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There is an emerging debate on the real and important issue of the use of land, and what the countryside is for, not just in this country but also across the world.

Members of the public value farming and the countryside for what it gives them, but their appreciation is largely focussed on the countryside as a place to walk and enjoy for leisure and relaxation, and not generally as a place for business, crucial to the livelihoods of farmers and others involved in industry, crafts, skills and other rural pursuits.

 

The growing debate about food security and the production of food and pressures on the environmental quality of the countryside is intensifying. The recent example of the debate that resulted from the demise of compulsory Set Aside shows how far apart the views and values placed on the importance of the countryside can range.

 

Climate change will also impact seriously on the future use of land. Subtle differences in temperature and seasonality will alter the conditions for growing crops and change the cropping landscape, introducing new limitations on what may be grown where – the management of water will also become a major issue both in terms of scarcity and flood.

 

So it is timely to look at the issues of the countryside as a whole, and how the use of land impacts on issues such as the countryside’s biodiversity, survival of species and habitat creation as well as providing food, energy and other needs for those that live and work there, as well as those in towns and cities. The public depends on the countryside for many things, and we need to resolve these competing pressures and ensure we can maintain its long term capacity to continue to provide what we need from it.

 

Sir Don Curry chaired the Policy Commission on the ‘Future of Farming and Food’ which reported to Government in January 2002.  Government policy is now based on the report’s recommendations. He chaired a group that oversaw delivery of the Sustainable Farming and Food Strategy until 2009. He is chair of a High Level Group of farming and environmental stakeholders which formed to address issues around the demise of 2compulsory set-aside (the Group was asked by the Secretary of State, in January 2009, to look at wider environmental issues beyond set-aside). 

 

He was appointed to the Council of Food Policy Advisors in 2009.  He was awarded a CBE for his services to Agriculture in the 1997 New Year’s Honours list and a Knighthood in the Birthday Honours in 2001.  He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Cranfield, Gloucestershire, and Newcastle University.

 

Sir Don is Chairman of the NFU Mutual Insurance Company and a former Crown Estate Commissioner.  He chaired the Meat and Livestock Commission from 1993-2001.  In 2009 he became chair of the Leckford Estate Management Committee – the Waitrose farm. He also farms 450 acres in Northumberland comprising arable and lowland grass.