Richard Hoskins, Devon county councillor for Yealmpton, writes:

Irrespective of the wider ­sovereignty and economic changes that a Brexit will bring, which I am still studying before committing to a leave or stay vote, UK agriculture will have a long-overdue opportunity to improve self-sufficiency and provide farmers with economic stability, at the same time improving the balance of ­payments and food security.

The article in your paper by my Conservative colleague Richard Haddock, February 5, addressed the immediate impact of the possible loss of the Basic Payment Scheme for farms and provided a wake-up call to Liz Truss and George Eustice in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The Common Agricultural Policy has provided around 50 per cent of the gross return to agriculture in recent years – around 40 per cent in the most recent year of account – and without it a large number of farmers would be out of ­business. This would have ­serious implications for domestic food supply and our rural communities.

In illustrative terms, the UK contribution to the EU is around £8bn and we receive back around £3bn. The immediate impact of a Brexit while maintaining Basic Payment would therefore be a £5bn boost to the exchequer. There is therefore no immediate ­argument to reduce support to UK agriculture pending reform to a more equitable system. The administration and the budget currently exist.

While farmers outnumber supermarkets significantly, as small producers their bargaining power is miniscule by ­comparison. Cooperatives in the European model tend to compete with each other rather than with retail outlets, and this does little to redress the imbalance. As a result food retailers with oligopoly power have suppressed price, which has had the effect of reducing self-sufficiency in UK agriculture to around 60 per cent, compared with a peak of around 85 per cent just 30 years ago.

Prior to entering the European Economic Community of nine countries in 1973, the UK ­operated a system of agricultural marketing originally introduced to redress the severe shortages of food experienced in and ­following the Second World War.

This system was designed to optimise agricultural output by paying farmers a return that guaranteed the desired supply and to set a price that the consumer could afford. Short-term fluctuations were corrected by subsidy. This was achieved by a combination of marketing boards and price-support mechanisms.

The EU abolished the UK marketing boards on the basis that they had monopoly power, even though they never ­exercised that power except for the public good. Price-support mechanisms were replaced by alternative subsidy schemes.

With a little adjustment the pre-EEC marketing system is equally suitable to redress the imbalance of farmer v retailer negotiating power.

Existing support to agriculture may therefore be maintained at no additional net cost to the Treasury, but a Brexit offers politicians the opportunity to improve significantly the ­management of food supplies, self-sufficiency and thus the ­balance of payments.