My boss, Margaret Beckett, announced how the reform of Europe�s Common Agricultural Policy will be implemented.
It will mean the biggest change to how our countryside is managed and how it looks for decades.
The background to this was last year�s agreement among EU countries on reform of agricultural subsidies.
In the past, these had been paid to farmers for producing things � so many sheep, so many cattle and so on.
From now on the payments could be �decoupled� from production. No longer would farmers be paid to produce goods the consumer didn�t want, to the detriment of our environment and poor countries who want access to our markets.
But how payments would be made in future was left up to individual EU members states.
There was a lot of pressure to continue paying farmers on an �historic� basis. Those who received money in recent years would continue to receive it. Most farmers wanted this system and most other EU countries are using it, including Scotland and Wales.
But Margaret Beckett decided it would be unacceptable in, say, ten years time, to be paying farmers for what they produced more than a decade earlier. That would destroy the whole aim of CAP reform.
So she plumped for the far more radical flat rate payment, based on land area, with an eight-year transition period to help farmers adjust.
There will be winners and losers. The big grain barons of East Anglia and intensive lowland dairy and livestock farmers will lose. Less intensive farmers and those who have previously not received support will gain. Money will move �up the hill�.
The other big winners will be wildlife and the environment and all those who care about them. Farmers will be rewarded for environmentally friendly practices. The principle of public money for public good is enshrined in this quiet revolution in English farming.
