Scottish Rural News: Scotland's 'vision' for farming announced

As the title suggests, the document outlines the Government’s vision, as well as the values and principles that underpin it. In addition, it also provides some details regarding “A National Test Programme to start Transforming Agriculture in Scotland”

This transformational vision aims to make Scotland a global leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture. The publication states:  Scotland will have a support framework that delivers high quality food production, climate mitigation and adaptation, and nature restoration. High quality nutritious food locally and sustainably produced is key to our wellbeing. Underpinned by several values and principles, which include:

• remaining committed to supporting active farmers and food production with direct payments
• integrating enhanced conditionality of at least half of all funding for farming and crofting by 2025
• as part of conditionality, recipients of funding need to deliver on targeted outcomes for biodiversity gain and low emissions production
• develop policy, regulation and support mechanisms which deliver emissions reductions in line with Government climate targets and net zero ambitions
• design mechanisms to support outcomes that restore nature, benefit natural capital and promote the natural economy
• adopt an evidence based whole farm approach, including learning from other nations
• where practical, stay aligned with new EU measures and policy developments

To achieve this vision, Government will work alongside farmers and land managers to ensure they have the right support to achieve a number of outcomes, which include:

• encouraging more farmers to farm organically
• improve business resilience, efficiency, and productivity through the use of technology & innovation
• accelerate the adoption of approaches which minimise, reduce, and remove the use of agrochemical inputs
• enable more local employment on the land, more women to enter farming and more new and young entrants to farming
• encourage co-operative approaches to optimise collaboration and knowledge exchange

With a short-term focus and priority on the sectors with the highest emissions, including livestock production – the national test programme will prioritise these sectors.

National Test Programme from Spring 2022

More needs to be done with more urgency and to balance the needs of the whole industry – the national test programme will seek to do this with a twin track approach:

Track One

To encourage farmers to improve their knowledge of current environmental performance and efficiency. Support will encourage businesses to establish a baseline of information and understanding in sustainable agriculture.

Track Two

The purpose of Track 2 is to design, test and standardise the tools, support and process necessary to reward farmers and land managers for the climate and biodiversity outcomes they deliver. Once the tools have been tested, they can be rolled out to all farmers. 
The programme is et to begin in 2022, a phased approach to rolling out measures for current recipients of farm support payments, with the aim of becoming a mandatory requirement for support.

Key Themes

In future, Scottish Government expect conditionality to apply to key core themes including:

• greenhouse gas emissions
• biodiversity audits
• soil testing
• nutrient and forage plans and
• animal health and welfare plans

The key goal is sustainable food production - to produce more from less.

Initially these themes will be tested in the National Test Programme with the aim of having a replacement framework and legislation in place for implementation from 2026.

The team at youngsPRS will be keeping a close eye on the implementation of the new “vision” and will keep our clients up to date with opportunities and requirements as things develop.

If you would like to dicuss this or any other Government Grants and Schemes contact our Dumfries office on:
01387 402277 | dumfries@youngsrps.com.