No benefit in paying wealthy landowners to rewild land | Letter

It makes more sense to pay farmers to farm in the right way than give huge sums to rich individuals to do essentially nothing, writes dairy farmer Hugh PadfieldThe title of your article (England's farmers to be paid to rewild land, 6 January) is misleading. George Eustice and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are planning to pay landowners (mostly not farmers) to rewild land. That is, pay huge sums of public money to extremely rich individuals to do almost nothing.Wealthy businessmen have bought agricultural land to avoid tax, to benefit from its exemption from inheritance tax. They will now be paid to evict tenant farmers and stop food production on that land. Can this be justified by the positive impact on the environment? No. Continue reading...