I AM venturing onto dangerous ground here. Despite being an out-and-out townie, I wish to grapple with the thorny issue of agriculture.

While living in London, surrounded by fellow city dwellers and miles away from the nearest farm, knocking farmers was pretty much taken for granted.

The general perception went something like this: an industry mired in crises largely of its own making (BSE and foot-and-mouth) which, in addition to the already substantial subsidies channelled its way, now expects consumers and taxpayers (the urban majority) to foot a large compensation bill, complaining all the while that they are hard done by compared to their urban underwriters.

Most annoyingly, agricultural spokespeople appeared extremely unwilling to accept any responsibility for the mess, to acknowledge that bad practice was at least a factor in the scale of the crisis, if not its cause.

Rather, it always seemed to be the fault of government, importers, supermarkets, anyone but farmers.

Having moved from an urban to rural setting, I have had cause to re-examine my views. I have gone to some lengths to disentangle fact from fiction, to understand the complex workings of this part of our economy, to expunge urban prejudice from my thinking. It has not been easy.

Venture into the world of agricultural subsidies, for example, and you venture into a morass, as any farmer claiming such monies can no doubt testify.

The bureaucracy alone is farcical. We read of farmers facing 16 separate inspections from various agencies, of small co-operatives having to employ a person full-time just to administer the paperwork. Lord Haskins's proposals will hopefully go some way to simplify the red tape trail at least in the UK. Reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) is another matter.

The CAP doled out 41.5 billion euros (£31 billion) in 2000. That is about half the EU's entire budget, to a sector making up about 5pc of the EU's workforce. What's more, some calculations estimate European consumers pay a further 80m or so euros in higher food prices as a direct result of CAP.

The current c/o British Farming campaign posters dotted around the countryside prompted a curmudgeonly 'paid for by British townies' response from me when I first came across them, largely due to the sums of money outlined above.

The key reason I came to live here is because - unlike North London - North Yorkshire is beautiful. And I accept that that beauty is due in large part to centuries of farming and land management. I've come to realise many farmers work longer hours than I had thought and certainly more than I would like. I've also realised rural poverty is a reality and that many farmers make precious little profit from all that hard graft (subsidies or no).

Nevertheless, the whole subsidy system still strikes me as wrong-headed. What surprised me is that most farmers seem to think so too.

The link between CAP subsidy payments and output resulted in two-thirds of subsidies going to the richest 20pc of farms - doing little to alleviate rural poverty - while actively encouraging farmers to produce foodstuffs with little or no regard to market needs. Hence the infamous butter mountains, etc. That link, thankfully, is to be broken.

EU enlargement and the unsustainable costs that threatens, has, it seems, focused minds and reform is under way. EU agricultural commissioner Franz Fischler has championed the radical, but eminently more sensible idea, of linking subsidy to need, ie only needy farmers are subsidised and only necessary food is produced. Consultation is now under way within the nation states as to how best to 'decouple' subsidy payments from production.

The National Farmers' Union has welcomed the reforms, with some caveats, and has listed three key advantages in 'decoupling': a simpler system for farmer and government; improved market responsiveness and hence long-term business sustainability; and compatibility with the World Trade Organisation.

This last point leads to an interesting aside. According to the United Nations, if international trade rules, including those operating across the EU agricultural sector, were reformed to address the needs of poor countries, rather than protecting the rich, developing countries could benefit by as much as £430 billion a year (14 times what they receive in aid).

Moves towards reform are encouraging, but more needs to be done. France and Germany have ensured EU farm budgets are to remain untouched until 2013 and there is no guarantee the budget will be cut thereafter.

Redirecting those monies more sensibly may generate a healthier, more efficient farming sector, one more able to sustain itself.

Let's hope so because while so much money is channelled into the agricultural sector, urban resentments and suspicions will fall on fertile ground.

Updated: 12:44 Wednesday, November 19, 2003