FARMERS desperately want future support arrangements for agriculture sorted out, but they need to avoid complacency.

This is tempting after the Michael Gove speech at Oxford, but in reality the Defra Secretary said little of real substance – and he left as many questions unanswered as were there before he spoke.=

While the Gove speech was delivered at Oxford, the media spin before it suggested farmers were not his real audience. He nailed his colours firmly to the mast, and his talk of a green Brexit is now a reality. This went down well with the wider media.

It seems bizarre to find a Conservative agriculture minister, who is firmly pro-Brexit, being lauded for his green credentials by left-of-centre media organisations like the Guardian and the BBC. This has to raise concerns in the farming lobby that they are not at the centre of the government's priorities in forging a plan to keep agriculture viable and the countryside thriving.

There was certainly a sense in the speech that the short term is more assured than farmers feared. Gove confirmed the commitment in the Conservative party manifesto that funding equivalent to direct payments will be maintained for the lifetime of this parliament.

That should be until 2022, but with the government's slim grip on power that cannot be guaranteed. Gove also hinted that there would be a possible two-year extension of support at present levels until 2024. That would be good news indeed, but no minister can give such a guarantee beyond the present parliament.

What was not explained was how this funding would be administered. It has been confirmed that the UK will leave the CAP in March 2019, when Brexit happens. Farmers cannot then be paid on the basis of direct payment rules, but we are a long way short of the detail for a new UK funding model.

It was also confirmed that decisions would be devolved, but it is not clear whether that will be a devolution of funding and decision making or implementation of UK-wide policies. Those are big issues that need to be resolved quickly, so the farming lobby knows where to direct its lobbying muscle. It also raises issues about the allocation of existing funds between the UK regions, and Scotland's case for a rebalancing of support.

Even if we feel we can sit back and relax because funding might be assured until 2024, the bigger issue is the funding model. There is now no longer any question that this will be based on the delivery of green outcomes, and compliance with new regulations. Gove has promised animal welfare standards higher than those of the EU.

His plan effectively breaks the link between support and food production and changes it to a model that rewards green outcomes and allowing people access to farm land. That might go down well with the urban public, but it is not going to do a lot to underpin a thriving food industry.

This will be a huge difference to the CAP in the EU-27. It will continue to have food production at its core, with green policies a bolt-on. Logically, this could mean UK farmers will face more and not fewer of the regulations they sought to escape by voting to leave the EU. The green ideas that won Gove praise from the general media are very much English solutions. A crucial issue is whether Scotland will shape its own post-Brexit agricultural policy.

This will dampen enthusiasm among those who thought Gove's comments meant everything was done and dusted on future support arrangements. We now have some sort of road map with the initial journey route confirmed, but the final destination is as fuzzy as ever. It will be a huge adjustment for farmers, if the message from government is that food production is to be less important than delivering public good, in the shape of the environment and access to farm land.

Large landowners were an easy target for the government, but Gove needs to remember that large does not necessarily equate to profitability. Many recipients of large CAP payments are not absent landowners, but businesses that need support like any other farm.

We have been promised a very different future to the CAP. But the farming lobby must not lose sight of the fact that since land was first farmed, pride and a sense of a job well done came from producing top quality food.