NFU Scotland has met with Rural Secretary Fergus Ewing on a Perthshire farm in a bid to get the Scottish Government to strip out gold-plating from within Scotland’s greening rules.
The Union has repeatedly called on the Government to remove a significant number of Scotland-only greening rules that place growers at a "competitive disadvantage" when compared to growers south of the Border.
Today’s visit was hosted by Ian Sands, who farms at Balbeggie, near Perth and also chairs NFU Scotland’s Combinable Crops committee.
While the Brexit vote will inevitably lead to different arrangements for Scottish agriculture in the future, the Union urged the Cabinet Secretary to press ahead with proposed changes to greening on the expectation that existing arrangements for direct support through the CAP will remain in place at least until 2020.
'Simplified and improved'
The Union believes current greening rules can be simplified and improved.
"Areas where gold-plating can be stripped out of Scottish rules include the growing of Nitrogen Fixing Crops (NFC) to meet greening requirements; the use of conversion factors when calculating Ecological Focus Areas (EFA); grazing on buffer strips; management of fallow land and a greater choice of EFA options including forestry and hedges," NFU Scotland said.
The Union also believes that the requirement for livestock farmers to have a record of intended nitrogen and lime applications to all their fields of permanent grassland is "no more than another compliance trip wire, with no positive environmental outcome."
Speaking after the meeting, Ian Sands said: "On using NFCs to meet EFA requirements, Scotland-only management rules on harvesting and field margins put Scottish growers at a competitive disadvantage with respect to growers in England.
'Impractical'
"For 2016, a third management prescription was added for Scotland, requiring farmers growing NFC as an EFA option to grow at least two such crops.
"The area of the largest crop must not account for 75 per cent or more of the NFC EFA crop area.
"For many growers, that makes this option impractical and on farms with a relatively small EFA obligation, the smaller of the crops would be too small to be economically produced, stored, transported and marketed.
"EFA conversion factors were included by Europe as an option to simplify the burden of measuring EFA land on both farmers and officials.
Unlike the rest of the British Isles, the Scottish Government decided not to take advantage of this simplification.
"In Scotland, it means ridiculous hoops are required to record the actual width of buffer strips and field margins measured along their entire length, and inspected to those measurements," Mr Sands said.
"This is a nonsense for Scotland where watercourses or field boundaries are rarely in a straight line."
'Environmentally beneficial'
Mr Sands explained the buffer strips and field margins help produce wildlife corridors.
He said: "We believe that the use of the Conversion Factors would encourage uptake and so be environmentally beneficial, as well as simplifying administration.
"EU provides the option to allow EFA buffer strips to be grazed, and the Scottish Government did not take advantage of the grazing option.
"Unfortunately, not allowing grazing is a serious disincentive to the establishment of buffer strips by farmers needing to graze livestock on fields that have a water course on their boundary.
Mr Sands explained that last winter many Scottish farms experienced flooding and damage to drains, with the logical time to undertake maintenance work when land is out of crop.
"Scottish growers are precluded from doing drainage works during the fallow period by the current interpretation of the rules in Scotland. That, again, isn’t the case in England," Mr Sands said.
'Complete nonsense'
"These examples of gold-plating also need to be viewed alongside the complete nonsense introduced in Scotland this year, requiring nutrient management plans on permanent grassland. That is something we have also written to the Cabinet Secretary about.
"Given the uncertainty that lies ahead, Scotland’s growers deserve to get the best deal from greening measures.
"That would make the years ahead where we continue to operate within the CAP more manageable and efficient for our farmers while still delivering meaningful environmental benefits," Mr Sands concluded.
