Merrick-Denton Thompson

Past President (2016 – 2018). Fellow of the Landscape Institute. He has worked in local government and the voluntary sector for all of his career. He left local government as the Assistant Director of the Environment at Hampshire County Council where he was responsible for environmental policies in strategic planning, rural affairs and the countryside service. He was appointed to the Board of Natural England by the Secretary of State to assist in the development of the new government agency in 2006 - 2009. He directed the Rural Pathfinder for the South East of England in 2006.

He was a member of the Cross-Compliance Board for the Single Farm Payment, representing Local Government. A member of the Agri-Environment Review Group which set up the Environmental and Countryside Stewardship Schemes. He is the founding Trustee of the Learning Through Landscapes Trust. He is currently piloting a new Governance model for Rural Land Management for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in England. 

The United Kingdom is in the process of replacing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which has driven UK Agriculture for nearly 50 years. Public intervention into agriculture will largely be confined to investment through the new Environmental Land Management (ELMs) system. The speaker has facilitated two ELM Test and Trials research projects for the UK Government.

The first project demonstrated how it was possible to harness the power of nature to secure sustainably produced food at the same time as reversing the drivers of climate change, restoring nature and modernising access for the health and wellbeing of local people. This project demonstrated that bio-security was achieved through biodiversity and the restoration of the microbial health of the soils on a 1,000 hectare farmed estate.

The second was to pilot a new Land and Natural Resource Governing System for potential roll out nationally. This pilot tested the validity of imposing national policies across such a diverse landscape. It sought to secure ‘joined up government’ and to change the administrative culture – the residue of cross compliance. The focus was on securing collaboration across the public, private and voluntary sectors to secure sustainably produced food, the restoration of nature and the reversal of climate change.

The pilot set out to empower the farming community at a local level, focussed on the natural carrying capacity of the local landscape. A unique approach was taken to establish the baseline valuation of Natural Capital (the elements of life) and then provide a business planning framework at a landscape scale to assist the farming community in transforming the sustainability of food production within a multi-functional landscape.

The cost to society of unsustainable food production far exceeds the value of the food being produced – the pursuit of mon-culture has been at the expense of all life forms – including humanity.