industries. The YHA is by no means worst affected. But we were obliged to close 110 of our 230 youth hostels, and we estimate that we shall lose £5m between March and June alone.

We need a new understanding between town and country. It will no longer be credible to suggest that the countryside is mainly for farmers, or "real country people". It is for all of us. The economic and social success of the countryside depends on welcoming visitors as a top priority, not treating them as second-class citizens to be tolerated on the margins of agriculture. Farming policy needs a rethink. We need farming that is better integrated with other parts of community life, more local in its focus, creates more jobs and works with the environmental grain. There is room in the countryside for more than the farmer. He is not the only hero.

Patrick Holden
Director, Soil Association

My agricultural guru, Sir Albert Howard, observed that the connection between healthy soil, crops, animals and people was of vital importance, and predicted that if the agriculture of a nation went into a decline, it would eventually have serious consequences on public and cultural health. The crisis of the past few weeks gives credence to this and has, I hope, awakened the nation to the urgent need for fundamental agricultural reform. We should press for the government to establish a new "health of the nation" programme, built around the core principle that public health is more than the absence of disease but is the result of sound nutrition and good agricultural practice. Farming systems of the future must return to fertility-building as well as pest and disease control through crop rotation and sound management. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be reformed and, in future, agricultural support should be given only to farmers who adopt sustainable organic production methods. We must also invest in educating the nation about the importance of agriculture. We must put local and fresh food at the top of our shopping priority list. We should recognise that, despite our primarily urban lifestyle, agriculture is nevertheless of vital importance to our health, our linkage with the earth from which we derive our sustenance, and our cultural identity. It is the future of our countryside. Howard was right - if we compromise it, we will all feel the consequences.

Richard Burge
Chief Executive, Countryside Alliance

Talk of having to "replace" farming with something is alarmist and irrational. Such a strategy would be a national disaster. The notion of encouraging farmers to give up to "become" professional land managers is absurd: farmers already are our "land managers" - while still fulfilling the vital, prime task of producing our food.

So how can we save a countryside worthy of the term? First, we need to continue to centre rural Britain's future around the commercial working of the land itself, through a restructuring of agriculture and the dismantling of the CAP. We also need to ensure sustainable, genuine livelihoods and keep local rural community life viable. With the political and social will, this is still a practicable vision. But if we fail in this, the future for rural Britain would be bleak indeed: slow degeneration into no more than a "faux-countryside" - a suburbanised, sanitised "dormitory with a view" for retirees or urban commuters - sandwiched between areas of unkempt wilderness or green dereliction.

Jules Pretty
Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex, author of The Living Land and Regenerating Agriculture and government adviser

We need a new way forward for farming: sustainable farming and landscapes we want to visit and enjoy. It can absorb carbon in soils and trees to provide new carbon sinks, thus mitigating climate change. It can hold water in wetlands to provide flood control. It can produce farmland birds and contribute to rural jobs. Farming is the future for our countryside - as a multifunctional sector, building natural and social assets in the countryside while providing us with wholesome food that is sourced from farms we all know and trust.

Richard Woodall
Farmer and butcher, Cumbria

Following the foot-and-mouth epidemic, there will be a need for fundamental changes within the food industry. It is essential that we learn from this disaster for the sake of the future of our countryside. For many, this catastrophe will mean an opportunity to rebuild and start again or possibly to diversify, to use their land for best advantage.

Would it now make sense for more agricultural land to be taken out of food production and developed for leisure activities? After all, with earlier retirement and more disposable income available to a higher proportion of people, the demand for such will almost certainly increase.

It may well be that our eating habits will change. There may be an even greater demand for organically grown food or farmers' markets, where there is a direct sale from producer to consumer. If this is the case, it could be that there will be a still greater resurgence and demand for regional and speciality foods. It is certain that many farmers will not restock their farms. It is possible that their neighbours will buy these unstocked holdings for extended development, thus making a huge impact on land use and its benefit to us, the public. These are just some of the many considerations that face us. Above all, it is essential that we are left with farming and tourism policies which are clearly understood, coherent and practical to deliver.

Edited by Natalie Brierley

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