Weather woes not the only reason for the grim outlook

The Scottish Government’s solution to a problem is to set up an advisory body.

There’s a huge array of them, all very busily looking into every aspect of life in Scotland, reporting their findings and making recommendations to ministers and civil servants.

Everybody who’s anybody is involved and retired bankers, civil servants and farming leaders are finding new careers as advisers to the Cab Sec on the farming issues of the day.

The latest addition to the advisory list is a Weather Advisory Panel (Wap). It has not been set up to tell the Cab Sec that it’s raining and he might need an umbrella, but to help farmers and crofters respond to challenging weather conditions.

Oddly enough, it’s something they’ve been doing successfully for thousands of years, especially in Scotland.

However, the challenges posed by the consequence of challenging weather conditions are something else entirely and we must assume that this is the reason behind the creation of the Wap.

The list of organisations involved suggests that the Cab Sec sees a crisis in the making. No Dad’s Army of OAPS on the new advisory body. Instead there are the banks and the RSABI.

It’s the heavy team being wheeled in, which indicates that the Cab Sec is aware of a developing situation where animal welfare could be seriously compromised, financial pressures become intolerable and mental health suffers.

We’ve just tholed the most dreich summer since that of 1985 which destroyed many farm businesses, but in that year the autumn was dry, crops were saved and straw in some places was baled in December.

No such respite this year. Second and third cuts of silage were abandoned, many acres of grain remain unharvested in waterlogged fields and straw and hay lie rotting in the bout.

Fodder and bedding will be prohibitively expensive by the spring. The outlook for many is pretty grim.

The weather is not entirely to blame for fodder shortages.

The insatiable appetites of electricity-generating anaerobic digesters and biomass burners demand constant supplies of silage, straw, draff and other feedstuff and materials which might otherwise have been available to livestock farmers.

Rye is now grown on many acres which used to yield grain and straw.

On one hand Government is encouraging the proliferation of renewable energy generators while at the same time it is engaging in a damage-limitation exercise to deal with shortages exacerbated to a significant degree by the subsidised renewable energy sector.

Isn’t it time for some joined-up thinking?

In fairness, nobody can predict monsoon conditions, but equally, they happen and we’ve been here before.

Inevitably there will be calls for weather aid, but every farmer in receipt of BPS and LFASS loans has benefited from state aid during the past three years and de minimis rules may limit what can be done.

Still, although the details of Wap’s remit are scarce, the Cab Sec seems to be preparing to control events instead of reacting to them.

It’s a relatively new concept in politics.

Let’s hope it works.

Picture: Getty Images. The new Weather Advisory Panel has been set up to help farmers respond to challenging weather conditions.