Changes in farming and future prospects – technology and policy1

The links between the drivers of change in farming structures and practices, the adoption of those practices and their environmental impacts are complex, multidimensional and dynamic, generally involving long time lags. We can visualize agriculture as having evolved, so far, through two eras: pre-industrial and industrial. There are signs that we are now moving into a third generation: post-industrial agriculture. This is outlined and illustrated. The thesis is that we are passing the apogee of environmental destructiveness in UK agriculture. The policy changes now in place in the new post-Fischler CAP have the capacity to steer rural land use in a different and preferred direction. Of course, this outcome is not guaranteed.