The Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) is claiming victory after the Scottish Government agreed to bring an additional £10m forward to 2020 convergence payments for upland and hill crofters and farmers.

The additional money will be targeted at “all those in the less favoured areas who receive an LFASS payment and additional sums under the beef and sheep coupled support schemes”.

SCF chair Yvonne White said: “It is gratifying to see that Scottish Government has listened to SCF’s arguments for a fair and principled distribution of the funding within Scotland. Convergence is about raising the income of the lowest-paid producers towards the EU average.

"In Scotland, these producers are crofters and hill farmers, many of whom are barely surviving – not helped by the very low payments for rough grazing. The bulk of the money should therefore rightfully go to regions 2 and 3.

Heated discussion

“There has been heated discussion in the media on how the money should be divided up; lobbying by the National Farmers’ Union to get the money aimed at the better-off section of their membership and counter arguments put up by SCF, representing crofters’ interests, to get a fair distribution that reflects the spirit and original premise of convergence.

"The NFUS lobby has been rejected wholeheartedly, even by many farming stalwarts, and it is good to see Scottish Government making an announcement to end the dispute by doing the right thing. The fact that the initial payments will be made in this financial year is a big plus.”

Crofters and hill farmers can be assured that this funding will be additional to the monies already announced

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The £10m is additional to the £80m being provided this year. We will draw it down early from the second £80m tranche of convergence money, which we are due to receive from the UK Government in 2020-21.

“Crofters and hill farmers can be assured that this funding will be additional to the monies already announced – these include an additional basic payment, an extra payment to all those in the less favoured area who receive an LFASS payment and additional sums under the beef and sheep coupled support schemes.”

The changes now mean that £90m will be spent in 2020 with the remaining £70m spent in 2021.

NFUS questions government decisions

NFUS president Andrew McCornick said: “Where is the thinking process behind where this vital money is being allocated? This is reaction politics rather than what the industry needs. The cabinet secretary is compounding a wrong decision last week with another wrong decision this week.

“NFU Scotland set out a plan on how the whole £160m should be allocated. None of it should be used to plug the Scottish Government LFASS budget holes.

"All of the £160m should be used as a top-up for the current headage schemes and to increase the payments of the basic payment scheme rates in regions 1, 2 and 3, with extra weighted support to region 2 and region 3.

“The cabinet secretary needs to recognise that region 1 land is the heart and lungs of Scottish agriculture. It is the region 1 in-bye land that makes our hills and uplands work. The value of this land is not being recognised in how the money is being allocated.”

STFA calls for capping

The Scottish Tenants Federation Associations (STFA) called for payments to be capped to prevent “undeserved over-compensation”.

It is also seeks claimants in regions two and three needing to be actively claiming LFASS. It hopes this means “non-active farmers or land managers do not benefit from the windfall payments".

"In effect, this would include land, currently in receipt of single farm payments, which has been or is in the process of being converted to forestry or about to be planted with trees, land with no stock and slipper farmers.”

The STFA would also like some of the money to be used for a national reserve for new entrants who previously didn’t get access to support.

New payments

The Scottish Government has stated that the additional £10m will come from moving money from 2022 payments into 2021 and that it will not bring any of the payments down and will increase moneys to hill farmers and crofters.

The new payment rates have not been calculated. The region one payment of £15.86/hectare, which was announced in parliament last week, is likely to be unaffected by the additional £10m. But the region two rate of £24.09/hectare and region three at £6.28/hectare could increase.

The extra £10m could also put extra cash into the coupled support budget, it is unclear how much this will increase the payment rates for the beef calf and ewe hogg scheme.