The government will take steps to ensure farms can operate profitably after Brexit, the environment secretary has insisted, as MPs challenged ministers to keep taxpayer funding for agriculture after EU subsidies are withdrawn.

Michael Gove said food production was at the heart of British farming. He told the all-party parliamentary environment group: “It would be impossible to sustain everything we value in rural Britain without thriving food production. And we need a balance [with environmental protection].”

His insistence on food at the core of the agriculture remit of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will be welcomed by farmers, who have seen lower productivity in recent years and were concerned by his previous emphasis on the environmental responsibilities of farming. Gove has repeatedly said subsidies would be given on condition of delivering “public goods” such as biodiversity – meaning they would cease to receive subsidies for producing food.

These concerns were reflected in a report published on Wednesday by MPs which said taxpayer funding would still be needed after the UK leaves the common agricultural policy (CAP) and such support should be ringfenced in government budgets.

The environment, food and rural affairs committee found, in a report published on Wednesday, that the government’s plans for farming after Brexit have so far been vague and demanded further detail on what funding would be available after Brexit. Farmers currently receive £3bn in annual subsidies from the EU.



Neil Parish, the committee’s chair, said: “The government should commit to funding future agricultural policy using ringfenced funds, consider new support mechanisms such as tax breaks and capital grant support, ensure that trade agreements demand that imported products meet our standards, and avoid a regulatory race to the bottom.”

In its report, the committee called for a “farm productivity plan” to be brought forward next May, in which ministers would set out how to correct the falling productivity of British farms where food production is concerned.

The CLA, which represents the owners of land and businesses in rural areas, said ensuring farms were profitable was essential. Its president, Tim Breitmeyer, said: “Brexit brings major opportunities, but success depends on a carefully planned transition. We are pleased MPs have added their voice to our call for the government to focus on a plan for boosting farm profitability [as a] vital precondition of any moves to remove the basic payment system [under the CAP] The production of healthy food is, and must remain, the most important land use in our countryside.”

In February, Defra set out its consultation on health and harmony, a vision of the future of British farming which many campaigners said was too vague on major points, such as how subsidies would work and how high standards would be maintained. Later this year, the government is expected to bring forward an environment bill, including among the provisions the setting up of a new watchdog to oversee the protection of the British countryside and environmental regulations following Brexit.

The MPs also raised concerns over whether the “public goods” delivered by farming should be seen solely in terms of environmental benefits or animal welfare. They urged the government to consider the whole food system and the role of farming within it, as a way of cutting obesity and improving people’s nutrition.

Vicki Hird, farming coordinator at the campaigning group Sustain, said looking at the food system as a whole was a vital step. “We are very pleased to see the committee recognising the extraordinary failure to consider wider food policy with public impact, such as reducing diet-related diseases, and we agree that future policy must support healthy food and new government buying standards [for all the food used in the public sector, such as the NHS and schools] to ensure the use of healthy, affordable and local food in government procurement,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Defra said the government was committed to providing £3bn a year to farmers, followed by a longer transition period to allow them to adjust.