A year ago the (then) Secretary of State, at Defra, Andrea Leadsom, was busy promising us that in post Brexit Britain, farming regulations would be scrapped and farmers set free to get on with the job of producing food.

It was to be goodbye to complex and overburdening environmental regulations; to bureaucratic definitions and farewell to the mountains of paperwork and to the queues of inspectors waiting at the farm gate.

I pointed out at the time that they’ve got form for this at Defra because had the “bonfires of red tape” so often promised actually taken place we would hardly be able to see each other for the smoke.

Fast forward 12 months and what do we have?

A new Secretary of State at Defra and a whole new template for what farming and land management will need to deliver in order to tap into Government support in the future outlined in the Government’s recently published 25-year-plan for the sector.

To be fair, much of what the plan sets out closely echoes CLA policy thinking on future land management and the support mechanisms necessary to realise the ambition – and it is ambitious.

It includes 44 targets across 10 policy areas – but, as always, the Devil is in the detail and there is a significant lack of detail as to how these targets will be achieved.

It does, however, confirm that future agricultural support will be channelled towards improving the environment.

In addition, it refers to ‘innovative’ funding mechanisms such as biodiversity offsetting and conservation covenants which would allow landowners to protect features on their land either for altruistic or business reasons.

There is a focus on improving soil quality, planting more trees, improving productivity in food production and cleaning England’s air and water and there is no doubt that there will be new opportunities for those able to turn their hand – and their land – to non-food crops and to better husbandry.

We will need to create new market opportunities - maybe to reward land use that captures carbon or manages water or provides offsets for the environmental impacts of development -these are the details that will influence the success and sustainability of the plan.

Public goods for public money has been a CLA mantra for almost a decade but this is the first time that the concept has crept into government policy – but as always there are counter balances in this case, slightly veiled references to regulation – a tool which is always close at hand on the Government’s work bench.

As I said, they have got form for this.