The Scottish Government is to be commended for opening up opportunities for new farmers to get access to small pieces of land. This needs to be used as a catalyst to open up more tenancies and prevent new farmers getting tangled up in uncompromising support rules. We need to take a serious look at opening up more sizable units to allow these fledgling businesses to go professional.

Nevertheless, this is a step in the right direction and the Government’s efforts should be recognised.

Many in the industry might not feel the smaller parcels of land are worth bothering with, but farmers need to start from somewhere. When compared with starting out and working on grass lets, the chance of 10 or 20 acres on a five-year lease is a brilliant base to build an enterprise. Livestock numbers can be accumulated without an annual fear of lost land causing quick liquidations.

Furthermore, the five or six questions on the application for leasing land will start new farmers thinking about business planning.

From attending this week’s new entrant gathering in Perth, it is clear businesses planning is the most important aspect for getting an enterprise off the ground. You can find out more on page 14.

However, we must address the elephant in the room, getting your first few fields is relatively easy compared with finding a full-time unit. Every year Scotland is losing land from the tenanted sector as farms are taken back in hand or sold off, with very few full-time units being offered to the market.

We must use this 1,000ha plan to drive change further up the farm ladder. This should be seen as a first step to building a system which opens up land for businesses to grow, and also for older businesses to wind down with dignity. Landlords need the confidence to let and we all need a support system which doesn’t reward farmers doing next to nothing.

We also need to ensure that future support systems reflect the activity being done on the farm. Under the current rules we could see these new farmers lose their new entrant status through having a few acres for a few years. The real pinch point for growing a farm business is when new entrants decide to give up their day job and go farming full time, this often takes longer than five years. Post-Brexit we have a chance to write our own rules, which should prevent these catch 22 scenarios. The trick will be taking the money off the wrong farmer, as much as giving it to the right farmer.

The 1,000ha is a great effort by Government to open up land for starters. Now the bigger task to put some more rungs on the ladder must start in earnest.

Flying lamb trade

The flying lamb trade doesn’t seem to be slowing up, after another week of high prices. Despite warnings that a large carryover of hoggs into 2018 would cause an increased supply, the price has remained firm. Easter is less than a month away, which will help keep demand up over the coming weeks.

Speaking to farmers putting lambs to the mart, they are quite pleased with £80-£90 for finished lambs. Many of them will admit that the store producer did not get enough of the margin this year, with many lambs bought for £35/head.

These good prices should instill confidence in buyers this backend, which could give store producers more margin. However, for this to happen we need confidence the UK won’t have its lamb shut off from the continent.

Otherwise the store lamb producer will lose out again.