Happy New Year; Happy new trade deals

Welcome to 2020, the year of the trade deal.  To reassure readers here are the 10 steps we have identified that take place in most international trade deals: 1. Bellicosity: Declare or threaten a trade war with one or more of your biggest trading partners. Cancel all current deals, introduce import and export bans, tariffs …

Farming tax breaks: true or false

Saturday's BC Radio 4 Today programme broadcast an interview with Prof Dieter Helm, the economist who chairs the government's Natural Capital Committee.  Prof Helm made some cogent points about the ad hoc development of various policies for the agricultural industry, calling farmers subsidy junkies along the way and highlighting 'exemptions' from tax.  He particularly mentioned …

Land Management Today

Land Management TODAY - LMT - is published for the first time today.  The first edition is the work of a group of postgraduate students at Harper Adams University who came together at the end of June to study a module called Land Use and Management.  The first edition contains 28 short articles covering a …

Rural Proofing: a key reference for rural activists and analysts

Rural analysts and activists take note.  Defra has updated its rural proofing guidance this week.  This will be a key reference for anybody interested in the development and impact of policies which affect rural areas.  Why? Because policy measures are meant to have been 'rural proofed'.  So the criteria for rural proofing are important because …

New Brexit Blog

I have set up a new blog site solely dedicated to Brexit, Farming and the Rural Economy. You can see it here, and in particular a page of links to useful information which I hope to keep updated with relevant publications and other sources of Brexit information as they appear. I hope you will find …