England has shown the world how to replace farm subsidies
England has pioneered a model of paying farmers for environmental outcomes rather than acres farmed — and the early results are surprisingly positive.
英国在脱欧后对其农业补贴政策进行了重大改革。它放弃了欧盟时期按公顷支付补贴的做法，转而要求农民通过提供公共产品（如建立树篱、保护生物多样性）来获取资金。尽管曾有担忧，但这项政策进展顺利，农民适应良好，环境效益初显，且对粮食生产影响不大。文章认为，英格兰这种温和而迅速的改革方式，比新西兰当年彻底废除补贴的激进做法可能更具借鉴意义。
A common belief among farmers, though one generally uttered quietly, is that their neighbours could be doing a better job. Perhaps they have sown wheat too early, or failed to tackle weeds. The same spirit of one-upmanship might be applied to entire countries. Some have better farming policies than others, wasting less public money and boosting productivity more than pollution. Surprisingly, England has earned the right to look down on others.
欧盟共同农业政策是欧盟成员国共同实施的农业补贴和发展政策，旨在确保粮食供应、稳定农产品市场和提高农民收入。英国脱欧前是其一部分，主要通过按公顷支付补贴来支持农民。
Brexiteers who claimed that leaving the European Union would lead to superior policies have been wrong about most things—but when it comes to farming, they were right. Under the EU’s common agricultural policy, Britain mostly paid farmers to farm, handing out subsidies per hectare. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales still do a lot of that. But England, which has distinctive farming policies just as it has distinctive education policies, has remorselessly slashed such payments. They will vanish entirely next year.
英国脱欧是指英国退出欧盟的政治进程。脱欧派认为脱欧能让英国制定更适合自己的政策，包括农业政策。文章指出，在农业领域，脱欧确实为英国带来了政策创新的机会。
To get public money, English farmers must now choose to do things that provide public goods, such as establishing hedgerows or growing plants that feed insects and birds. Some activities, such as monitoring the condition of the soil, pay a few pounds per hectare; others are worth much more. “Agri-environment” schemes like this have existed for years, in England and elsewhere. But England is unusual in redirecting almost all its farm payments towards them. In the eu, only a quarter of farm payments go to schemes of this sort.
Although it is too early to tell if England’s approach is boosting biodiversity or cutting greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture, the early signs are encouraging. Livestock numbers are falling, tree-planting is rising and more land is being left fallow. The blow to food production is likely to be small. Farmers mostly seem to be putting their worst land into environmental schemes—the bogs, slopes and awkward field corners where they struggle to manoeuvre a tractor.
Fears that they would be unable to cope with the loss of subsidies have proved groundless. Only 1,200 of England’s roughly 100,000 farmers took government grants to quit, and some of them were probably going anyway. Profits have held up, admittedly owing in part to Russia’s invasion of a big cereal producer. Farmers have not only learned to apply for environmental grants; they are also making better use of their land and buildings. They rent fields to solar-power producers and cottages to holidaymakers.
The removal of per-hectare subsidies has made farming harder and riskier, which may explain why the land market has cooled. Since the Brexit vote in 2016 the price of ordinary arable land in England has increased by 12%. In Scotland and Wales, which have been slower to abandon per-hectare payments, it is up by 46% and 33% respectively. Good farmers in England should find it easier to expand as a result, or to acquire land for the first time.
The scheme could be bolder. As well as paying for environmental activities, the government could try spelling out desirable outcomes, such as more birds or less flooding in a given area, and then invite farmers to bid to achieve them. The ruling Labour Party has made some peculiar decisions, such as capping the amount of environmental payments per farm. That move might seem intuitive to a party that has always disliked large landowners, but it makes no ecological sense. A flower is no less attractive to a bee if it grows on a big estate.
Policies can always be improved. England’s feat is to have herded farmers into a new system of environmental incentives at high speed, with minimal bleating. Although angry farmers have driven their tractors to Westminster, they were protesting against changes to inheritance tax, not subsidy cuts.
More drastic policies are available. New Zealand abolished agricultural subsidies in the 1980s and replaced them with nothing. It ended up with an innovative, market-oriented industry. But New Zealand needs to control agriculture, too, not least because its cows belch so much climate-altering methane. With few carrots to offer, it is struggling. England’s gentler approach may prove more fertile.
新西兰在1980年代彻底废除了所有农业补贴，导致农业部门经历了一段艰难的调整期，但最终转型为更具创新性和市场导向的产业。文章将其与英格兰的渐进式改革进行对比。