Will government act on the Curry report?

Sir Donald Curry said ministers needed to act now to implement his ideas for farmers to become 'guardians' of the countryside for the nation.

And he warned it would be "disastrous" for the rural economy if his groundbreaking report was left to gather dust on a Whitehall shelf.

It is three months since Sir Donald, as head of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food, called for cash support for environmental protection.

But it will cost £500m to shift subsidies away from food production to supporting better countryside management - a bill the government may refuse to pay.

Within the next three months, Chancellor Gordon Brown will unveil his comprehensive spending review, to map out spending priorities for the next three years.

But, with massive sums already pledged for health and education, it is feared there will be little left for farming and the countryside.

Sir Donald, told Radio Four: "We need to move forward. We need to start delivering this new vision.

"The funding that we have identified to deliver this and start this process is crucial to getting the show moving forward.

"If the government fails to take this opportunity, we will have the farming and food industry left in crisis and becoming ever more uncompetitive. That would be disastrous for the rural economy."

But Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said this summer's spending review - not the recent Budget - would decide whether the Curry report was implemented.

She said: "He recognises, as he has always recognised, that it's in the spending review that those decisions will come."

Sir Donald's report described current farming practices as "unsustainable" and said the environment had to become a "selling point, not a sore point" for farmers.

His was the first of three separate inquiries set up by the government into last year's foot and mouth epidemic and the lessons for farming.

Updated: 08:57 Thursday, May 02, 2002