The Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, addressed the National Farmers Union Live 2021 virtual conference on 23 February, in an ostensible attempt to attract the pro-countryside vote. The first Labour leader to participate in the annual assembly of the nation’s farmers since 2008, he spoke about promoting public sector procurement of British agricultural produce and upholding already high food standards, while supporting investment in rural infrastructure as a means of improving the plight of the beleaguered farming community.
Building up a depleted rural infrastructure will prove difficult, without doubt. Rural England has been in decline from the 1920s onwards, and there is a lot of catching-up to do. A once- thriving agrarian economy has been shrinking ever since, bringing in its wake rural dereliction and the spectre of “ghost villages”. The rural/urban divide has widened, prompting calls by politicians to “level-up” the resulting inequalities. This rural decline is inextricably linked to a shrinking agricultural sector, in the face of a shift to a largely service-based economy.
The rural economy has fallen victim to the depopulation of rural areas, which is directly linked to falling job opportunities in the countryside. For the record, a rural area is officially defined as an area surrounding settlements containing 10,000 people or less. Not all rural areas have shared in the same fate. Accessible rural areas, including those within the protected greenbelts that surround major cities, have benefited from counter-urbanisation, as city workers seeking a better quality of life have flocked to dormitory towns and villages in commuterland. In less accessible areas, however, the flight of younger people to cities in search of both productive employment and an active social life, coupled with an influx of elderly retirees, has shifted the demographic age- balance, as the countryside increasingly becomes the abode of the elderly.
Mechanisation of agriculture has increased productivity and decimated the agricultural workforce, even as rural England occupies 85 per cent of the country’s total land mass – with 72 per cent being classed as agricultural land. Farming is frequently described as hard work, and low profit margins have driven many farmers to supplement their relatively meagre incomes by providing such services as bed-and-breakfast accommodation and wedding venues. Only 17 percent of the nation’s population-numbering just over nine million people- thus choose to live in rural areas, as ever increasing numbers seek more profitable jobs elsewhere .
Rural depopulation has reduced the overall demand for goods and services in rural villages. Village shops, pubs, post offices, schools, banks, and libraries have all been disappearing at an alarming rate. The closure of GP surgeries and local hospitals, and the withdrawal of community services, have particularly affected elderly villagers, limiting their access to both healthcare and social support. Add to this the loss of public bus services and a sluggish broadband coverage, and you further increase the isolation of already marginalised rural communities.
The agricultural sector cannot be depended upon to improve matters by itself. Agriculture is only a small, although vital, contributor to a diversifying rural economy. The agricultural sector contributed only about 0.61 percent to the UK’s GDP in 2019, while directly employing around 476, 000 people (1.5 per cent of the total workforce). But this contribution is essential. British farmers produced over 60 per cent of the food consumed domestically, thereby strengthening national food security. Farmers are also the custodians of the natural environment, overseeing an agricultural landscape of hedges, woodlands, meadows and ponds, and providing recreational opportunities through public footpaths and bridleways running through their farmlands.
The continued decline in rural England needs to be halted, if not reversed. But things may have gone beyond redemption. It can be difficult to attract people back to the villages when affordable housing is hard to find, and when city-dwellers add to house-price inflation by snapping up second homes, especially in more desirable parts of the country. A newly-found desire for home working may possibly inflate the numbers returning to villages, but as these mostly involve white-collar workers, rural social imbalances will continue to worsen if they do. Community initiatives of mutual support and cooperation, aimed at self-sufficiency, can only go so far to save threatened local economies, especially in areas that lie beyond the tourist trails. The solution may have to come from elsewhere. Small businesses and creative enterprises, attracted to rural areas by tax incentives and promises of investment in infrastructure, can help create jobs and develop innovative goods and services in a cleaner, back-to-nature, environment. Unless people choose to move to rural areas, tempted by new possibilities, it seems unlikely that rural England will regain its past glory.
Ashis Banerjee