Barnett threat to Scottish food and drinks industry
Despite assurances that farm policy spending will remain at current levels until the end of the current UK parliament, the spectre of a Barnett formula settlement – which could see a 50 per cent cut in Scotland’s agricultural budget – remains on the horizon.
That was the message given by rural campaigner Jim Fairlie at a meeting designed to spark some fresh thinking on postbrexit farm policy.
Despite accounting for around a third of the UK land mass, Scotland has received approximately 16 percent of EU farm support funding coming to the UK in recent years. However, the widely-used Barnett formula which is used to set public spending in other areas focuses on country’s population as a guide for funding – and here Scotland receives around 8 per cent of the UK’S budget.
“And there is still a strong chance that this formula will be used to deliver stealth cuts to Scotland’s farming budget in the years following Brexit.” warned Fairlie.
“That would represent a cut of close to 50 per cent in our agricultural budget,” he told the audience of farmers, consumers, lobbyists and industry leaders on Monday night.
NFU Scotland president, Andrew Mccornick said that the union was aware
of the issue and was campaigning to ensure that not only did Scotland continue to receive its fair share of farm policy spending but also that the farm budget was ring-fenced to ensure that it went to those actively involved in farming:
“Any cut of this level would severely disrupt the UK’S internal market and the consequences of such a move would be unacceptable not only to the industry but also to the wider public so we will continue to fight for Scotland’s fair share,” said Mccornick.
The implications of trade agreements were also discussed and the importance of avoiding any move towards accepting imported beef and other foods produced to lower health, welfare and environmental standards as part of a wider trade deal was highlighted as another key area on which to win public support.
Borders farmer Jimmy Barrie said that if the UK adopted a trade deal which allowed the importation of hormone-treated beef, despite not waning to, he
would be forced to follow suit.
However Scotland Food and Drink boss James Withers warned against a “race to the bottom” on food standards:
“If we dropped our standards to the lowest common denominator then we would simply be turning the lights off on Scotland’s livestock industries,” he said. “There’s no way we can win the war on volume and price – we need to continue to use our high standards and world-renowned reputation as our main selling point.”
Withers said that crashing out of the EU and entering into hurried and-ill thought-out trade deals would be the “perfect storm” for the country’s livestock producers – and this fact had to be pressed home to the politicians:
“While we hear plenty about the aviation and car industries getting special consideration, the food and drink sector is far bigger than these two combined.”