Broadcaster and farmer Jeremy Clarkson has delivered a sharp challenge to government rewilding policy, warning that paying farmers to take land out of production risks undermining Britain’s long-term food security.
Speaking before a parliamentary committee, Clarkson questioned the logic behind incentives that encourage farmers to stop producing food, arguing that the policy focuses heavily on land use and environmental metrics while largely avoiding discussion of food supply.
The session was chaired as a routine policy discussion, with Steve Barclay outlining the government’s rewilding programme. Under the scheme, farmers can receive up to £700 per hectare per year to remove land from production and convert it to habitats such as woodland, wetlands, or wildflower meadows. Barclay cited strong early participation, with tens of thousands of hectares already enrolled, and described the policy as delivering benefits ranging from carbon capture to biodiversity and flood mitigation.
Clarkson acknowledged the environmental objectives but argued that the framing ignored a central issue: food.
Britain currently imports around 45 per cent of its food, a figure Clarkson said already places the country in a vulnerable position. He pointed to projections suggesting that widespread adoption of rewilding could reduce domestic production capacity by a further 15 to 20 per cent, increasing reliance on imports rather than reducing environmental impact.
“When you pay farmers to stop producing food,” he told the committee, “you are not improving agriculture, you are shrinking it.”
Clarkson challenged claims that reduced acreage could be offset through greater efficiency. He noted that farmers are simultaneously facing tighter controls on fertiliser use, pesticide availability and water access — restrictions that directly affect yields. Taken together, he argued, the policy amounts to expecting higher output from fewer resources under heavier regulation.
The financial case was also scrutinised. While £700 per hectare was presented as generous support, Clarkson contrasted it with the estimated £2,000 to £3,000 per hectare generated by productive farmland. In his view, the payments amount to compensation for lost output rather than genuine support.
Data from farming organisations suggests that large-scale land withdrawal could lead to the loss of tens of thousands of agricultural jobs. Clarkson warned that such losses would extend beyond farms, affecting rural economies, local services and long-established community networks.
He also raised concerns about the global consequences of reduced domestic production. If Britain produces less food, imports must rise. Clarkson questioned whether food sourced from overseas would be produced under higher environmental or welfare standards than those applied to British farmers.
“In many cases,” he said, “the opposite is true.”
He argued that shifting production abroad risks exporting environmental harm, including deforestation and higher chemical use, while allowing domestic emissions figures to appear improved. Carbon released overseas, he noted, still contributes to global climate pressures.
Clarkson framed food production as strategic infrastructure, comparable to energy or transport systems. He pointed to other European nations that actively protect domestic agriculture as a matter of national resilience. Reducing production, he said, leaves the country dependent on stable global markets — an assumption that recent global events have shown to be unreliable.
The exchange grew increasingly tense as Clarkson pressed ministers on contingency planning. What happens, he asked, if exporting countries prioritise their own populations during shortages? History suggests that supply chains can tighten rapidly, leaving import-dependent nations exposed.
By the end of the session, the focus had shifted decisively from land management to national priorities. Clarkson concluded by arguing that environmental improvement should be achieved by helping farmers produce food more sustainably, not by encouraging them to leave the sector altogether.
“If the goal is better land management,” he said, “work with the people who already manage it.”
The committee adjourned without resolving the central question raised during the session — how a country that steadily reduces its own food production plans to secure supply in an increasingly uncertain world.
