The Environment Agency has urged Britain's farmers to tackle the level of environmental damage caused by bad practices.

The government watchdog said the cost of unnecessary damage to the countryside from farming is now running at £500 million a year.

Forum Response: Royal Agricultural Society

Richard Sanders, director of communications at the Royal Agricultural Society, told ePolitix.com: "It is all very well totalling the environmental costs of agriculture, but it is also important to total the environmental benefits of agriculture.

"It is time for the government and the wider public to begin to see agriculture as an environmental solution and not as an intrinsic environmental problem."

Forum Response: The Woodland Trust

A spokesman for The Woodland Trust told ePolitix.com: "We welcome this report which further highlights the damage current agricultural policy is causing to our countryside. Current support schemes encourage intensive production with far too little support given to the encouragement of good environmental stewardship. Indeed 20 per cent of ancient woodland lost since the 1930s has been lost to agriculture.

"The Trust has called on the government to fully implement the Curry report on the future of food and farming. This features a suite of cross-cutting measures that include shifting support from production subsidy towards the encouragement of good stewardship of the countryside and an increase in the environmental standards expected of all farms."

Forum Response: Game Conservancy Trust

Dr Stephen Tapper, director of policy and public affairs at the Game Conservancy Trust, told ePolitix.com: "Certainly improved agricultural practice would benefit the environment - especially the quality of our rivers and streams. Let's not forget, however, that some existing government policies actually work against good environmental protection.

"For example, if a livestock farmer wants to fence sheep out of the farm stream (a good conservation measure) he is penalized by CAP rules because this reduces the available grazing area on which he can claim a subsidy."