We are calling on MPs to end the ‘shocking discrimination’ against world-class Devon farmland and will be asking every General Election candidate to actively campaign for ‘Prime Pasture’ to be added to the ‘Best and Most Versatile’ definition to protect Southwest farmland from solar development.
The government must end the shocking discrimination against livestock-rearing in its energy strategy. Our call follows Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho’s announcement (15 May) that the country’s ‘best’ agricultural land should be protected for food production and not used for renewable energy projects such as huge solar farms.
“Once again the Westminster bubble demonstrates its dreadful ignorance of rural matters”, said Devon CPRE chairman Steve Crowther. “Once again they fall back on the mantra of protecting ‘Best and Most Versatile’ (BMV) land, which protects arable areas like the East of England and so funnels solar development onto the world-class pasture-land that covers Devon and other south-western counties”.
“The inadequate and outdated Agricultural Land Classification system focuses entirely on arable land, and describes pasture-land where sheep and cows are raised as ‘inferior’, and so fair game for massive solar farm developers. Yet the South West, the UK’s leading region for livestock-rearing, produces almost as much food value every year as the East of England*. The consequence is that Devon is being progressively converted from a major food-producer into an inert, glass-covered factory for inefficient production of intermittent energy.
“We are calling on all the Devon MPs and General Election candidates to commit to changing this damaging discrimination against Devon’s farmland, which is among the best and most productive livestock-rearing land in the world. The current classification system is grotesquely skewed towards crop-growing. The BMV land that the government is pledging to protect is land graded 1–3a, but grade 3b represents the prime pastureland which covers much of Devon and underpins a huge proportion of our national food security.
“Each of the medium-sized solar farms being built on Devon farmland is around 160 acres in size, to keep within local planning limits. Yet 168 acres is the size of an average Devon agricultural farm. Over 4,000 acres, the equivalent of 30 whole farms has so far been taken out of food production in Devon – a county which is the envy of livestock producers throughout the world for its lush productive pastures.”
Devon CPRE will be writing to every General Election candidate to ask them to pledge to actively campaign for ‘Prime Pasture’ (grade 3b) land to be added to the ‘Best and Most Versatile’ definition for land to be protected from solar development.
“We have been talking to SW MPs about this for a long time, and many do ‘get it’ (although disappointingly none of them contributed to the recent Westminster hall debate), however, this latest announcement from Claire Coutinho clearly shows that the message has not got through to Westminster, and her new commitments make Devon an even more attractive target for solar developers”, said Steve Crowther.
“At a time when we’re being told there’s a good chance of war in the next 10 years, with a rising population to feed and no sign that a plant- or insect-based diet will be sufficient any time soon, we cannot let this go on.”
* Total food production by value 2022: East of England (largely arable) £1.09bn, South West of England £979m.
We were delighted to be asked to contribute to a discussion about this issue by Sky News Breakfast on 5th June. To view the piece, click on this link:
https://youtu.be/iADC3_nPa-g
Devon solar farm map
To view our film made in 2022 with John Nettles OBE, click here