Going for growth

This is particularly pertinent for agriculture, a sector that underpins this country’s food industry and which is critical to sustaining the rural economy through troubled times.

It remains to be seen whether the PM’s mission to limit executive pay will make a difference at the large supermarkets who stand accused, again, of suppressing payments to hard-pressed dairy farmers.

Predictably, this is a key plank of a new, forward-thinking wish list published today by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and which is intended to make the most out of Yorkshire’s farming heritage and stunning landscapes which, while idyllic to view, are, immensely difficult to nurture and cultivate.

Given the welcome progress that has been made in recent years on food labelling, it is symptomatic of the public’s growing appreciation of agriculture that environmentally sustainable policies go to the core of this innovative strategy.

This is illustrated by the CPRE’s desire to see most pigs and poultry to be free range and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, for nearly all farms to be producing renewable energy through schemes such as anaerobic digestion farms.

The challenge now is turning these ideas into policies that boost farm incomes. That will take more than legislation. It will also require political application and innovation. Mr Cameron says 2012 will be a year for growth. Now his Ministers must sow the seeds that will produce some green shoots of recovery.