A cut of £100m from England's nature-friendly farming budget would be a huge blow for food security - Yorkshire Post Letters

Defra’s reported cut of £100m from England's nature-friendly farming budget would be a huge blow to everyone striving to protect our country’s natural assets and build our food security.

While representing a 4 per cent reduction in the overall agricultural budget, this cutback raises alarm bells over the government's commitment to sustainable farming, and the five priorities outlined by Environment Secretary, Steve Reed in July.

If this is an indication of future cuts to help address the Treasury’s disclosed £22bn shortfall, then we urgently need increased adoption of impactful solutions that can improve farmers’ resilience to extreme weather and to help mitigate the massive losses we’re seeing in biodiversity.

As a defined and independently audited approach, organic farming is proven to deliver high levels of nature recovery with around 50 per cent more abundance of wildlife, and up to 34 per cent more wildlife species, whilst still producing good quality food.

It’s not just biodiversity where organic triumphs. Across the board, organic farming consistently lowers long-term environmental and economic costs. It improves water quality, lowers energy use, enhances food security, and reduces soil erosion and loss.

The gains from increased uptake of organic would benefit everyone. Its vital farming systems that simultaneously deliver across all Defra’s priorities are supported by the government. By encouraging greater policy support for organic farmers and those in transition while signalling organic’s environmental credentials to shoppers, we can serve the greater public interest.