Report

Lay of the Land

The RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission was set up to think afresh about where our food comes from, how to support farming and rural communities, and how to invest in the many benefits the countryside provides.

The immediate stimulus for action was the imminent departure of the UK from the European Union, and the combination of opportunity and threat that this presents: opportunity to find a better way to support agriculture while benefiting the environment outside of the Common Agricultural Policy, and threat in concerns about the loss of EU environmental governance, principles and standards. However this was very much against the wider backdrop of a sense of global ecological crisis which intensified during the 18 months the inquiry met.

Recent scientific reports from the United Nations on climate disruption and biodiversity loss have
brought home the urgency of the situation and the inevitability of deeply challenging times ahead. Public consciousness and demands for action have also intensified – school strikes across the globe and disruptive climate protests in London and elsewhere have raised these issues higher on political agendas.

The Commission’s Northern Ireland Inquiry decided at the outset that its approach should be citizen led, seeking the views of as wide a range of people as possible. We were also clear, however, that finding out what citizens think would be the means to an end rather than the end itself. The onus was on the members of the inquiry, with their collective experience and expertise from a wide range of relevant backgrounds, to use the findings as raw material for its own deliberations and draw some conclusions from what it heard.

This report sets out the context of the inquiry, its findings, some signposts to the future, and some recommendations for the way ahead.