THE past year has been an eventful period for agriculture, with a range of issues demanding the attention of NFU Scotland.
Leaders of the organisation, which represents the vast majority of full-time Scottish farmers and growers, were keen to look to the future at their AGM in Aviemore yesterday – in particular the shape of the Common Agricultural Policy after 2013 when the next major review is due.Jim McLaren, president of NFUS, in a thoughtful address made it clear that warm words from politicians had to be matched by actions. He was referring specifically to the promise by Richard Lochhead, the Cabinet secretary for rural affairs, that he wanted to see a contract between the wider public and the farming industry.
McLaren said: "We warmly welcome the Cabinet secretary’s offer, but we need to see the contract in black and white and we need it to take shape in the next 12 months so that farmers can move forward with confidence.
"At the core of that contract must be recognition of farming’s primary role of producing quality food at affordable prices. That is most easily achieved against the backdrop of stable and sustainable markets rather than in the current climate of a volatile marketplace.
"Many are now waking up the reality that food security is no longer a certainty and an contract must help deliver fairer trading conditions for all parts of the supply chain. The delivery of an ombudsman to oversee the way our major retailers engage with their suppliers is an important part of that and we look forward to progress being made on the issue."
One of the big problems facing the industry is the increasing level of regulation and bureaucracy. The immediate concern is the proposal to introduce individual identification for sheep throughout the EU. This would be virtually unworkable in the UK and Ireland. The current batch system of recording is, claims NFUS and many other organisations, perfectly acceptable and robust. That much was proven during the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2007.
Such is the degree of anger among sheep farmers that NFUS is not ruling out taking to the streets to make their case. If farmers fail to comply with the rules, which are due to come into force at the end of this year, there is a real danger that Brussels would withhold subsidies, but McLaren said he would not shrink from staging demonstrations.
He said: "I have asked vets to explain what the proposed new system will deliver compared to what we have now, and the general consensus was absolutely nothing.
"This issue is within the gift of (Environment Secretary] Hilary Benn to act on. He should hold up his hands and tell Brussels that their ideas are unworkable and unnecessary."
The farming industry is broadly supportive of the Scottish Government’s plans to develop the food and drinks industry from its current worth of £6 billion annually to £10bn over the next few years, but that drive could well conflict with the climate change agenda, which seeks to see 25 per cent of Scotland under trees. That would involve planting an extra 10,000 hectares of trees a year for the foreseeable future. McLaren urged caution.
He said: "Areas of conflict already exist: planting that could ultimately take place may take land currently used for food production out of operation. Establishing a commercial forest takes two weeks of planting, two weeks of harvesting and 30 years in between where the forest’s additional contribution to food production and a rural community’s well being is virtually non-existent."
The use of GM crops is completely off the agenda for the Scottish Government, but McLaren and the vast majority of farmers believe that this is an irrational approach.
He said: "Government must be braver when considering new technologies that our industry is likely to require in order to remain competitive in the years ahead. Support for research and development has helped to keep our industries at the vanguard in world terms. Those institutes are ideally placed to decide which technological advances will help Scottish farmers in the future."
McLaren’s address was the focus of proceedings, but in later sessions delegates had a chance to express their opinions and pose some searching questions. An innovation was electronic voting on a range of issues. That worked well.
The Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act of 2003 was aimed at making more land available for rent, but it has simply failed to deliver. On the vote 60 per cent of delegates agreed that the legislation needed to be amended to allow for greater flexibility on the length of new leases. However, freedom of contract was not a popular option.
The drive both by NFU and the Scottish Government is to have future support linked to active production, but defining this criteria is not easy and provoked considerable debate.
One delegate of the older generation made a valid point that the "fear of famine has disappeared from the public perception". His view was that support should mean rearing livestock and growing crops.
However, many farming businesses now encompass some form of diversification that may not be strictly related to food production.
When a range of proposals was put to the vote, 43 per cent declared that any restrictions of support should take account on the nature of the diversification. This is likely to prove a complex issue in coming months.