Union wishlist is a veritable pick and mix for farmers

Comment Andrew Arbuckle

If your past week has included wrapping up like a Polar explorer before heading out to feed livestock seeking shelter from the Arctic blast or if you have idly stood in the implement shed beside a very idle seeder as the gutters overflow and create large muddy puddles, then can I suggest some reading to lighten your mood?

Pick up a copy of Steps for Change, the NFU Scotland leaflet containing its proposals on farming life after Brexit. The 12-page document is full of possible support policies which have been suggested by the union membership and then probably tempered by those working in headquarters.

Cast your eye down the lists of policies that could become reality when this country leaves Europe. There is something for everyone, the union claimed. It is a veritable pick and mix for farmers planning their future.

Creating “pollen and nectar rich margins” or “protection of in- field trees” sounds very laudable and further reading down the lists soon has the reader imagining he or she can hear the little birds singing their hearts out in the warm spring sunshine.

For the livestock farmer, there are plans to eradicate animal diseases and the development of automated systems for feeding. For the arable man or woman there are listed diverse options such as improving organic matter in the soil and automating horticultural operations including weeding and harvesting.

I do not mock the union’s 0 ‘Nectar-rich margins’ are on the union’s wishlist ambitions. They are well meant and provide a glimpse of a better and – although I hate the phrase – more sustainable future. But it cannot be denied, it is a wishlist. However, it is one which , if specific policies are included in the future, the union can claim, “We thought of it first,” and if policies are not included, it can have a moan about the exclusion.

The problem with the union proposals is, to use a sporting phrase, they are the only team on the pitch. The Scottish Government team is still sheltering in the changing rooms and no one has seen its thoughts for the future.

As has been noted before, the Scottish Government’s game plan appears to be to wait until Defra produces its ideas and then criticise them.

But that view ignores the role of the four agricultural champions who were appointed by the Scottish Government last January to find suitable support systems in a post-brexit world and who then produced an interim report in November.

When they emerged blinking into the daylight back then, the four – Henry Graham, John Kinnaird, Archie Gibson and Marion Maccormick (who should, incidentally, not be confused with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) – promised a range of broad themes such as “enhancing Scotland’s naturalcapitaland improving the productive efficiency of farming north of the Border”.

Nothing the average Joe Farmer could disagree with – but equally nothing that would have him whooping with joy and doing a Highland fling on his bunnet.

At that time, the champions also expressed a desire to produce a final report in “early 2018”, which means it must be imminent unless they have found it more difficult to complete with all the restrictions and conditions for a support policy for Scottish farming.

It will have to be broadly in line with whatever is put in place in England, otherwise cross-border trading could be affected but at the same time it will have to reflect some of the specific challenges of remote rural Scotland.

Any policies for the future will also require to be as simple and broad as possible as there is not the time to construct a complex support system. Nor would there probably be much in the way of support from officials charged with monitoring and delivering whichever policies emerge. Think of computer problems.

Also, think of the unintended consequences of well-intentioned schemes such as the sheep upland support scheme.

So simplicity will be one of the champions’ guiding rules.

As will operating with reduced financial support. Ignoring all the falsehoods of the Brexit campaign, there was one certainty and that was reduced support going to agriculture.

So if you are still sheltering from the cold wet spring, the forecast is the policy sky is gradually clearing. There will be some sunny spots but also expect black clouds.