Defra vision of a farm-less Britain?

Listeners may have been startled to hear on the January 3 Today programme that at meetings convened by Defra there had been discussion about whether UK farming was needed at all.

This surreal concept is stirring indeed. No country, let alone a highly fertile one and once a pioneering agricultural world leader, has ever proposed importing food on such a scale.

Britain would become comparable to northerly volcanic islands, or the 200 square mile shopping mall of Singapore. Is this the long-awaited Brown vision?

Defra which coincidentally has dropped the word 'farming' from its title, immediately denied such discussions had occurred.

It is easy to see why it might have appeal.

It has been obvious to farmers for a long time that farming's supervision and direction was a duty borne by Government reluctantly. The re-visitation of foot and mouth in August 2007, originating in a Government building, was met less with amazement than resignation by the battered animal-rearing sector.