Less favoured area support to be restored

Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) payments will be reinstated to their full level next year. The scheme, which provides support to crofters and farmers in Scotland’s most remote areas, has had its budget cut in the past two years due to EU rules.

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing yesterday confirmed payments for 2021 claims will return to 2018 leve ls wh i le announcing a number of “simplifications” to farm subsidy schemes from January 1 2021.

“In these very uncertain times, we want to provide a sense of certainty to those farming and crofting in our most remote and fragile communities of rural Scotland and we are doing this by increasing the payment rates back to the levels seen in 2018,” said Mr Ewing.

“This will allow LFASS payments to compensate farmers for income foregone and for additional costs linked to natural constraints in order to encourage the use of agricultural land, thus contributing to the maintenance of the countryside as well as to the maintenance and promotion of sustainable farming systems.”

Mr Ewing also confirmed previously announced changes to the Greening element of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) will go ahead next year, and said farmers will be subject to fewer inspections.

The Greening changes include: removal of crop diversification, also known as the three- crop rule; keep ing permanent grassland in the scheme; and keeping Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) in the short term subject to a wider farmer-led review for the period after 2021.

NFU Scotland welcomed the news and said the changes would provide some stability for farmers in what will likely be a turbulent period af ter December 31.

Scottish Land and Estates policy adviser for agriculture, Eleanor Kay, agreed but said government still needed to explain how it was going to fill the gap left by pausing the AgriEnvironment Climate Scheme. She said it was a “missing piece of the jigsaw” which is limiting the industry’s ability to deliver for the environment.

REVEALED: Payments to farmers and crofters in remote areas will return to 2018 levels.