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Bookpossum I think the risk with putting forward jobs as a justification for subsidies is that it may well turn out that knocking down rock walls and starting some other form of farming might employ more people. Or maybe we just put concrete down and build factories. It's happened elsewhere. And for those without jobs now, seeing shepherds subsided just because they were lucky enough to be born sons and daughters of shepherds must seem unfair. (Although, judging from what Rebanks told us in this book, he still needs outside work even with the subsidies.)
To some extent I'm playing devil's advocate, but I think the arguments are real enough.
As my earlier post suggests, I think tourism is a dangerous way to make this work, and I'm guessing from the pieces Rebanks gave us that these dangers are part of what his work has been about with UNESCO.
Victoria, you mention that referring to tourism seems to trivialise the activity, but I do completely agree that tourism is very important for many different reasons. The danger, at least in my view, is when tourism becomes the reason for existence (as seems to be happening in the Lake District), because this changes the rules: it's no longer about tourists coming to see what is, it is (or can be) adjusting what you are in order to attract more tourists.
But having said that, the Lake District seems to be in a fairly unique position of having been a tourist destination for pretty much as long as there have been tourists - and it's still working, so maybe there's hope.
I must say that I don't much trust government subsidies as a long term solution. If I were farming they would make me nervous because governments change, and the tide of public opinion changes, international treaties change and farmers are caught in the crossfire.
CRussel you speak of biodiversity, but we can also add that a large enough farming community retains industrial diversity. This overlaps with what issybird says about the "hedge against the unknown future". It's not just the farm animals, nor even the farmers, but all the supporting industries, government and social facilities, as well as infrastructure like roads and power grids. If you let farming diminish too much, you reduce all this diversity and this would be very expensive and slow to restart if the need does arise.
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