just snapshot' A leading Tory has said the Commission on the Future of Farming and Food has no chance of coming up with meaningful solutions to the problems facing the sector within its timetable. Peter Ainsworth, the shadow environment, food and rural affairs spokesman, claimed that key members of the commission represented an insufficiently broad cross section of interests Plans to set up an alternative independent commission representing a wider cross section of interests were now "under consideration", said Ainsworth. "I'm not in the business of prejudging the results of Sir Don Curry's commission but I am responding to concerns expressed by a large number of NGOs. "Key stakeholders in the commission do not represent a broad enough cross section of interests. "There is no one from the NFU, FoE, CPRE or the CLA and I wonder whether a snapshot report of the type in hand is really going to produce a long-term and focused approach." "You also have to question whether this is genuinely independent. This is a government body run by and reporting to DEFRA." A spokesman for the commission angrily dismissed his claims: "Of course this is a government inquiry but it's completely independent of DEFRA. The secretariat is not provided by DEFRA and commission members do not meet with or brief DEFRA." He rubbished claims that the composition of the commission was flawed: "This is a think tank, not a representative body in the sense that Sir Peter Davis represents' the supermarkets or Sir Don Curry makes the case for farmers. You can't have everybody on it. We don't have anyone from IGD, or the FDF, or English Nature." He accepted commissioners were working to a tight timetable but said Sir Don Curry was confident of coming up with "some interesting thoughts and suggestions" before Christmas. {{NEWS }}