Holyrood consultation lacks post-brexit vision
While offering a degree of short-term stability for the country’s farming sector, the Scottish Government’s consultation on rural funding during the post-brexit transition period falls short on providing any future vision beyond this period.
That was the response given by NFU Scotland to the proposals contained in the “Stability and Simplicity” discussion document released by rural economy secretary, Fergus Ewing on the eve of this year’s Highland show.
In a 62-page response to the consultation, the union said that there was a pressing need for a clear strategy for Scottish agriculture, with agreement throughout the sector on the objectives of future agricultural policy and the desired outcomes.
Urging the Scottish Government to move quickly to the next stage the union called for it to develop an agricultural and rural policy which focused on life beyond transition and the CAP.
Union president, Andrew Mccornick yesterday said farmers were currently facing an unprecedented period of physical and financial challenges which were imposing huge personal and business stress on many.
Stating that the union shared the Scottish Government’s desire for stability, security, ongoing support and simplification, he added:
“It is also essential that those desired outcomes provide the necessary platform for the development and delivery of a new agricultural policy for Scotland that moves beyond the EU’S Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).”
The proposals, he claimed, were almost exclusively focused on short to medium term modifications to the operations of the current CAP.
“Agriculture needs a coherent and consistent strategy.
“A significant change to agricultural and rural policy in Scotland should not be a blunt response to Brexit. That process simply provides the
much-needed catalyst for change. Mccornick said that a real partnership between the Scottish Government and the industry was now essential if the right policies and operating environment were to be achieved for Scottish agriculture.
“The Scottish Government’s own Agricultural Champions acknowledged in their recent report that agriculture, as an industry, merits support and NFUS shares that view – but, critically, the Union is clear that the basis for that support must change.”
And while England had proposed a shorter, one-year transition to new measures, the union claimed that there was a clear need for Scotland to meet the objectives of a new agricultural and rural policy “on its own terms, and at its own pace”.