1.3.1 The Government’s Aims

Editor: Will Melling Writers: Bence Borbely, Trevor Chow, Tom Nott, Yang Zuo

underproduction of this public good. This is the case for why public goods should be provisioned in another way, such as by government subsidies. An additional advantage of subsidising public goods is that it provides an alternative and diversified channel of income stream for smaller farms, which enables them to compete even though they may not be able to achieve the same level of agricultural productivity as the most mechanised and capitalintensive ones22 .

This definition holds for the majority of the goods discussed in this paper, except that of ‘public health’ which, perhaps for this reason, has not been included in the governments understanding of ‘public good’ in the Agriculture Act 2020. However, we have included it in our considerations due to the opportunity that might be being missed to greater integrate the approach to tackling both the public policy problem of sustainable agriculture, and the dietary problems persistent in the UK, particularly relating to fruit and vegetable consumption. This is why the Royal Society for Public Health has argued for health to be one such public good. For example, providing sufficient financial incentives to increase the amount of agricultural land deployed for producing fruits and vegetables could result in nearly 2,000 lives being saved every year from cardiovascular deaths due to the consequent abundance of fresh and healthy produce changing its price relative to other foods. 23

1.3 Scope of the Paper

1.3.1 The Government’s Aims

When it was clear the UK was leaving the CAP, the Department for Environment, Farming, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), investigated the problems that Direct Payments under the CAP had caused in the UK farming sector to inform future policy decisions. 24 There are generally two problems that the department is hoping to solve with current domestic farming proposals: (i) the persistent productivity problem in UK agriculture, and (ii) promoting ‘public goods’ through subsidy and regulation. As for productivity, the CAP, it was itself an impediment to productivity improvements, due to its direct payments reducing the competitive pressures on farmers. 25 The Brexit process has not helped increase productivity in the short term because farming is a sector that requires uniquely significant levels of foresight and planning, twice as many farmers have been decreasing their investments than increasing investments as a result. 26 Overall

22 Bazyli Czyżewski and Agnieszka Brelik, ‘Providing Environmental Public Goods under the Common Agricultural Policy as a Cure for Market Failure’ [2019] European Research Studies Journal 22 (3) 23 Paraskevi Seferidi, ‘Potential impacts of post-Brexit agricultural policy on fruit and vegetable intake and cardiovascular disease in England’ (2019) <https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/3/1/3>, accessed 2 January 2021 24 DEFRA, ‘Moving Away From Direct Payments’ (2018) <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/740669/agribill-evidence-slide-pack-direct-payments.pdf>, accessed 2 January 2021 25 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, ‘The future for food, farming and the environment’ (2018) <https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvfru/870/87005.htm>, accessed 12 January 2021 26 Farming UK, ‘Mid-term farmer confidence hits all-time low as more certainty urged’ (2017) <https://www.farminguk.com/news/mid-term-farmer-confidence-hits-all-time-low-as-more-certaintyurged_48225.html>, accessed 10 December 2020