Industry must act now to shape farming policy
UK farmers will be under far greater pressure to justify ever y pound spent on agricultural support to the taxpayer in the post- Brexit world NFU Scotland has warned – and the industry must move swiftly to take the lead in guiding policy development.
Speaking at the first of a round ofNF US regional meetings to discuss pro - posals being put for ward by t he union, director of policy Jon ni eH all said that there would be close scrutiny of how funds were used after Brexit:
”While money coming from the EU was ringfence d for support payments through the CAP, that will change after B rex it. While we would still want to see our budget guaranteed, the sector will have to compete with other demands for public spending – such as education, the health service and police.”
Hall indicated that this might mean addressing some sacred cows– stating a swift move away from area- based payments towards support for innovation and productivity measures would make support easier to justify.
“And while it might be a controversial view, area payments had a tendency to incentivise inertia rather than producing a dynamic, risk- taking industry.”
He also said that while the union had long been against any upper cap being placed on support claims, t his was another area which the industry might need to discuss as Brexit approached.
But while farmers and crofters should become more focused on the marketplace, it was plain to the union that there would still be a need for support measures targeted specifically to the Scottish situation.
President, Andrew Mccornick outlined some of the union’ s proposals aimed at moving support in a new direction while, he said, still providing the stability required for the industry.
He indicated that while it was inevitable that environmental measures would play a role, tying these in with efficiency and productivity measures would be far more useful for both farmers and environmentalists than focusin go na policy which simply excluded land from production.
“Shifting the emphasis to where the two are complementary has to be the way forward – for the aims and outcomes are not mutually exclusive,” said Mccornick.
“Efficient production can deliver for biodiversity, water quality and climate change – and vice versa.”
Outlining a series of scenarios for different farm type she highlighted how a move away from area payments to support for environmental and product iv i ty and innovation measures – backed up by “stability payments” which would decline as the other areas increased – could help maintain income levels.
Some of the productivity measures which it was hoped would qualify for support fell into areas such as drawing up a five year business development plan, benchmarking against similar farms, labour and skills develop - men ta nd capital investments for handling facilities and precision agriculture measures.
On the environ mental side measures such as liming and drainage could improve both productivity and make sure that inputs were used efficiently, while recognition of the important role which live - stock played in maintaining peat land and up land grazings – which, Mccornick said, had more carbon sequestered in them than in all the forests of Europe – would benefit all.
The desired retention of coupled support measures such as the beef calf scheme–and the use of stocking densities to trigger eligibility–were, Hall said, unlikely to trigger WTO action.
“There would be no payments directly linked to production – and any trade distorting effects would be minimal. On top of this, due to our size, Scotland isn’t going to disrupt any of the commodity markets so any WTO action would be extremely unlikely.”