Several issues have become clear. Farming is not the main or the only industry in the British countryside.
Tourism brings in far more income than agriculture.
People who are not farmers are moving to the country from the towns and new industries are growing up there. It has been said that the solution to the problem of FMD cost far more money than it deserved. The European Union Common Agricultural Policy, which started half a century ago to make sure that Europe after the war was producing enough food to feed itself, is now out of date. It costs vast sums of money to support an agricultural industry which is in decline. It is being argued that this money should be spent on other kinds of rural development, to bring new life and new jobs into the countryside.