The recently elected president of the NFU has unequivocally stated that the UK should remain part of the EU during a question and answer session at Cereals.

Answering a question on Wednesday about the UK's future participation in Europe, following a discussion on the greening of the Common Agricultural Policy, Mr Raymond said "the single market is so important."

Sitting beside environment secretary Owen Paterson, who was also on the panel at the HSBC stand, and who played a part in negotiating the CAP deal last year, Mr Raymond admitted, "There is a lot of frustration with much of the policy decision making in Europe," but added, "If we came out of Europe who honestly believes that the UK treasury would support agriculture?"

The NFU president, who was elected in February, also said that farmers were mistaken to believe that an exit from the EU would avoid stricter food safety and environmental regulations, as the bloc would still remain the main trading partner for an independent UK. He explained, "Exporting to Europe would require similar regulations to make UK produce acceptable. For me, the single market is of utmost importance."

Greening measures that form a part of the new CAP, which will be implemented from January 2015, dominated questions for the panel at the event, after the government announced its plans for greening on Tuesday. The Environment secretary said the measures (on which more detailed information can be found here and here) aimed to support protect the environment without taking land out of production.

Defending his decision to transfer funds from the direct payment pillar (Pillar One) to Rural Development (Pillar Two), Mr Paterson said he fully supported funding farmers to take environmental protection measures for which there is no market mechanism, adding that a £70 billion tourist industry relies on the health of the UK's countryside.

Although he was broadly critical of the CAP deal struck following trilogue negotiations last autumn, Mr Paterson said there were some positives for farmers. He pointed out that hedges could be counted as Environmental Focus Areas, but warned that record keeping for Entry level Stewardship and Higher Level Stewardship agri-environment schemes were not up to European standards, meaning that hedges in the UK will have to be mapped in order to qualify as EFA.

Paterson urged farmers planning to count hedges as EFA to submit their documentation early. He said, "If we're going to make this work we'll need to work with you to get the mapping of hedges right, you'll need to accept the verification process could take longer, and there is a risk you may get your payment later… that is the best compromise we can come up with."

The Defra secretary said he also wants ponds and stonewalls included as EFA, and will push for this change in upcoming meetings with EU agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos.

Whilst the farming industry has been highly critical of the CAP reform deal, which effectively renationalised a number of key policy decisions, so too has the environmental movement. Last week, a multi-author paper published in the journal Science warned that CAP reforms have been "diluted" so much as a result of negotiations and industry lobbying that "they will be of no benefit to European wildlife, and biodiversity will continue to decline across the continent." They claimed that half of all EU farmland and between 80 and 90 percent of farmers would be exempt from greening requirements

Earlier research by experts who contributed to the UK government's National Ecosystem Assessment also found that the CAP, which costs an estimated £400 per household per year in the UK, "provides poor value for society."

EFA measures have been heavily criticised, as they allow commercial nitrogen fixing crops like peas and beans to count towards farmers' greening commitments.