Environme
in a small-scale way – to produce food
for which there is a growing market. The
other thing about ORFC is the sense of
enthusiasm for the possibility of change
and so the two complement one another,
like a father and son (or Brian and Adam
from The Archers).
Rob Yorke, OWPG member and
independent rural commentator, secured
a wide-ranging interview on behalf of
BBC Countryfile Magazine with Michael
Gove on places he likes to walk, farming,
rewilding, hen harriers, uplands,
neonicotinoids, food imports, glyphosate,
animal welfare, woodland, Defra and
what the countryside might look like in
25 years’ time. ‘In between the lines, it’s
as interesting to note what this astute
politician couldn’t answer; as to the stuff
he did answer in my interview’ says Rob.
(Rob Yorke) Firstly, what are your personal
connections to rural Britain and where do
you love to walk?
(Michael Gove) Both sides of my family
have connections to fishing and the sea
and when I was growing up I would spend
weekends in the countryside around
Aberdeen. I’m particularly fond of a
place called Cruden Bay, where you have
Slains Castle, which helped inspire Bram
Stoker’s Dracula and that rugged coastline
is dear to me. I’m very fond of Chobham
Common in my Surrey constituency,
which has wonderful heathland. Also, I
quite like the big skies of East Norfolk.
And I love east Somerset, an area of dairy
farming, rolling hills – a classic West
Country landscape.
You are the first secretary of state to address
both Oxford Farming Conference (OFC)
and its alternative the Oxford Real Farming
Conference (ORFC). Why?
It’s a bit like the Edinburgh Festival and
the Fringe; the OFC is an established
institution, bringing together some of
the most thoughtful and progressive
people, asking themselves questions
about the future of food, farming and the
countryside.
The ORFC represents those who are
interested in a more organic approach,
and what I found encouraging were those
who don’t have a farming background
but who want to work on the land – often
12 Outdoor focus | summer 2018
...we know
that trees
in farmland
contribute to
soil health,
to providing
a habitat for
biodiversity
Brexit is likely the end of land-based
subsidies for farming, to be replaced by
funding support for public goods. What
results do you believe could be delivered?
There needs to be public investment in
the countryside. We’re consulting on a
system whereby farmers/landowners/
land managers are paid for public
goods, and helped to provide food. The
existing Common Agricultural Policy
led to some perverse outcomes with a
desire to just drive up yield, not thinking
of the countryside holistically. A few
trees in farmland is currently regarded
as an impediment, detracting from the
amount of subsidy received. But we
know that trees in farmland contribute
to soil health, to providing a habitat
for biodiversity. It will also, and I don’t
apologise for it, make the countryside
more beautiful. Provided the support is
shaped in the right way, what we want
to do is go with the grain of what the
majority of farmers want to do, but also
what the British public want and value in
our countryside.
You recently said you’d like to ‘return
cultivated land to wildflower meadows or
other more natural states’ – that hints at
roughing up or rewilding some of the land,
while intensifying productivity elsewhere
with possible increase in food imports and
even food prices.
I think we can have a virtuous cycle.
Graham Harvey in his book Grass Fed
Nation makes the case of meadows being
part of mixed farms producing high-
quality food. And as a country we’re
increasingly moving in the direction
of valuing quality and asking about