Pressures on Farming

Over the past two years there has been an upturn in arable farming in the Cotswolds and across the UK, which followed a fifteen year period of economic decline. Livestock farmers have not experienced this and are currently under increased pressures.

Globalisation is also having a direct impact on farmers leaving them more open to world market forces. In the past they were protected by a system of import tariffs and price guarantees but more recently this protection has been drastically reduced as a result of a general move to free up trade by the World Trade Organisation.

They were also shielded by Common Agricultural Policy subsidies linked to growing crops such as wheat, barley and oilseed rape or keeping cattle and sheep. Farmers now receive a single farm payment subsidy in return for maintaining their land in line with a set of prescribed environmental criteria.

The current financial climate puts farmers in a position where there are great pressures to intensify argricultural production, especially on arable land. In 2008 the requirement to 'set-aside' land from agricultural production ended and this will increase farm incomes but could also threaten biodiversity.

This new set of pressures could have knock-on effects in the Cotswolds with intensification possibly leading to a change in land use and landscape character and a general threat to wildlife habitats and biodiversity.