Private rights and public responsibilities: the prospects for agricultural and environmental controls

The paper seeks to examine the prospects for the introduction of formal controls over agricultural and environmental change in the countryside through an analysis of the policy preferences of the National Farmers' Union and the Country Landowners' Association and the rapidiy changing context within which they are operating. We argue that it is mistaken to suppose that there exists a generalised objection to regulation within the farming and landowning community. Present developments are, moreover, blurring the distinction between production and conservation policies. In addition the authority of the farming lobby has been significantly weakened. But we suggest, nonetheless, that the persistent power of constraint enjoyed by farming and landowning interests is likely to ensure that a particular view of environmental protection, involving compensation for property rights foregone, remains predominant.