By Wendy Barnaby

The panel at the countryside debate on Tuesday night had a hard time trying to interest the crowd in their insights from research and policy-making. The packed hall (it was standing-room only, with people spilling out the open doors onto the concrete paths outside) listened politely. But it was the problems arising from their own experience – public access to their land, and their continued existence as farmers - that really got them going.

They had come to hear a debate entitled, "Is the countryside becoming the playground of the urban masses? Does it matter?" Michael Winter, professor of rural policy at the University of Exeter, could argue all he liked that the rural and urban poor have much in common; and Pam Warhurst, who chairs the Countryside Agency, could speak with conviction about the many initiatives aimed at managing the delights of the countryside as a common heritage for all. Edward Chorlton, environment director of Devon County Council, could assert that the countryside is well able to supply water and food while also providing a playground for people who want to come to this "natural health service". But the gap between heads and hearts was illuminated in an exchange between someone from a local farming estate and Anthony Gibson, regional director of the south-west National Farmers’ Union.

The man from the estate alleged that urban visitors are ignorant and belligerent. "They don’t understand that you shouldn’t throw sticks into a silage field because the silage forager hits them and it’ll cause hundreds of pounds of damage," he complained; "they think it’s fun to throw things for their dog and not bother to retrieve them."

"It’s not only visitors who behave badly," Anthony Gibson answered. "The stereotype of a red-faced farmer waving a stick and bellowing, ‘Get off my land!’ has done us huge damage. Access to land is a touchstone issue for visitors. We need to welcome them. They are consumers. If they’re on our side, they’ll demand British or west-country food, and the supermarkets will have to stock it and pay farmers properly for producing it."

There was a lot of angst about pressures on family farmers, who are being forced off the land altogether.

One former small landowner doubted whether larger farmers would need to leave their land when they can collect payments from the Common Agricultural Policy to stay on it. Gibson replied that these payments are a reward for looking after the land and keeping it in a condition which attracts tourists and their money to the countryside. (The foot and mouth crisis showed how much more important tourism is to local economies, than farming.) He was more concerned about farmers having to leave their land because the supermarkets pay such low prices for their produce. "There’s a real danger," he said, "given the disproportionate power supermarkets exert in the food chain, that productive agriculture won’t be profitable in its own right and land will be abandoned."

"Abandoned land only has to be cut once every five years," Gibson continued. "If you’ve seen what set-aside looks like, what a blot on the landscape that is, you’ll know how ugly abandoned land will become in one year, let alone in five years."

The hall erupted in applause.

The issue of incomers raising house prices and making them too expensive for local children also hit a sensitive spot. Gibson suggested the west country follow the example of the Channel Islands where, he said, permission is given for new housing to be built outside planning guidelines on condition that it is only made available to local people.

The debate was organized by the Economic and Social Research Council.