Kevin Prince has wide experience of farming and rural business in Hampshire, where he lives near Andover, and across southern England as a director in the Adkin consultancy. His family also run a diversified farm with commercial lets, holiday cottages and 800 arable acres.

Farmers are beginning to learn a little more about the Government payment schemes that will replace the basic farm payment that existed when we were EU members and were subject to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Having disclosed some details in December, DEFRA secretary George Eustice revealed more during the Oxford Farming Conference at the beginning of January. For some tenant farmers there’s the worry that landowners will see the income potential of environmental schemes (that require them to do very little in the way of physical input) so may decide it’s better to take the money from Government instead of the rent from their tenants.

The degree of environmental improvement will vary under different schemes but some may involve Landscape Recovery that will pay landowners who want to make radical change, perhaps in alliance with neighbours on a large scale of between 500 and 5,000 hectares. DEFRA is hoping its planned pilot scheme will cover at least 10,000 hectares of restored habitat.

The big question is how far back do we want to take our landscape; pre-war, 17th Century, or Iron Age? Bear in mind hedgerows largely came about through the Enclosure Acts from the 17th Century onwards that spread across the country and allowed previously community-farmed land to be taken into one ownership. That owner either then fenced or planted hedges and the former self-sustaining farmers became tied farm workers who perhaps had a small plot or large cottage garden with which to support their families.

Many people see hedges as a vital part of rewilding. After the last war, the Government paid vast amounts to rip up about 200,000 miles of hedge and has since paid farmers to put them back to help slow soil erosion caused by wind and rain ripping across vast open areas. But is all this taking the wrong approach?

The fundamental problem is that in 1850 the UK population was less than 20 million with no electricity, mains water, gas network, or tarmac roads. The population now approaches 70 million with every one expecting essential utilities, central heating, and the ability to travel freely across the country and “explore” the countryside.

Areas surplus to infrastructure needs and devoid of human disturbance are increasingly squeezed. This is a global rather than a UK issue; take a look for example at the depressing photographs of queues of climbers strapped to fixed lines near the summit of Mount Everest on any good weather day in May. If even the tallest parts of the Himalayas are now overcrowded what hope is there for that “wild moor” in Hampshire, Berkshire, or Oxfordshire?

Another problem with paying farmers not to produce food in England is that the devolved nations are following different policies and will continue direct payments for the foreseeable future. Far from worrying about the effects of foreign trade deals after Brexit, internal competition from subsidised Scottish or Northern Irish beef farmers could hit English beef producers. Welsh lamb growers might also out-compete English counterparts via their subsidy payments.

If we really want to reduce the impact of the food we eat on the wider environment, maybe the more sensible approach is to return to eating what’s in season.

Only recently have we been luxuriating in baby sweetcorn and mangetout grown in exotic climes, often at the expense of local farmers losing their water supply, and then flown thousands of miles to retain freshness.

And as for avocado and almond milk, never mind bottled water…