ABSTRACT
The majority of policy proponents are seeking policy measures that will influence farmers and farming to serve wider ends, such as through the provision of public goods, or improved diet-related health outcomes. Under the new regime emerging in the mid-1980s, and more strongly after the Common Agricultural Policy reforms of 1992, farmers were asked to slow down or even reverse the relentless drive to efficient production. Farmers were responding to society’s demands for particular habitats, landscapes and recreational provision, as expressed through the various agri-environmental schemes. The quest for sustainable farming that has dominated the policy agenda of developed countries, with its language of multifunctionality and environmental protection, is confronted by the challenges of food, energy and water security within the context of climate change, as well as the profound policy challenges and uncertainties of Brexit. Consequently, Brexit has spawned a plethora of reports and campaigns on how policy should be reformed and agriculture re-envisioned in a post-Brexit world.
