Heretofore, CAP has penalised farmers for non-productive land. This has resulted in habitat clearance – in some cases where it was justified for farming purposes, and in others for marginal, if any, gain.

Policy and the wider public are challenging this practice, but as it stands, there’s no incentive to change.

Over the years, I’ve been drilled into referring to the agriculturally productive land we farm that I neglected to mention the rest.

Given that much of it is considered good-quality land, I got a bit of a shock when I did a few stats on the quantity of ground deemed ineligible by Brussels.

No pun intended, but I got a bit of a land when the total, excluding buildings and yards, came to almost 12%. How high would that figure be for farmers on more challenging ground or peripheral areas of the country?

That 12% consists of rocky scrub, woodland and marsh. It doesn’t even qualify as an Area of Natural Constraint (ANC).

There are numerous species of flora and fauna, including viviparous lizards, at least a dozen species of mammals, four or possibly five species of birds of prey and the one non-domesticated animal we receive a payment for, choughs.

Part of the farm is an SAC for this coastal member of the crow family, with their distinctive orange beaks and feet. An added bonus for them is that dung pats are very popular feeding spots for them, so they tie in well with livestock. Their numbers grew locally as tillage was scaled back.

The marsh area going down to the beach is a popular birdwatching spot, as it offers shelter to some rare migrating birds. Can you imagine the uproar if I was to attempt to put it into agricultural production?

I’m only using my farm as an example for this, even though I’m not the first in the family to be frustrated about it. My grandmother told me it used to anger her mother that she had to pay land annuities for the same land in the 1920s and 30s.

In the course of my farm case study, I discovered that, excluding wire-only fences, I’m responsible for almost 20km worth of ditch and hedgerow.

New habitat creation is an option in most environmental schemes, yet there is a penalty, not recognition, for existing farm habitats. A share of habitats created in REPS ended up being deemed ineligible for payment and in some cases farmers returned them to production in order to receive payment. Policy has driven much of this – not farmer choice.

Imagine if someone had the foresight to put a monetary value on the land that EU policy currently penalises farmers for possessing. It would offer a form of economic opportunity to areas that have few alternatives.

It would stall biodiversity losses and hopefully turn them in the other direction. It would also be one less stick to beat the farmer with. The feasibility of such a move should surely merit consideration.

Maybe what’s getting in the way is that such a move would be too simplistic and there wouldn’t be enough chances for people to take their slice of the cake before it trickles down to the landowner.

If such a payment was instated, a possible challenge could be how politicians would balance the good news of increased finances for farmers with marginal ground with a potential reduction in plant hire work?

I’d have confidence in their ability to work out that conundrum, as there’s a good number of them well able to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.