Myriad unknowns make farm policy nigh impossible
‘Oh, Lord, grant me chastity – but not yet.” While I might be paraphrasing St Augustine of Hippo, the Scottish Government’s consultation on farm policy brought the phrase to mind.
Launched on the eve of the Highland Show, the Stability and Simplification discussion document was termed “the fullest and most comprehensive plan for post-brexit agricultural policy” by rural economy secretary Fergus Ewing.
But while it might have done a good job at looking at the best way of moving through the period during which we change over to a new system, there was no real clarification in the document of what it is we are moving toward beyond this transition phase.
So whether or not it gave better direction than the somewhat airy-fairy Health and Harmony paper – widely criticised for sounding more like the launch of a beauty product than a keynote agricultural policy paper – which covered the same subject in England and Wales remains a moot point.
What the document certainly did was lay out the fact that the Scottish Government viewed remaining in the EU as by far its favoured option. Perhaps clutching at straws, it also indicated that if we are to be dragged kicking and screaming through the Brexit process, we would simply have to remain in the customs union and single market.
However, with a degree of resignation that all these options were looking increasingly unlikely, the administration effectively said it had to do something to make the most of what it felt was a bad deal – and hence the consultation.
But while the exercise – and its closure last week – might have passed by many of those preoccupied with harvest or tracking down enough straw to see them through the winter, it certainly didn’t slip the mind of NFU Scotland.
Ironically, for a consultation which claimed to have a focus on simplicity, the union’s response ran to more than 60 pages. However, unless it does a podcast version for listening to on the combine, I suspect few will appreciate the detail included therein. Even the summary for the press ran to six pages.
From the viewpoint of those busy with harvest, trying to get more cut before the next shower blows in, it might be difficult to look more than a few hours ahead, let alone five years – and it could be easy to dismiss the depth of response as unnecessary verbiage.
But, facing what is likely to be the biggest challenge to farming policy since the repeal of the Corn Laws, it’s pretty important that someone goes through the thing with a fine-toothed comb.
A couple of the points raised show the direction the union would like to see policy take under any new scheme.
And while it has been pretty much pilloried as a monumental disaster, the Beef Efficiency Scheme (BES) we all know and love was singled out as an approach which has huge potential to be rolled out across other sectors.
But the union is savvy enough to realise that the current implementation falls well short of what is required, stating: “BES has been mired in delivery difficulties and tangled in EU regulatory requirements, to the point where the credibility of and confidence in the scheme has been severely damaged.”
While it might take some fixing, the union claims these issues need to be ironed out to reinstate producers’ confidence in such schemes – although, in truth, the damage might already be done.
Putting an upper ceiling on support payments is, once again, seen as a big no-no – and while the argument here might be sound, the political battle will be a difficult one to win.
Sensibly, there is also a call for any new measures to be paused should they have undesirable consequences on the industry. But with so many unknowns – on trade deals, overall support budgets, whether there will be a deal/no deal on our withdrawal, whether Brexit will happen in March 2019, and increasingly whether we will even actually leave – drawing up a policy to meet all of these will be nigh on impossible.
So, plenty to mull over if you get the chance to get back onto the combine or baler…