In 2021 The Guardian reported government data that revealed farming to be the most significant source of water pollution in the UK – accounting for 25% of phosphate, 50% of nitrate and 75% of sediment loading in the water environment. And industries’ impacts on river health took a severe lashing from a 2020 Environment Agency report that showed every single river and lake in England to be polluted beyond legal limits. So, toxic industries past and present have poisoned water courses with their chemicals. Water companies pumped raw sewage into England’s rivers at an unconscionable rate – on at least 200,000 occasions in 2019. And urban run-off, abandoned mines and nanomaterials all added to the brew. Water companies, facing their next five-year price review cycle in 2024, are balancing their own economic pressures. English water firms have handed £57 billion in dividends to shareholders, while taking on £48 billion in debt, over the past 30 years, according to a 2020 report in The Guardian. Where are the resources for the scale of clean-up needed? And should the water companies have to pay for the clean-up on their own? Clearly if these co-benefits are enjoyed by farmers seeking to shift out of conventional agriculture, and insurance companies seeking to reduce flood payouts, and perhaps the odd railway or three, the case for multiple participants joining together to enable this sort of change will continue to grow. Water companies can seek nature-based solutions to bring together a wide swathe of stakeholders interested in the benefits of river health, but utility business plans operate on five-year cycles, while nature-based solutions might need twenty years to deliver their benefits. Can bottom-up activities on farms such as Brad well Grove drove a difference? Wales Transition Lab, an initiative from North Star Transition, brings together over thirty leaders from across food, health and the environment to drive bottom-up actions that reshape the working of the food system in Wales (see box, Wales Transition Lab). But bottom-up actions lack scale or impact. Do we need a new set of regulations, incentives and subsidies from the government? In truth, the subsidy system is being rethought in each of the four nations of the United Kingdom, and each nation is bringing out its own version in the next few years. But farmers need to take action now in a farming cycle that lasts longer than the time it will take for the new incentive schemes to arrive. What judgements should they make today? The arrival of the government’s 25-Year Environmental Plan has been well received as a first attempt to tackle the crisis facing our natural world. Yet, critics say the poor state of our rivers and lakes on their own might prevent the plan from ever achieving its goals. Our governments have to step up. The UK government is pursuing cheap food in its trade deals, ignoring the fact that cheap food is a band-aid hiding the wounds of inequality afflicting the national economy. How can Australian lamb be cheaper than Welsh lamb, if we take its true price into account?
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