The key issue facing the fledgling Commission on the Future of Farming and Food is how to sustain the farming and manufacturing industry against the backdrop of a highly unfavourable exchange rate, said chairman Sir Don Curry. He dismissed calls for a return to a mythical golden age of small scale farming: "We can't turn back the clock and go back to ploughing fields with horses and keeping all our chickens outdoors. "We are part of a global market and as such we are subject to macroeconomic pressures. "The changes to some of the structures that we're already seeing will continue. Farms are becoming larger and smaller ones must co-operate more than they have done historically in things like purchasing and marketing to reduce units costs and remain competitive. "It's naïve and misleading to base our future success on the assumption that sterling could weaken. We have to base our work on life as it is." Although the commissioners have just four months to reveal how a sustainable, competitive and diverse farming and food sector' can be created, they will aim to come up with concrete proposals that can be directly translated into government policy, he added. "Some recommendations will be directed towards industry and some will call for further work to be undertaken but we will come up with specifics." He rejected claims that increasing trade liberalisation was incompatible with sustainable farming. "When I talk about sustainability, I mean economic sustainability as well as environmental sustainability," he said. While local initiatives, such as farmers' markets, to cut out middlemen in the supply chain are to be welcomed, they are not the real solution to the problems, said Curry. "We have to be competitve in the commodity processing market as well." Overlap with the retrospective inquiries into foot and mouth and the prevention of animal disease will be kept to a minimum. But commissioners will study the code of trading practice between the multiples and their suppliers as part of their brief. The Cabinet Office has already been swamped by submissions before the formal consultation process has even started, but Curry insisted the team would deliver on time. "I have no intention of asking for an extension." Previously unannounced members of the commission include RSPB chief executive Graham Wynne, former British Gas boss David Varney, and Monetary Policy Committee member DeAnne Julius. {{NEWS }}