Productive agriculture and the environment are "inextricably linked" - and only the farming industry can deliver on both, National Farmers' Union vice president Paul Temple has said.
Mr Temple said it had taken global events such as floods, food riots and collapsing financial markets to get people to acknowledge the importance of agriculture.
But while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had begun to "wake up" to the issue of food security, Mr Temple accused it of "still preaching the environmental agenda with an evangelical zeal".
And he said: "There are all too many single issue bodies, pressure groups and NGOs all too ready to sing from the same tired old song on farming's role in biodiversity loss and crashing farmland bird numbers.
"Of course it is a concern that the official farmland bird index seems to be falling, but I defy anyone to show how this is linked to farming.
"The priority should be to find the causes, not leap to conclusions."
He went on: "What we believe, and what NFU campaigns for the next 18 months will focus on, is the need for a new balance between productive agriculture and the environment.
"Telling the public that, actually, productive agriculture and the environment are inextricably linked, indeed complementary, and no other industry but ours can deliver both."
Mr Temple, who is addressing the Oxford Farming Conference, said the NFU's campaigns - such as the Why Farming Matters scheme - were crucial in highlighting the importance of agriculture to all areas of life in the UK.