Now, they say, the hope has run out, and many are desperate. Britain's industrial wastelands, the sinewy places which once produced the coal and steel, now lie empty and silent. They were allowed to die without very much in the way of help. But the shipbuilders and the miners could have worked wonders with the cash farmers now want for slaughtering worn-out sheep, or unwanted calves. Nobody suggested industrial set-aside for the technologies we have left behind.
Farmers see themselves as a special case.
The rural economy would contract, with schools, shops and businesses closing, and jobs disappearing. Transport would become even less reliable. The vegetation, even the landscape, would change once animals were no longer grazing it. So we vote the farmers the extra money they want to tide them over till better times arrive, because it is in our own interest to do so. In return, we should demand that they make their workplace not just more people-friendly, but more hospitable to plants, animals and birds.