At the forum for the future of agriculture Professor Buckwell thinks there has recently been a slow and steady improvement of the impact of the agriculture on our environment. The worst was in the 60', 70' and 80' worst. This is not just a European phenomenon but a global one. What we can say is there are a lot of environment regulations in Europe to which farmers are getting used to. The Common Agriculture Policy has tuned itself to recognizing that farmers depend on the environment and there needs to be some sort of financial assistance for farmers. 

We should not speak about subsidizing, he uses the word paying farmers, to look after the environment. Once they got used to it and understand the money is for the environment, famers start thinking this way.

Circular economy

Agriculture and farmers actually have been doing this for generations. What does it mean? Use animal manure for example, we need to use much more intelligently. Today it happens that where the livestock is produced, there isn't sufficient cropland around and it needs transportation. The action for Europe is to push for clearer regulations for organic fertilizers so that we can recover human sewage, manure and food waste and reprocess it in a way that is fit to land.

Do farmers need to pay for the pollution?

When you think of individual farms they are all polluting in a way, and they are struggling to make a living. They have to be experts on amonium or whatever, it is simply not feasible. We have to find other ways to encourage farmers to raise the standards instead of tracking down from what farm did that phosphate come from.