Union presses uplift cash claim
The key importance of addressing the £190 million funding short fall which it is claimed has been suffered by Scottish farmers since 2013 was this week pressed home to the chair of the committee reviewing the post-brexit share out of UK domestic farm support funds.
In a meeting with Lord Bew, who heads up there view,NFU Scotland stressed that allocation of EU convergence uplift funding in 2013 should have gone to Scottish producers rather than shared across the whole of the UK.
NFUpolicydi rector, Jonni eH all said that it was the union’s long-standing view that it was exclusively as a result of Scotland’s low CAP support payment rate per hectare that the UK was awarded the convergence uplift, worth around £190 million over the 201420 period.
He said the union believed the decision taken by the then Defra secretary Owen Paterson to award Scotland only a small por
tion of the total was “fundamentally flawed”.
Union president Andrew M cC or nick said :“The UK was given the up lift because of Scotland’s low payment rate and that should have meant that the money was paid to Scotland’ s farmers and crofters. Now we have an opportunity to correct this long running sore.”