Letter: Hedge funding

Sir: In the same week as the Government claims to be redirecting money to help the countryside, all arable farmers have been sent a Ministry of Agriculture booklet (Arable Area Payments Scheme, Part I) stating that farmers will be penalised if a field boundary, a hedge or ditch, is more than two metres in width.

What are we to believe? These wide features are surely the most valuable to wildlife and the countryside.

BASIL GOLDING

Tolleshunt D'Arcy,

Essex