A DOUBLING of the cash set aside for agri-environmental schemes was a key feature of the government's Rural White Paper, due to be published in the next few weeks.

Mr Michael Meacher, the Environment Secretary, gave the news to delegates at the Great North Meet, held at Camp Hill, Kirklington, near Bedale, last Friday.

He said countryside stewardship, environmentally sensitive area and woodland schemes would be expanded over the next seven years.

The increased funding would mean more farms could sign up to the schemes, which were the key to diversity in the countryside. He expected to offer 3,000 new countryside stewardships in the next year, bringing the total to almost 13,000. Areas under organic farming were expected to treble by 2006.

The meet heard that the government intended to spend £1.6bn of European and domestic funds in England over the next seven years through the rural development programme.

The money, an increase of almost 60pc, would be channelled to protect the rural environment and promote rural enterprise and emphasis would be placed on marketing, skills and innovation.

Mr Meacher, the first non-agriculture minister to address the event, now in its eighth year, said protection and enhancement of the countryside should not simply be regarded as a cost to farmers with little or no reward, but as a fundamental part of the country's heritage.

"Many farmers have found that farming in more environmentally sensitive ways need not be at the expense of production," he said. "It can reduce costs or make savings, for example in nutrient budgeting and avoiding spreading manure or pesticides on hedge bottoms and field margins and by cutting hedges not next to highways on rotation and not every year."

He admitted British farming was facing the worst crisis for 60 years and that its survival was crucial to the countryside environment.

"Our vision is a living and working countryside, not an unrealistic out-dated picture postcard, chocolate box image, but one where people can lead full and rich lives with access to the services they require," he said.

"We want a countryside in which the environment is protected and one that can shape its own future and whose voice is heard by government at all levels. This is a little easier to say than to deliver, but the starting point is agriculture."

The good example set by many farmers must be emulated by others to help achieve this. "We need to protect the environment but we can only do that with the help of a viable farming industry. Only together can we create the society and future we all want so that our children and grandchildren will be able both to enjoy and work the countryside.