Minister calls for reshape of Defra
The theme for this year's Oxford Farming Conference was 'Bold Agriculture', and Defra minister Liz Truss, giving the conference keynote speech, called for a bold re-shaping of Defra to step up to the increasing opportunities and challenges facing UK farmers of global markets such as China.
She accepted that the department has been too hidebound in the past and needs to be modernised.
You have got one department looking at flood protection, another at farming, and a third concerned with the environment without linking them up to see the overall picture, she said.
"Whilst it is right to manage national risks we should not seek to micro-manage everything."
"But this situation is changing fast, and from July the Environment Agency and Natural England will be using the same boundaries and the same plan.
"A new 25-year overall plan will be published in the next few months along with £2.7 billion in capital investment in science, animal and plant health."
On flood protection, farmers will, from April, be allowed to maintain their own ditches up to a length of 1.5km, so they can dredge and clear debris and manage the land to stop it getting waterlogged. Groups such as Internal Drainage Board will be given more power, the minister announced.
Much decision making will de-centralised along with a six-year programme for flood defences costing £2.5 billion to help protect the one million acres at risk of flooding , much of which is some of the country's best quality land.
On animal health, she reiterated her commitment to eradicating bovine TB, promising to declare half of England free of the disease by 2020.
